Is This Job Worth the Commute? Canada Calculator
See what a job really pays once fuel, parking, tolls and drive time are subtracted from your paycheque.
Job Commute Calculator
Your results
How this calculator works
We start from your gross pay, then subtract the direct cost of getting to work: fuel (based on your car's L/100 km rating and the local gas price), parking and tolls. That gives your cost-adjusted real wage. Then we also subtract the time you spend commuting — unpaid — from your paid hours, which gives a second, usually lower, time-adjusted real wage. Weekly figures are converted to monthly using 52 ÷ 12 weeks, applied the same way everywhere on this page.
Example
Example
Say you earn $24/hour, work 40 hours over 5 days, and drive 20 km each way (about a 40-minute one-way drive) in a car that uses 9 L/100 km, with gas at $1.55/L and no parking or tolls. Your gross weekly pay is $960. Your weekly driving is 200 km, burning 18 L for about $27.90. Your income after commute costs is roughly $932 for 40 worked hours plus about 6.7 hours of driving — a real hourly wage closer to $20/hour once that unpaid time is counted, not $24.
What your result means
What your result means
If your time-adjusted real wage is much lower than your listed hourly wage, a shorter commute — or a fully remote or hybrid role — may be worth more than it first looks, even at a slightly lower posted salary. If the gap is small, the commute is probably not the deciding factor in your decision.
The Canadian context
The Canadian context
Commute costs vary a lot by province: gas prices, insurance, and parking in downtown Toronto, Vancouver or Montreal can be very different from a smaller city or a rural area. If you're new to Canada, our French-language guides cover car insurance and getting a driver's licence in more detail.
Frequently asked questions
Does this calculate my income tax?
No. All results are shown before tax. Canadian income tax depends on your province, total income and deductions, so we don't attempt to estimate it here.
What if I carpool or take transit instead of driving?
Replace the fuel and parking fields with your actual weekly transit pass cost or your share of carpool costs, and set fuel/parking to 0 — the rest of the calculator still works the same way.
Why does the calculator show two different 'real wage' numbers?
One only subtracts the direct cost of commuting (fuel, parking, tolls). The other also treats your unpaid commuting time as a cost to your week, which is usually the more honest comparison between two jobs.