Does My Workplace Need Radon Testing? Federal and Provincial Rules

In Canada, whether your workplace must be tested for radon depends on who regulates it. Federally regulated employers — about 8% of the workforce — will be bound by a legal limit of 200 Bq/m³ as an annual average from January 30, 2027 under SOR/2026-10. Provincially regulated employers, the other 92%, have no radon-specific number, but are covered by the general duty in their province's occupational health and safety act to protect workers from recognized hazards — and radon is one.

Both answers lead to the same practical place — measure the building — but for different legal reasons, on different timelines, with different consequences. Here's how to tell which applies to you.

TL;DR: Federal (banks, airlines, railways, interprovincial trucking, marine, pipelines, telecom, broadcasting, postal and courier, grain elevators, Crown corporations, First Nations band councils, federal public service): a hard 200 Bq/m³ annual-average limit from January 30, 2027. Provincial (almost everyone else — retail, manufacturing, construction, hospitals, schools, municipalities, credit unions, local trucking): no radon-specific limit, but a general duty to protect workers from recognized hazards, with Health Canada's 200 Bq/m³ guideline as the reference point. Neither group can meet its obligation without measuring.

Part 1: Federally regulated workplaces

The Canada Labour Code's occupational health and safety rules (Part II) apply to these sectors:

What applies: from January 30, 2027, the employer must ensure no employee's radon exposure averages more than 200 Bq/m³ over a year. Frontier oil and gas operations are covered by the same limit under a parallel regulation.

The nuclear carve-out is narrower than it sounds. Uranium mining and processing and nuclear facilities are federally regulated workplaces — but the radon provision excludes nuclear energy workers as defined in the Nuclear Safety and Control Act, who are covered by the Canadian Nuclear Safety Commission's separate dose regime. Staff at such a site who are not nuclear energy workers are not excluded by that wording. Check who at your site actually holds that designation rather than assuming the whole facility is out of scope.

Full detail: SOR/2026-10 explained.

One precision point on the territories

Private-sector firms and municipalities in Yukon, the Northwest Territories and Nunavut are listed as federally regulated for Part I of the Canada Labour Code only — that is, industrial relations. Occupational health and safety sits in Part II, which is where the radon limit lives. Territorial employers should confirm which regime governs their occupational health and safety obligations rather than reading the Part I listing as covering everything.

Part 2: Provincially regulated workplaces

If you're not on the list above, your workplace is provincially or territorially regulated — the vast majority of Canadian employers, including retail, hospitality, manufacturing, construction, health care, schools, municipalities, provincial government offices, credit unions, and trucking firms operating within one province.

The difference is worth stating precisely. Federally, radon is now a named hazard — in the regulation by name, with a number, and an employer who "must ensure." Provincially, radon is a recognized hazard reached by inference through the general duty. Both create obligations; the federal language is more stringent and easier to measure against.

There is no provincial radon exposure limit equivalent to the new federal one. What exists instead:

• The general duty clause. Every provincial and territorial OHS act requires employers to take every reasonable precaution to protect workers from recognized hazards. Radon is classified by the International Agency for Research on Cancer as a Group 1 carcinogen and is the leading cause of lung cancer among Canadians who have never smoked. It is a recognized hazard by any reading.
• Health Canada's guideline. 200 Bq/m³ as an annual average in normal occupancy areas applies to all indoor spaces in Canada, workplaces included. It is guidance rather than law — but it is the number regulators, inspectors and experts across the country use.
• Provincial guidance. Ontario, Alberta and other provinces publish workplace radon guidance for employers, and the Canadian Centre for Occupational Health and Safety addresses radon in buildings in its OSH Answers. Quebec workplaces operate under the CNESST framework, where employers carry prevention-program obligations extending to identified workplace risks — covered in our Quebec employer guide. Jurisdiction-by-jurisdiction detail is in workplace radon rules by province.
• NORM guidelines. The Canadian Guidelines for the Management of Naturally Occurring Radioactive Materials apply to certain work environments where radon may be elevated.

The practical exposure for a provincial employer isn't a radon inspection — it's what happens after someone raises the question. Once a worker, a health and safety committee or a union asks about radon in writing, the employer knows the hazard has been identified. Failing to act on an identified hazard is exactly what general duty provisions are written to catch. And unlike most workplace hazards, radon is inexpensive to measure and, in most buildings, straightforward to fix.

