Home › Rotating shifts › 6 on 3 off schedule
6 on 3 off schedule
Six shifts, three days off — a long block for a long break, and a pattern that never repeats on the same weekday.
Also called: 6-3 schedule
- Shift length
- 8 hours
- Cycle
- 9 or 18 days
- Average week
- 37.3 hours
- Squads
- 3
What the 6 on 3 off schedule is
Six shifts in a row, then three days off. Nine days from start to repeat, eighteen if you change tour halfway.
It is more common in large agencies and in Canadian policing than in small American departments, and it is usually run on eight or ten-hour shifts rather than twelves — six twelve-hour shifts in a row would be punishing and would push the average week far past any normal figure.
Some services run 6 on 2 off instead, which trades a day of rest for a shorter cycle. The trade is the whole argument between them.
How the cycle runs
The eighteen-day version, six days then six nights:
Set a start day, set the length to 18 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: 18
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 18 days, which does not divide by seven — so it drifts through the week and every squad gets much the same share. Around 11 to 12 full weekends a year, wherever you sit in it.
A year on this rotation: 12 full weekends off, spread through the calendar. A weekend counts only when both the Saturday and the Sunday are free. All 21 rotations compared →
Six in a row
The sixth shift is where this pattern is decided. Officers who like it say the three-day break is worth the run; officers who do not say the last two shifts are the tired ones, and that six nights in a row is a different animal from six days.
Either way it is a long block to plan around. Paid duty work, court and anything family-shaped has to fit into the three.
Hours and overtime
Six eight-hour shifts every nine days averages a little over thirty-seven hours a week. On ten-hour shifts the same pattern runs closer to forty-seven, which is a very different schedule wearing the same name.
Check which version yours is before comparing notes with anyone — the on-off pattern is identical and the hours are not.
Who works it
It suits big rosters with a lot of posts to fill:
- Large municipal services
- Provincial and regional services
- RCMP detachments
- Corrections and detention
- Transit and airport policing
- Industrial security
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
- Three consecutive days off every cycle
- Fewer changeovers than a short cycle
- Works with eight or ten-hour shifts
- Predictable long breaks
What hurts
- Six shifts in a row is a long block
- Brutal on a night tour
- The nine-day cycle drifts through the week
- Hours vary a lot between versions
Put it on your calendar
Six on, three off is a nine-day cycle, which means a working week and a weekend that both move every time round.
Save the cycle once and every one of those blocks is placed for you.
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 37.3 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 3 off?
About thirty-seven on eight-hour shifts. On ten-hour shifts the same pattern runs closer to forty-seven, so the shift length matters more than the name.
Is 6 on 3 off the same as 6 on 2 off?
No. The working block is the same but the break is a day shorter, which shortens the cycle to eight days and pushes the average week up.
Who uses it?
Mostly larger agencies, Provincial and regional services, corrections and transit policing — operations with enough people to absorb long blocks.
Put the 6 on 3 off schedule on your calendar
Save the 6 on 3 off schedule once, tell BlueShifts the day your cycle starts, and the rest of the year draws itself. The paid duty jobs, the hours and the pay go on top of it.
Scan to install
