Prompt payment deadline calculator

The notice deadline matters more than the payment deadline

Silence is not a dispute.

Every regime here gives the payer a window in which to say they are withholding, and what for. Miss it, and the ability to withhold generally goes with it. That turns a vague running argument about deficiencies into a much simpler question: did they serve a valid notice inside the window?

Diarise the notice date as well as the payment date. When a payment is late and no notice ever arrived, you are in a materially stronger position than the usual back and forth about whether the work was acceptable.

• United States federal: pay in 30 days, return a defective invoice in 7
• Canada federal construction: notice in 21 days, pay in 28
• Ontario: notice in 14 days, pay in 28
• Pay your own subcontractors 7 days after you are paid

It all turns on the proper invoice

The clock does not start until the invoice is complete.

Each regime starts counting from receipt of a proper invoice, and each defines what proper means. Typically that is the amount, the period, a description of the services, the contract or purchase order reference, the payment terms, and the name and contact details of the payee. A contract can add requirements, such as a signed progress certificate or a specific portal submission.

An invoice missing something required may not start the clock at all, which is the cheapest and most common way to lose a month. Build a checklist from the payment clause in your own contract and use it every time rather than relying on the general definition.

In the United States regime there is a useful counterweight: an agency that considers an invoice defective has a short window to return it, and where it fails to do so the defect does not reset the clock.

Interest usually runs automatically

You generally do not have to ask for it.

Under the United States Prompt Payment Act, interest on a late payment accrues automatically from the day after the due date, without the contractor requesting it. The Canadian regimes likewise provide for interest on overdue amounts at a prescribed rate.

The practical value is less the interest itself, which is rarely large, than the fact that it fixes a date and an amount. It converts a soft conversation about when payment might arrive into a specific sum accruing from a specific day.

Your obligations flow down too

Being paid starts your own clock.

These regimes are chains. Once you are paid, you generally have seven days to pay your subcontractors for the work covered by that payment, and if you intend to withhold from a subcontractor you have your own notice to serve, with its own short window.

The calculator shows the subcontractor date on the assumption that the buyer pays on the statutory due date. If you are paid earlier, your clock starts earlier. Contractors who treat prompt payment as a tool against the owner and forget it applies downward tend to discover the point in an adjudication.

Which regime applies

Jurisdiction and subject matter both decide it.

United States federal contracts fall under the Prompt Payment Act, with a shorter clock for construction progress payments than the general thirty days. Canadian federal construction work falls under the federal Act. Work in Ontario falls under the prompt payment provisions of the Construction Act.

Other Canadian provinces have enacted their own prompt payment regimes with different periods and different notice rules, and this calculator does not yet cover them. Where your contract is in another province, read the payment provisions of that province's legislation rather than assuming the Ontario periods carry across.