What if we still can't tell?

Jurisdiction can be genuinely arguable, particularly for contractors, service providers and mixed operations. It is not a question to settle by assumption, and it is not one we can settle for you. The Labour Program of Employment and Social Development Canada determines jurisdictional questions under the Canada Labour Code and can be asked directly; employment counsel can advise on the derivative jurisdiction analysis for your specific operation. Both are better than guessing, and a written determination is worth having on file either way.

If you lease your space: who actually owes the duty?

This is the question the new wording settles. The previous text said no employee "shall be exposed," which left room for a federally regulated tenant and a building owner each to argue the obligation belonged to the other. The amended provision names the employer: the employer must ensure. If you are a federally regulated employer occupying leased space, the duty is yours, whether the building is owned by a province, a municipality or a private landlord.

That does not make the landlord irrelevant — it makes the conversation necessary. Radon does not respect lease boundaries. It enters through the foundation and distributes through the structure, so a tenant testing only its own third-floor suite may get a reassuring number that says nothing about the occupants below. Health Canada's guidance is to test a building in its entirety for this reason. Where a federal employer occupies a whole building, the whole building is in scope; where it occupies part, that part is in scope — but a partial picture is a weak basis for "ensuring" anything.

The practical step is to raise it with the property manager early, establish who arranges and pays for testing, and check what the lease already says about compliance obligations and access. Depending on the arrangement, duties may fall on both parties. That is a question for your own legal advisor, not for us.

The authoritative list is published by the Government of Canada: federally regulated industries and workplaces. Where it is unclear, the Labour Program can determine jurisdiction.

The test the courts actually apply

Before the individual cases, the framework — because it decides most of them.

Labour relations in Canada are presumptively provincial, under the provinces' authority over property and civil rights. Federal jurisdiction arises in two ways, as the Supreme Court set out in Tessier Ltée v. Quebec (CSST):

1. Direct jurisdiction — the employment relates to a work, undertaking or business within federal legislative authority (an airline, a bank, a railway).
2. Derivative jurisdiction — the work is an integral part of a federally regulated undertaking. This is the exception, and courts apply it narrowly. In Ramkey Communications v. LIUNA, the Ontario Court of Appeal confirmed the provincial presumption is not displaced unless one of those two conditions is met.

In Tessier itself, a company doing stevedoring alongside crane leasing and intra-provincial transport was held to be provincial: its essential operational nature was local, and the federal-side activity was a relatively minor part of the whole. The lesson is that servicing a federal undertaking does not, by itself, make you federal — the question is whether that service is the exclusive or principal part of your business, or performed by a functionally discrete unit integral to the federal operation.

The commonly confused cases

Are insurance companies and trust companies federally regulated?

Generally not, for labour and occupational health and safety purposes — and this is one of the most common errors in circulation. Being federally incorporated, or prudentially supervised by the Office of the Superintendent of Financial Institutions, is a different thing from falling under the Canada Labour Code. Most major insurers are federally chartered and OSFI-supervised, yet their employment relationships are governed by provincial law, because insurance falls under the provinces' authority over property and civil rights. Banking is different: it is an enumerated federal head of power, which is why chartered banks are federally regulated employers. The Supreme Court settled this directly in Canadian Pioneer Management Ltd. v. Labour Relations Board of Saskatchewan, [1980] 1 S.C.R. 433 — a case in which a trust company and a life assurance company both argued their employees were governed by the Canada Labour Code. The Court held otherwise on both counts. Of the insurer: a long line of decisions affirms provincial authority over the business of insurance carried on within a province, which supports applying provincial labour legislation to its employees. Of the trust company: incorporation under the federal Trust Companies Act "alone does not bring it within federal legislative authority in respect of its relations with its employees," and carrying on what are popularly regarded as banking functions does not by itself make it federal. The Court applied an institutional rather than functional test for what counts as banking. If you have seen insurance or trust companies listed as federally regulated for Labour Code purposes, treat it with caution and verify.

Is a credit union covered by the federal limit?

Usually not — but check, because this has changed. Of roughly 390 credit unions and caisses populaires in Canada, the large majority are provincially incorporated and fall under provincial OHS law. However, since 2012 a credit union has been able to continue federally under the Bank Act, and several have: UNI Financial Cooperation (2016), Coast Capital Savings Federal Credit Union (2018), Innovation Federal Credit Union (2023), and First West Credit Union, which continued as Tru Cooperative Bank in April 2026. Prospera and Sunshine Coast credit unions received letters patent to continue federally and amalgamate with Coast Capital effective May 2026. A federal credit union is a federally regulated employer. If your credit union operates across provincial lines or has "federal" in its legal name, verify its status rather than assuming.

