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Fast 12 schedule
Two days, two nights, four off — eight days round, forty-two hours a week, and a four-day break every cycle.
Also called: DDNNOOOO, 2-2-2 4-off, 2 days 2 nights 4 off, DDNN 4 off, 2D2N4O, 12-hour Continental
- Shift length
- 12 hours
- Cycle
- 8 days
- Average week
- 42 hours
- Crews
- 4
What the Fast 12 schedule is
Two twelve-hour day shifts, two twelve-hour night shifts, then four days off. Eight days from start to repeat.
It takes the fast forward rotation of DDNNOO and doubles the break. The blocks are the same length; the recovery afterwards is twice as long, and the hours come down from fifty-six a week to forty-two.
That extra time off is bought with a fourth crew, which is why a department running three crews on DDNNOO cannot simply switch to it.
How the cycle runs
One eight-day cycle:
Set a start day, set the length to 8 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: 8
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 8 days, which does not divide by seven — so it drifts through the week and every squad gets much the same share. Around 18 to 21 full weekends a year, wherever you sit in it.
A year on this rotation: 21 full weekends off, spread through the calendar. A weekend counts only when both the Saturday and the Sunday are free. All 21 rotations compared →
Why the four-day break matters here
A four-day break after a night block is enough to turn a sleep schedule back round before the next set of days. Two is not, which is the main criticism of the faster version of this rotation.
Four consecutive days off also arrives often — roughly three and a half times a month — and it is the kind of block that is actually usable rather than just restful.
Hours and the work period
Four twelve-hour shifts every eight days averages forty-two hours a week, the same average as Panama, Pitman and 4 on 4 off.
Eight days does not divide into seven or fourteen, so the pattern drifts against the week and against a fortnightly pay period. What falls inside a given pay period changes cycle to cycle.
Who works it
Four-crew continuous operations on twelve-hour tours:
- Municipal police patrol
- Corrections and detention
- Dispatch centres
- Industrial and plant operations
- Security operations
- Emergency communications
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
- Four days off after every block
- Never more than two nights in a row
- Forty-two hour average, the twelve-hour norm
- Recovery time long enough to turn sleep round
What hurts
- Still a fast days-to-nights flip inside each block
- Eight-day cycle drifts through the week and the pay period
- Needs a fourth crew
- No fixed weekend
Put it on your calendar
Working it out by hand is where the mistakes happen.
Save the pattern once and BlueShifts fills the calendar in, forward and back.
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 4 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 the Fast 12?
About forty-two — four twelve-hour shifts every eight days.
How is it different from DDNNOO?
Same blocks, twice the break. DDNNOO takes two days off and averages fifty-six hours a week; the Fast 12 takes four and averages forty-two, using a fourth crew.
Does it give weekends off?
Not fixed ones. The eight-day cycle drifts through the week, so weekends come round in rotation.
Put the Fast 12 schedule on your calendar
Save the Fast 12 schedule once, tell BlueShifts the day your cycle starts, and the rest of the year draws itself. Then the paid duty work you pick up around it goes in beside the shifts.
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