7 on 7 off schedule

What the 7 on 7 off schedule is

Seven twelve-hour shifts in a row, then seven days off. Fourteen days from start to repeat, and because the cycle is exactly two weeks, it lands on the same days of the week every time.

Most crews stay on one tour — seven days or seven nights — rather than flipping mid-run, and swap tours after a full cycle or a full quarter, depending on the agency.

It is standard in EMS and hospital work and turns up in dispatch, corrections and industrial operations that can staff a post with two crews per tour.

How the cycle runs

One fourteen-day cycle for a single crew:

Print this rotation (PDF) One page — the cycle above, and a blank grid for your own dates.

The week on is the hard part

Seven consecutive twelve-hour shifts is a long run by any measure, and the last two are where fatigue shows. On nights it is harder still, because there is no chance to reset until the block ends.

People who love this schedule love the second week. Seven days off is a holiday every fortnight, and it is long enough to travel, take a course, or work a block of paid duty jobs without touching your recovery time.

Hours and overtime

Seven twelve-hour shifts every fourteen days averages forty-two hours a week, but it does not arrive evenly. One week is eighty-four hours and the next is zero.

That distribution is what makes the overtime picture unusual, and it depends entirely on how your work period is defined. Keeping your own record of the hours matters more here than on a pattern that spreads evenly.

Who works it

The pattern belongs to operations that can cover a post with two crews:

• EMS and ambulance services
• Hospital and clinical staff
• Dispatch centres
• Corrections and detention
• Industrial and remote sites
• Offshore and utility crews

The trade-off

Put it on your calendar

Seven twelves and then seven days clear — a shift schedule that splits your life into halves. The week on is brutal and the week off is the reason people take it.

Save it once and the free weeks are visible far enough out to book something worth having.

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.

The daily ceiling follows your shift, not the statute. Ontario's Employment Standards Act caps the working day at eight hours or the number of hours in an established regular workday, if it is longer than eight. On a 12-hour rotation that established day is 12-hour, so the ceiling is 12-hour — the rotation itself sets it. Going past that needs a written agreement, and no agreement lets anyone be required past 60 hours in a week.

Eleven consecutive hours off between shifts is the ESA minimum and it applies whatever the pattern. A 12-hour shift leaves 12 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 7 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.

Seven and seven in Canadian policing

This one is not hypothetical here. When Toronto restructured its shift schedules, three of its divisions went to eleven-hour shifts on seven on, seven off — while eight other divisions went to twelve-hour shifts on a five-and-four, four-and-five cycle instead.

The eleven rather than twelve is the detail worth noticing. Seven twelve-hour shifts in a row is 84 hours in one week, which is a great deal to bargain for and a great deal to work. Eleven-hour shifts bring the on-week down to 77 and let the cycle average out closer to a normal week across the fortnight. If you are comparing a Canadian seven and seven against an American one, check the shift length before you compare anything else.

Checked 7 August 2026. Quoted from the collective agreements, statutes and regulators named above. Agreements are renegotiated and employment standards are amended — confirm the current text before relying on a figure or a threshold.

Common questions

How many hours a week is 7 on 7 off?

Forty-two on average — but it arrives as eighty-four hours one week and none the next.

Do you rotate between days and nights?

Usually not within the block. Most crews work a full week of days or a full week of nights and swap tours after a cycle or a quarter.

Who uses the 7 on 7 off schedule?

Mostly EMS, hospitals, dispatch, corrections and industrial sites — anywhere a post can be covered by two crews per tour.