New Brunswick WorkSafeNB Appeal Deadlines
The dates that govern a WorkSafeNB claim in New Brunswick. Free. No email required. For anyone injured at work.
New Brunswick runs two tracks with very different clocks. One gives you ninety days and then a full year. The other gives you seven days. Knowing which letter you are holding matters more here than in most places.
THE FIVE CLOCKS
Two of the five run out inside your first month, and neither of those two belongs to an injury claim. They are both on the health and safety track. Not drawn to scale.
Inside the first month Longer, but they start now
They do not all count from the same event, and they do not all belong to the same process. The seven days runs from receiving a Chief Compliance Officer decision. The fourteen days runs from being given an order, advice or a penalty. The ninety days runs from a date printed on a letter, the one year to appeal runs from a second date printed on a second letter, and the one year to apply runs from the injury or the illness itself. Everything below sets out what starts each clock, and what to write down at the moment it matters.
How long do I have to apply for WorkSafeNB benefits?
One year from the date of the injury or illness. WorkSafeNB's own Application for Workers' Compensation Benefits says the form has to be sent within one year, and the form asks you to confirm on the page that you are inside that window.
Telling your employer is a different step. That one has no fixed number attached to it. You are to report the accident as soon as possible, and doing it the same day removes an argument later about whether it happened at work at all.
The two steps are not interchangeable, and only one of them is timed. Reporting the accident to your employer is what keeps the story straight about where the injury happened. Sending the application to WorkSafeNB is what starts a claim. Doing the first does not do the second, and a supervisor who says they have handled it has not filed your form.
Write down the date you told your employer, who you told and how. It costs nothing on the day and it is the detail nobody can reconstruct a year later.
People lose this deadline by waiting to see whether an injury settles down. A year sounds like plenty until eight months have gone by, the pain has not gone anywhere and nobody ever filed anything.
If you are hurt, apply now and withdraw later if you turn out not to need it.
It has been almost a year. Is it too late to apply?
If you are still inside the year, no. The useful response to that question is not to count the days left, it is to send the form today. Nothing improves about an application by being submitted closer to the edge of the window, and the form itself asks you to confirm on the page that you are inside it.
Be honest with yourself about which date you are counting from. WorkSafeNB states one year from the date of the injury or the illness. For something that happened in one moment, that date is not in doubt. For a condition that built up over months, the date is a judgment, and it is a judgment worth making now rather than after the fact.
If the year has already gone, this page will not tell you it is fine, because WorkSafeNB does not say so. No extension to the application year appears on any of the sources checked. What it also does not say is that you should stop. Put it to a Worker's Advocate, who assists free of charge and does this every week, rather than deciding on WorkSafeNB's behalf that the answer is no.
I have work-related hearing loss. Do I use the same form?
Usually not. If your claim is occupational hearing loss rather than a single event, WorkSafeNB directs you to its Application for Benefits for Occupational Hearing Loss instead.
The exception is a hearing loss caused by one specific event, an explosion for instance. That goes on the ordinary form.
Ask which form before you fill one in. The wrong form is not usually fatal, but it is a delay, and hearing loss is exactly the kind of claim where a year can pass while somebody decides whether it counts as work related. It is also the kind of claim where the date of the illness is a judgment rather than an event, which is a second reason not to sit on it.
My claim was denied. How long do I have to request a review?
Ninety days from the original decision date, and that date is printed on the letter WorkSafeNB sent you. Not the day it arrived. The date on the letter.
It goes to the Decision Review Office, which operates independently of case management and adjudication and reports to WorkSafeNB's Associate General Counsel rather than to the people who made the decision.
The review is compulsory. You cannot appeal to the tribunal without a DRO decision first. Skipping the step is not an option, so start here even if you expect it to fail.
| The step | Who deals with it | You have | Counting from |
|---|---|---|---|
| Give the decision maker what they have not seen | The person who signed the original decision letter | No limit stated | Whenever the new information appears |
| Request a review | The Decision Review Office | 90 days | The original decision date on the letter |
| Appeal the review decision | The Workers' Compensation Appeals Tribunal | 1 year | The date of the DRO decision |
Ninety days is the shortest window on the injury side, and it is the one the post eats into. The clock starts on the date printed on the letter, so every day between that date and the day the envelope reaches you is a day already spent.
Write the decision date at the top of the letter the day you open it, and diarise the ninetieth day from that date rather than from the day you read it properly. Ninety days from a date you have written down is ninety days. Ninety days from a vague memory of the post arriving is less.
If your claim were decided tomorrow, what would your file say?
People who were genuinely hurt have lost benefits over a date nobody recorded, a body part left off the first form, or a call nobody wrote down. Caught early that is fixable. A year on it is an argument you have to win. The New Brunswick Workplace Injury Companion Guide keeps every date on this page in one place, with the form that goes with each and room to write down what actually happened. $24.99, yours to keep.
