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Ontario’s Construction Act, Alberta’s PPCLA, and Manitoba’s amended Builders’ Liens Act all include statutory prompt-payment rules that force payment within 28 days of a proper invoice. Atlantic Canada does not. As of May 2026, not one of the four Atlantic provinces has a prompt-payment clock running. Nova Scotia has passed the enabling legislation, but it is not yet in force. New Brunswick, Newfoundland and Labrador, and Prince Edward Island have no equivalent legislation at all.
That does not mean Atlantic contractors have no protection. Each province has a construction lien act that gives you a real right to register a claim against the property you worked on. The catch is the deadlines: Atlantic lien windows are shorter or stricter than most contractors realise, and missing one by a single day permanently extinguishes the right.
New Brunswick replaced its century-old Mechanics’ Lien Act with the Construction Remedies Act (SNB 2020 c.29), which came into force on April 1, 2022. The new Act modernised the lien registration regime and expanded the types of work covered, but it did not introduce a prompt-payment mechanism. Payment terms in NB construction contracts are still entirely governed by what the parties agree in writing.
You have 60 days from the last day you supplied services or materials under your contract to register a lien. The clock runs from your last supply date, not from when a dispute starts or when the contractor stops responding. After registration, you must commence a court action within 1 year of registration or the lien is extinguished.
New Brunswick is an HST province at 15%. HST is administered by CRA on behalf of the province, so you remit to CRA using your standard GST/HST account. No provincial remittance.
No prompt payment in NB: The Construction Remedies Act replaced the old Mechanics’ Lien Act but did not add a payment clock. If a GC or owner delays payment, your options are a lien (within 60 days of last supply) or a civil claim. There is no statutory adjudication mechanism in NB as of 2026.
Nova Scotia’s construction lien framework is governed by the Builders’ Lien Act (RSNS 1989 c.277), one of the older construction lien statutes in Canada. The Act has two distinct deadlines that trips contractors up: a registration deadline and a separate Statement of Claim deadline.
You have 60 days from your last supply date to register a lien at the Registry of Deeds. That is step one. Step two is filing a Statement of Claim (plus lis pendens) in court, which must happen within a total window of 105 days from the last supply date. These are independent deadlines. Registering on day 59 does not give you another 105 days from registration to file the Statement of Claim.
Bills 119 and 211: prompt payment is coming to NS, but not yet. The Nova Scotia Legislature has passed Bills 119 and 211, which would amend the Builders’ Lien Act to add a prompt-payment regime similar to Ontario’s. As of May 2026, the bills have not been proclaimed in force and no proclamation date has been announced. Until proclamation, there is no payment clock and no statutory adjudication in Nova Scotia. This page will be updated as soon as a proclamation date is confirmed.
Nova Scotia reduced its HST rate from 15% to 14% effective April 1, 2025 (CRA Notice 342). If your accounting software or invoice template still shows 15% for NS, it is overcharging clients and you will have a remittance discrepancy with CRA. The correct rate for any NS invoice issued on or after April 1, 2025 is 14%.
For the full provincial HST breakdown, see GST, HST, and PST rates by province.
Newfoundland and Labrador operates under the Mechanics’ Lien Act (RSNL 1990 c.M-3). There is no prompt-payment legislation and no adjudication mechanism. NL also has the shortest lien preservation window in Atlantic Canada.
You have only 30 days from the last day of work or supply to register a lien. This is the shortest window in Atlantic Canada and is easy to miss if you are waiting to see whether the owner pays. Do not wait. Register the lien on or before day 30, then pursue payment discussions afterward. A registered lien does not prevent you from settling; a missed deadline means you have no lien at all.
After preservation, you must commence an action within 90 days total from the last supply date. The 30-day preservation and 90-day action window both run from the same start date (last supply).
Newfoundland and Labrador is an HST province at 15%, administered by CRA. No provincial remittance.
30 days goes fast on a dispute. NL’s 30-day window is the strictest in Atlantic Canada. If you finish work on a Friday and a payment dispute develops over the following few weeks, day 30 arrives before most disputes are fully understood. Track your last supply date in Markup from day one so the deadline is visible the moment work wraps.
PEI’s construction lien framework comes from the Mechanics’ Lien Act (RSPEI 1988 c.M-4). There is no prompt-payment legislation and no adjudication mechanism. PEI is the smallest province and has no announced plans to adopt a prompt-payment regime.
You have 60 days from the last day of supply to register a lien. After registration, you must commence an action within 90 days of registration. Unlike NS (where the total window is counted from last supply), PEI’s 90-day action window runs from the date of registration.
PEI HST is 15%, not 17%. A persistent online error. PEI reduced its provincial component of HST from 10% to 8% effective October 1, 2016, bringing the combined HST rate from 17% to 15%. The 17% figure still appears in numerous contractor guides, tax tables, and invoicing templates. It has been wrong for nearly a decade. If you are invoicing PEI clients at 17%, you are overcollecting tax and will face a CRA remittance mismatch. Confirm with CRA Notice GST/HST information for PEI if you need a primary source.
All four Atlantic provinces compared side by side. Dates and windows are verified against primary statute text as of May 2026.
Atlantic lien deadlines are unforgiving and not automatically visible in most project management tools. A few practical rules:
Markup’s lien-deadline tracker supports all four Atlantic provinces and alerts you at the 14-day and 7-day marks before each deadline. Try the free lien-deadline calculator.