Our trucking company never leaves the province. Which applies?

Provincial. Road transport is federal only when the undertaking crosses provincial or international borders. Jurisdiction attaches to the undertaking as a whole — if part of your fleet regularly crosses borders, the operation is generally federal, terminals and offices included.

The coffee shop inside an airport terminal?

Usually provincial, but it depends on what the business actually does. Jurisdiction follows the employer, not the building — airports, aerodromes and airlines are federal, but a retail franchise selling coffee to the travelling public is its own undertaking and is presumptively provincial. Derivative jurisdiction can flip that where the operation exists to serve the federal undertaking itself: airline catering that provisions aircraft, or ground-handling under contract to carriers, is a different case from a food court unit. If your operation exists principally to serve aircraft or carriers rather than the public, get a determination rather than assuming.

A contractor working inside a federal building?

The contractor's employees are covered by the contractor's own jurisdiction — usually provincial, because a cleaning, security or maintenance firm serving many clients is a local undertaking. Derivative jurisdiction can apply where that contractor works exclusively or principally for the federal undertaking, or where a functionally discrete unit of its workforce is integral to the federal operation; the courts apply this narrowly. Either way, the federal custodian still owes duties for the workplace it controls, which is why building-level measurement matters regardless of whose payroll people are on.

A band-council-run school or office?

Federal. First Nations band councils are federally regulated employers under the Canada Labour Code, making them one of the most significant and least discussed groups covered by the new limit — and many band-operated buildings are in regions where a substantial share of structures test above 200 Bq/m³.

A provincial ministry, municipality, hospital or school board?

Provincial. Provincial public services, municipalities, school boards, hospitals and universities are regulated by their province's OHS regime and answer to the general duty rather than the federal limit.

A daycare or childcare centre?

Provincial in almost every case — except band-operated childcare, which is federal. Childcare carries its own considerations: children breathe more air relative to body weight and have more years of life over which risk accumulates, which is why health and childcare advocacy organizations have pushed for childcare-specific testing policy. See our schools and daycares guide.

A federal employee working from home?

The limit is written for workplaces the employer controls, and home offices raise questions employers are only beginning to work through. Every Canadian home should be tested regardless — Health Canada recommends it, and the same 200 Bq/m³ guideline applies.

Whichever applies, the measurement is the same

Federal or provincial, the protocol Health Canada publishes for workplaces is identical — and it is not the residential protocol. Under the Guide for Radon Measurements in Public Buildings, every occupied room in contact with the ground gets a detector, rooms over 200 m² get one per 200 m², tests run at least three months during the heating season, and quality-control duplicates are added on top. Detector counts, placement rules and the full protocol are in our workplace radon FAQ; the timing logic is in the compliance timeline, and the practical side — detector counts by building type, consultant versus in-house, market cost ranges — is in our guide to commercial radon testing in Canada.

RadonTest.ca provides testing logistics and laboratory submission. We do not perform radon mitigation and we do not interpret health risk — Health Canada is the health authority on radon in Canada. This page describes publicly available regulatory information and is not legal advice.

Read next

SOR/2026-10 explained · Rules by province · Does a certified professional have to test? · How commercial testing works

Sources

Canada Labour Code, Part II; Constitution Act, 1867, ss. 91 and 92(13); Tessier Ltée v. Quebec (Commission de la santé et de la sécurité du travail), 2012 SCC 23; Ramkey Communications Inc. v. Labourers' International Union of North America, 2019 ONCA 859; Bank Act, S.C. 1991, c. 46 (federal credit union continuance); Office of the Superintendent of Financial Institutions; BC Financial Services Authority, federal continuance; Canada Gazette, Part II, Vol. 160, No. 3 (SOR/2026-10) and Regulatory Impact Analysis Statement; Employment and Social Development Canada, Introducing amendments to regulations under Part II of the Canada Labour Code; Canadian Centre for Occupational Health and Safety, Radon in Buildings; Government of Ontario, Radon in the workplace; Health Canada, Canadian radon guideline and Guide for Radon Measurements in Public Buildings.