Can I challenge more than one WorkSafeNB decision at once?
Yes, up to ten of them in a single application. Use the Add Another Decision option in the Decision Review section. They must all relate to the same claim number.
That is genuinely useful. Where a claim has gone wrong it is rarely one letter. Keep every decision letter with its date, because this is the moment they all become useful at once.
Two limits are worth knowing. The Decision Review Office does not review decisions made before 1 January 2020. And some things are out of scope entirely, including client service complaints, occupational health and safety matters and privacy concerns, which have their own separate procedures.
Ten decisions in one application is a convenience, not a second chance at an old date. Nothing WorkSafeNB publishes says that adding an older decision to a newer application changes the ninety days attached to it, so plan on each letter carrying its own date.
If one of the ten you want to raise is older than the rest, say so in the application and ask the Decision Review Office directly rather than leaving it to be noticed. An asked question gets an answer. An unasked one gets a refusal you find out about later.
This is the part of the New Brunswick system that rewards a tidy pile of paper. Ten decisions is a generous allowance and it is worth nothing to somebody who has three of the letters and a rough memory of the rest. Keep them in date order, in one place, with the claim number visible on each.
What is the seven day appeal deadline in New Brunswick?
It belongs to the health and safety track, not to injury claims. If an order, advice or administrative penalty has been issued, that goes to the Chief Compliance Officer within fourteen calendar days. The Chief Compliance Officer's decision then goes to the tribunal within seven calendar days.
Calendar days, not working days. A decision that reaches you on a Friday before a long weekend has already spent three of its seven days by the time the offices open again.
Seven days is short enough that it can pass while you are still deciding whether to act.
So the first thing to establish is which letter you are holding. If it mentions an order, advice, a penalty or the Occupational Health and Safety Act, treat it as urgent today rather than as part of your injury claim.
| What the letter is | Which track | Where the appeal goes | You have |
|---|---|---|---|
| A decision on your injury claim | Injury claim | The Decision Review Office | 90 days from the decision date on the letter |
| A Decision Review Office decision | Injury claim | The Workers' Compensation Appeals Tribunal | 1 year from the DRO decision |
| An order, advice or an administrative penalty | Health and safety | The Chief Compliance Officer | 14 calendar days from being given it |
| A Chief Compliance Officer decision | Health and safety | The Workers' Compensation Appeals Tribunal | 7 calendar days from receiving it |
Both tracks end at the same tribunal, which is part of why they get confused. They do not start in the same place and they do not run at anything like the same speed.
How long do I have to appeal to WCAT in New Brunswick?
One year from the DRO decision, and it can be extended in special circumstances. The New Brunswick Workers' Compensation Appeals Tribunal is independent and quasi-judicial, and a chairperson or panel decides.
There is no way in without a DRO decision. An appeal cannot be filed at all until the Decision Review Office has decided, which means the year does not begin until the review is finished. If you are still waiting on the review, the tribunal year has not started and there is nothing to miss yet.
If you have a representative, do not file the notice of appeal yourself.
The tribunal says so directly. Your advocate or lawyer files it on your behalf, and filing separately creates a mess that costs you time you may not have. If you have just instructed somebody, tell them the date of the DRO decision and let them handle the notice.
Before you file anything, make sure you have given all relevant information to the person who signed the original decision letter. New information sometimes resolves the issue without an appeal at all.
What happens if I missed the deadline to appeal?
One extension is published and one is not, and the difference matters. The year to appeal a DRO decision to the tribunal can be extended in special circumstances. Nothing on the sources checked offers the same for the ninety day review window, so plan on ninety days being firm.
One boundary no explanation gets round. The Decision Review Office does not review decisions made before 1 January 2020. That is not a deadline you can argue your way past with a good reason, it is a limit on what the office will look at.
There is one route with no stated limit on it at all, and it is the one people skip. Giving the person who signed the original decision letter information they have never seen carries no published time limit, and new information sometimes resolves the issue without an appeal. If a deadline has gone, that is the door still worth trying, and it is also the first thing to do even when no deadline has gone.
Then call a Worker's Advocate. Free help exists in New Brunswick precisely for the situations where the obvious route has closed, and a missed date is a reason to ask sooner rather than a reason to stop.
How long does a WCAT appeal take?
Expect months, and possibly a year. Months can pass before a hearing is even scheduled. Written decisions can take several months and up to a year after that.
There is a level beyond the tribunal, and it is a court. If a party questions jurisdiction or law after a tribunal decision, the route on is the Court of Appeal of New Brunswick. That is a different kind of proceeding from everything above it and it is the point at which most people are no longer doing this alone.
None of the sources checked puts a clock on WorkSafeNB or the tribunal answering you. Every deadline on this page is one of yours. That is worth knowing because it removes the most common reason people miss one: waiting for a reply before taking the next step.
