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6 on 2 off schedule
Six shifts, two days off — the harder half of the 6 on family, and a common plant and security rotation.
Also called: 6-2 schedule
- Shift length
- 8 hours
- Cycle
- 8 or 16 days
- Average week
- 42 hours
- Squads
- 3
What the 6 on 2 off schedule is
Six shifts in a row, then two days off. Eight days from start to repeat, sixteen if the tour changes halfway.
It is the same working block as 6 on 3 off with a day taken out of the rest, and that one day changes the pattern completely — the average week goes from about thirty-seven hours to forty-two.
It turns up most often in plants, security and corrections, where the post has to be filled and the roster is tight.
How the cycle runs
The sixteen-day version, six days then six nights:
Set a start day, set the length to 16 days, and paint each one. This pattern walks, so each time round it lands on different weekdays — which the app works out for you.
Start day: 1 September 2026Days: 16
Day shiftNight shift24-hour tourDay off
Set the template once. Your days show up on every month after it.
September 2026
Print this rotation (PDF) One page — the cycle above, and a blank grid for your own dates.
Weekends off on this rotation
This cycle is 16 days, which does not divide by seven — so it drifts through the week and every squad gets much the same share. Around 6 to 7 full weekends a year, wherever you sit in it.
A year on this rotation: 7 full weekends off, spread through the calendar. A weekend counts only when both the Saturday and the Sunday are free. All 21 rotations compared →
Two days is not much after six
This is a demanding rotation and worth being honest about. Six consecutive shifts followed by two days off leaves very little recovery, and on a night block the first day off is mostly sleep.
The compensation is hours. At around forty-two a week it pays better than the three-day version, and for people picking up paid duty work the extra base makes a difference.
Hours and overtime
Six eight-hour shifts every eight days averages forty-two hours a week — the same figure as a twelve-hour Panama rotation, reached a completely different way.
Two hours over forty every week is where the overtime conversation starts, and how it is treated depends on your work period and contract.
Who works it
Tight rosters and posts that cannot go unfilled:
- Corrections and detention
- Industrial and plant security
- Private security contracts
- Some dispatch operations
- Utilities and remote sites
- Manufacturing
BlueShifts. Plan Your Year. Own Your Time.
The shift calendar built for your rotation, off-duty work, and life on and off the clock.
Save this pattern once and the year fills itself in — forward as far as you want, and back over the months you have already worked.
The trade-off
What works
- Forty-two hours a week on the roster
- Only two changeovers per cycle
- Predictable eight-day rhythm
- More base hours for people who want them
What hurts
- Six shifts in a row with only two days off
- Very thin recovery after a night block
- The cycle drifts through the week
- Fatigue builds across the block
Put it on your calendar
Six on, two off is the longest run of days in common use, and the two days back are not much once the sleep is paid off.
Save the pattern once, then use the calendar to see where the paid duty work can honestly fit.
What Canadian law does to this rotation
The cycle is the same shape in both countries. What sits underneath it is not, and in Canada it is provincial rather than federal — so the same rotation can be worked and paid differently depending on where you are.
Eleven consecutive hours off between shifts is the ESA minimum and it applies whatever the pattern. A 8-hour shift leaves 16 hours before the next one is due, so this cycle clears it — but a held-over shift or a court appearance on the turnaround eats straight into that margin.
The weekly rest rule is the one long runs meet. The ESA requires at least 24 consecutive hours off in each work week, or 48 consecutive hours off in every period of two consecutive work weeks. This cycle runs 6 shifts back to back, so it is the two-week version that has to carry it.
Overtime is triggered differently by province, and this rotation averages 42 hours. The weekly threshold runs from 40 hours in Quebec, Newfoundland and Labrador, the territories and federally, through 44 in Ontario and New Brunswick, to 48 in Nova Scotia and Prince Edward Island. Ontario and Quebec have no daily trigger at all; British Columbia, Alberta, Saskatchewan, Manitoba and the territories have both, so exceeding 8 hours in a day counts even if the week does not. BC adds double time past 12 hours in a day. Nova Scotia, New Brunswick and Newfoundland and Labrador calculate overtime at 1.5 times the minimum wage rather than your own rate. Same roster, a different answer in almost every jurisdiction.
And one Quebec rule that catches shift workers out: premiums added to the hourly rate, such as night or evening shift premiums, are not taken into account when calculating overtime. Your overtime is worked out on the base rate, so a night premium does not carry into it.
Averaging is what makes a cycle like this work on paper. Where the pattern does not fit a calendar week, hours can be averaged over two to four weeks for the purpose of overtime, by written agreement. If you are in a union, your union can make that agreement with your employer — and in a policing or fire service it usually has, which is why your collective agreement rather than the statute is the document that decides your pay.
Two employers sit outside all of that. The RCMP works under one national agreement with the Treasury Board rather than provincial standards — its default workweek is forty hours from Monday to Friday with a workday of a minimum of eight consecutive hours, and separate articles for variable and shift work that take a detachment off that default. Federal enforcement uses a Variable Shift Schedule Arrangement, negotiated branch by branch, so two workplaces under one contract can run different rosters. In both cases the agreement is the whole answer and the province you live in does not enter into it.
Checked 7 August 2026. Provincial rules are quoted from the Employment Standards Act of the province named and, for Quebec, from the CNESST; federal provisions from the Treasury Board agreements. Employment standards are amended and collective agreements are renegotiated — check the current text before relying on a threshold or a figure.
Common questions
How many hours a week is 6 on 2 off?
About forty-two — six eight-hour shifts every eight days.
How does it compare with 6 on 3 off?
Same working block, one less day of rest. The cycle shortens from nine days to eight and the average week rises from about thirty-seven hours to forty-two.
Is it legal to work six days in a row?
In most places yes, though some jurisdictions and contracts set limits on consecutive days worked. That is a matter for your agency policy and your union, not an app.
Put the 6 on 2 off schedule on your calendar
Save the 6 on 2 off schedule once, tell BlueShifts the day your cycle starts, and the rest of the year draws itself. Court, training and the details you pick up sit on the same grid.
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