How Much Should You Charge per Hour in Construction in Quebec? The Full Calculation
"I charge $65 an hour because that's what the guy next door charges." That sentence probably costs Quebec's independent contractors more money than any other. Your neighbour's rate covers neither your costs, nor your non-billable hours, nor your margin — it covers his, and only if he actually did the math. Here is the complete method to find your floor rate, with a worked example from start to finish.
1. Why "the market rate" is a trap
The natural reflex is to compare: to the neighbour, to your old employer, to the hourly wage you earned as an employee. Three mistakes in one sentence.
An employee at $35 an hour doesn't "cost" $35 an hour to their employer: add payroll charges, vacation, statutory holidays, CNESST, supplied tools, the company truck — the real cost is far higher. When you go out on your own, all of those costs become yours. Charging your old employee wage means giving yourself a pay cut as a start-up gift.
And the competitor's rate? You know neither his costs, nor his volume, nor his margin. Maybe he's profitable. Maybe he's going under without knowing it. Basing your price on his is copying an answer without seeing the question.
The right starting point is a calculation — your own. Four steps.
2. Step 1: the income you're aiming for
Start from the end: how much do you want left before taxes at the end of the year? Not revenue — the amount that pays you.
Be honest, and aim for the equivalent of what a good job would pay you, benefits included. If you're leaving employment to earn less while working more, the math just told you — better to know now.
For our example: a target income of $80,000.
3. Step 2: your annual fixed costs
Everything you pay for the right and the means to work, before the first billable hour. The typical list for an independent specialized contractor:
- Annual RBQ licence maintenance: $547.53 for a specialized contractor, $989.81 for a general contractor (2026 rates)
- Licence bond: the annual premium with your insurer or surety
- Liability insurance: mandatory in practice, often required by clients
- Vehicle: payments or depreciation, fuel, maintenance, registration, commercial insurance
- Tools: replacement, wear, small equipment — chronically underestimated
- Phone, software, website, accountant
- CNESST personal protection (optional for the self-employed, but an accident without coverage costs infinitely more)
For our example, a realistic total: licence and bond ≈ $900, liability insurance ≈ $1,500, vehicle ≈ $9,000, tools ≈ $2,500, phone/software/accountant ≈ $2,100, personal protection ≈ $1,000 — let's round to $17,000 per year. Build your own list: it's one hour of work that pays off for years.
4. Step 3: your truly billable hours
The most common mistake. A working year is not 52 weeks × 40 hours = 2,080 billable hours. Subtract:
- Vacation and holidays: say 4 weeks total → 48 weeks left, or 1,920 hours worked
- Non-billable time: quotes and estimating visits, driving, material runs, admin, invoicing, follow-ups, training… For a solo contractor, 25 to 30% of your time goes there — and it isn't wasted time, it's the time that brings in the contracts.
At 27% non-billable: 1,920 × 0.73 ≈ 1,400 billable hours per year. That number — not 2,080 — has to carry all your income and all your costs.
5. Step 4: the formula
Your floor rate is:
(target income + fixed costs) ÷ billable hours
With our example: ($80,000 + $17,000) ÷ 1,400 h = $69 per hour. At that rate you hit your target exactly — if everything goes perfectly. No margin for error, no business profit, nothing to absorb a slow month, a late-paying client, or a saw that dies on you.
That's why you add a business margin — 10 to 20% depending on your risk and your backlog. At 15%: $69 × 1.15 ≈ $80 per hour, plus taxes.
Two important precisions:
- The floor rate is not the advertised rate. It's the threshold below which you turn down a job. If your local market supports more, charge more — perceived value, the scarcity of your specialty, and the quality of your work are worth money.
- Recalculate every year. Costs go up, the licence is indexed, your goals change. A rate frozen for three years is a pay cut in disguise.
6. What if I work fixed-price?
Most residential contracts are quoted at a fixed price, not by the hour — but that changes nothing about the calculation. Your floor rate remains the basis of every quote: estimate the job's hours, multiply by your rate, add materials and subcontracting with their markup. A fixed price built on an hourly rate that's too low is just a loss you signed in advance.
It's also the rate that tells you, once the job is done, whether you actually made money: compare real hours to estimated hours, and the job's effective hourly rate to your floor. Without that tracking, a "profitable" job can easily have cost you money without you seeing it.
Bottom line
- Set the income you're aiming for, not the one you hope you can tolerate.
- List your real fixed costs — licence, insurance, vehicle, tools, the rest.
- Count your true billable hours (hint: it's around 1,400, not 2,080).
- (Income + costs) ÷ billable hours, plus 10 to 20% margin. That's your floor — recalculated every year.
Calculating the rate is the theory. The practice is knowing how many hours each job actually ate. Vantage tracks your team's hours with mobile punch-in, compares real costs to the quoted amount, and shows you each job's profitability — so your floor rate holds up in reality, not just in the spreadsheet. Try it free: 30 days, every feature, no credit card.
The licence fees cited are those published by the RBQ for 2026. The other amounts are an illustrative example: run the numbers with your own figures. This article is informational and does not constitute accounting advice.