Silence is not an extension. If the ninety days is running and you have heard nothing, the ninety days is still running.
I was hurt in a vehicle while working. Which deadlines apply?
Both sides apply, and the road accident side is much faster. It carries a deadline that can end a claim in two months if the Crown was involved.
That is the part to deal with first. The shortest deadline that can apply to a work injury in New Brunswick is not necessarily on this page at all, and it can run out while you are still reading about one year windows.
Our New Brunswick car accident page sets that out.
What changed in 2026, and did the deadlines change?
The limits above are the ones WorkSafeNB and the tribunal publish. This page was checked in August 2026 against WorkSafeNB's Review and appeal pages, WorkSafeNB's Application for Workers' Compensation Benefits, WorkSafeNB's occupational health and safety appeals process and the New Brunswick Workers' Compensation Appeals Tribunal.
The change this year is to this page rather than to the law. An earlier version said we had not confirmed a deadline for applying in the first place. It is now confirmed from WorkSafeNB's own application form, at one year from the date of the injury or illness, and it is stated at the top of this page.
The date boundary still worth knowing is older than 2026. The Decision Review Office does not review decisions made before 1 January 2020. If the letter you are holding predates that, the review route is not open to it whatever the calendar says.
Where the letter in your hand says something different from this page, the letter governs. The sources to check it against are listed at the bottom of this page, and if one of them has moved, write to us and we will correct it.
Do I need a lawyer or a representative to appeal in New Brunswick?
Not to start one, and there is free help in New Brunswick that most people never hear about. The Worker's Advocate assists free of charge at every step, from filing through to the hearing itself. WorkSafeNB's own Advocates Services team also helps with the review application and questions about the process, at no cost.
To find a Worker's Advocate
1-844-530-0282
WorkSafeNB general inquiries
1-800-999-9775
Call before the ninety days is half gone, not after it has run. An advocate who has the decision letter and two months of room can do things that an advocate handed the same letter on day eighty eight cannot. And if you do instruct somebody, remember that they file the notice of appeal, not you.
If you are worried about how your employer will react to a complaint, the Occupational Health and Safety Act allows employees to complain to WorkSafeNB about retaliation for having filed one.
Dates are only half of it. Knowing when something is due does not tell you that the tribunal itself recommends appealing with an advocate rather than alone, that going without one means arguing sections of legislation and policy or that months can pass before a hearing is even scheduled.
Recovering after a workplace injury in New Brunswick covers the whole process and is free to read. Hurt in another province? Start from the guides by province and territory.
Last verified: August 2026
Checked against: WorkSafeNB, Review and appeal, WorkSafeNB's Application for Workers' Compensation Benefits, WorkSafeNB's occupational health and safety appeals process, and the New Brunswick Workers' Compensation Appeals Tribunal.
An earlier version of this page said we had not confirmed a deadline for applying in the first place. We have now confirmed it from WorkSafeNB's own application form. It is one year from the date of the injury or illness, and it is stated above.
Deadlines change. If you find something on this page that is out of date, write to Recovery@hurtsquare.ca and we will correct it publicly.
Keeping the record these deadlines depend on
New Brunswick lets you put ten decisions into one application. That only helps someone who still has all ten letters and knows what each one said.
Two things decide how an injury claim goes. What you wrote down and whether you did the right thing at the right time for where you live. The National Workplace Injury Recovery Guide handles the first, the daily record of symptoms, appointments, calls and costs that a claim is eventually judged on. The New Brunswick Workplace Injury Companion Guide handles the second, the deadlines on this page and the forms, boards and appeal routes behind them. People who have only one tend to end up with a careful record aimed at the wrong process, or the right dates and nothing to put in front of them.
Your Recovery. Documented. Protected.
EVERYTHING ON THIS PAGE, AND WHAT COMES NEXT
The New Brunswick Workplace Injury Companion Guide
This page tells you the dates. The guide walks you through them, and gives you somewhere to write down what happened on each one.
- All five clocks, with what starts each one
- Which track your letter is on, injury claim or health and safety
- The route in order, from the Decision Review Office to the Appeals Tribunal
- What to write down the day each WorkSafeNB letter arrives
$24.99 · instant download · yours to keep
See the New Brunswick Workplace Injury Companion GuideMost people take it with the National Workplace Injury Recovery Guide, which is the daily record the dates hang on.
En français : Le chemin du retour, guide du Nouveau-Brunswick couvre les mêmes échéances et les mêmes formulaires, en français.
Not ready for a guide? The checklist for the first week after a workplace injury is at hurtsquare.ca/7. It is free and asks nothing of you.
This page is general information for people in New Brunswick. It is not legal or medical advice. Rules differ by province and change over time. Confirm anything specific to your situation with a representative, WorkSafeNB or a Worker's Advocate.