TLDR: Ontario kicked off 2026 with another round of changes to its Construction Act, British Columbia is finally catching up with its own prompt payment law, and Alberta’s extended lien deadlines are still catching contractors off guard. If you own or manage construction projects in Canada, the rules around invoices, holdbacks, and adjudication have shifted enough that your standard contract language probably needs a second look.
Ontario Leads With Its Latest Round of Changes
Ontario was the first province to introduce prompt payment and adjudication back in 2019, and it just went back to the drawing board. On January 1, 2026, a fresh set of amendments to the Construction Act came into force under Bill 216 and Bill 60. The goal, according to the government, was to speed up payment timelines and clear up some of the confusion that’s built up over the past few years.
It’s not a full rewrite. But the changes touch enough of the Act that owners who haven’t updated their contract templates since 2019 are working with outdated assumptions.
What Counts as a Proper Invoice Now
A lot of the amendment turns on one phrase: “proper invoice.” The whole prompt payment clock starts the moment a proper invoice lands on an owner’s desk, so the definition matters more than it sounds like it should. The updated Act redefines what qualifies, and it also opens the door to private adjudicators working alongside the existing roster system. That second part is a bigger deal than it looks. Owners now have more flexibility in who resolves a payment dispute, but it also means more variability in how disputes get decided.
British Columbia Finally Joins the Prompt Payment Club
BC has been one of the last holdouts without prompt payment rules baked into its construction legislation. That’s changing. The province introduced Bill 30, the Construction Prompt Payment Act, which amends the Builders Lien Act and brings BC roughly in line with Ontario, Alberta, and Saskatchewan.
Under the proposed framework, an owner has to either pay a proper invoice or issue a formal notice of objection within a set window. No response, no objection, means the invoice is treated as accepted and payment becomes due.
The 28-Day Clock and What Happens If You Miss It
The headline number here is 28 days. That’s how long an owner gets to pay a proper invoice or formally object to it once Bill 30 takes effect. Miss that window without filing an objection, and you’ve effectively agreed to pay what was invoiced, whether you meant to or not. The bill also folds in “pay when paid” principles, so owners who are waiting on their own funding sources need to understand how that interacts with their obligations further down the chain.
Alberta and the Extended Lien Deadlines
Alberta made its move a bit earlier, renaming its old Builders’ Lien Act to the Prompt Payment and Construction Lien Act. One change that still trips people up: lien remedy deadlines were extended from 40 days to 60. That sounds like good news for contractors and subtrades, and mostly it is, but it also means owners need to hold funds and manage risk for a longer stretch before they can safely consider a project closed out from a lien standpoint.
Holdback Payments Are No Longer Optional
Across several provinces, the trend is the same: holdback can’t just sit there indefinitely anymore. Ontario’s latest amendments create a mandatory scheme for annual holdback payment. Previously, an owner who retained basic holdback could choose to pay it out annually or in phases if certain conditions were met. Now that flexibility has narrowed, and owners who’ve gotten used to holding holdback as a cushion will need to adjust their cash flow planning.
What This Means for Project Owners Specifically
None of this is abstract legal housekeeping. Every one of these changes affects how fast money moves, who gets to decide a dispute, and how long a lien can hang over a closed project.
Three Things to Check in Your Contracts Right Now
First, look at how your contracts define “proper invoice” and whether that language matches your province’s current rules. Second, check your dispute resolution clauses to see if they account for private adjudicators where that option now exists. And third, revisit your holdback release schedule, because what used to be discretionary may now be mandatory.
Project owners who treat this as paperwork to deal with later tend to find out the hard way, usually mid-dispute, that their contracts are already out of step with the law. Updating templates now costs a fraction of what a missed deadline or an unenforceable clause will cost later.