How long does WSIB pay you for?
To age 65 for most people. For anyone injured after age 63, for up to two years from the injury instead.
Those two limits are the outer edge rather than the usual outcome. Most claims end long before either, because the benefit is tied to a wage loss and the wage loss ends when you are earning what you earned before.
What actually stops my WSIB benefits?
Earning again, recovering, or reaching one of the two age limits above.
| What happens | What it does to the benefit |
|---|---|
| You return to your old job at your old pay | Full benefits end |
| You return to work earning less | Full benefit becomes a partial one on the gap |
| You reach maximum medical recovery with no remaining wage loss | Benefits end |
| You are found uncooperative in the return to work process | Benefits may be reduced or stopped |
| You reach 65, or two years pass when injured after 63 | The limits above apply |
A partial benefit is not a lesser version of a claim. It is the same benefit applied to a smaller gap, and the way that gap is worked out is set out in how much does WSIB pay in Ontario.
What is maximum medical recovery and what happens then?
The point where recovery has plateaued and further significant improvement is not likely. The WSIB defines it on its page on determining maximum medical recovery and permanent impairment.
Reaching it does not end everything at once. It moves the question. Wage benefits from that point turn on whether a wage loss remains, and a separate assessment begins for anything the injury left behind permanently. That second one is explained in what a WSIB NEL award is and how it is calculated.
What is the 72 month review?
A review point that runs from the date of injury and can fix your benefit level for the rest of the claim.
The WSIB names the seventy-two month loss of earnings review period in its policy on determining the date of injury, which is also the date the period starts from.
It is worth knowing about years before it arrives. A review that looks at six years of a file rewards a file that has six years in it.
What should I be documenting the whole way through?
The things a review reads, which is not the same as the things you remember.
- Every change in what you earn. The date, the employer, the hours and the rate. A partial benefit is the gap, so every change moves the number.
- Every period off and why. A flare, a surgery, a treatment block.
- What you can no longer do, at work and at home, with dates rather than impressions.
- Every appointment and every decision letter, with the date on the letter rather than the date you read it.
A claim that runs for years is decided in reviews, and each review reads a file rather than a person. The part you control is what is in it.
Nobody sets out to build a six year file. It exists or it does not, and by the time a review asks for one the building is long over.
Every figure on this page comes from a named authority. How we check
Last verified: September 2026.
