Prompt Payment Is Law Now. Here Is What Changes.
Prompt Payment Is Law Now. Here Is What Changes.
On October 7, 2025, the province tabled Bill 20. By November 27, it had Royal Assent. The Construction Prompt Payment Act is now law. It is not in force yet. But it will be. And when it is, every construction contract in BC runs on new rules.
Chris Atchison at the BCCA said it right. This is not the finish line. It is the starting line.
Contractors who understand this before it comes into force will protect their cash flow. The ones who wait until their first disputed invoice will learn the hard way.
What the Act Actually Does
Three things. That is it.
Mandatory payment timelines. The contractor submits a proper invoice every month unless the contract says otherwise. The owner has seven days to reject it for non-conformance. Fourteen days to issue a notice of non-payment. Twenty-eight days to pay. Once the owner pays, the contractor has seven days to pay subcontractors. That seven-day cascade continues down the chain.
This is not a guideline. It is not a best practice. When the Act comes into force, any new contract must conform. Old contracts are grandfathered. But practically speaking, most work will be under the new rules within a year.
Fast-track adjudication. Payment disputes get resolved in weeks. Not months. Not years.
- Written notice of adjudication.
- Parties pick an adjudicator in four days. If they cannot agree, the authority appoints one in seven.
- Referring party submits records in five days.
- Adjudicator decides in thirty days.
- Losing party pays in fifteen.
- The decision is binding and enforceable as a court judgment.
Thirty days from dispute to enforceable decision. Compare that to now. Lien filings. Lawyers. Court delays. Cash frozen for six to eighteen months while everyone argues and the project finishes.
Builders Lien Act changes. The holdback period drops from fifty-five days to forty-six. The Shimco lien is gone. Demolition and removal work is now explicitly lien-able.
What "Proper Invoice" Means
This is where contractors will trip. The Act creates a legal term. Proper invoice. The entire payment timeline starts when it is submitted. If your invoice does not meet the requirements, the clock does not start.
Exact requirements are still being drafted. But based on other provinces, expect this.
- Invoice date and period covered
- Contract or purchase order number
- Description of work and materials
- Amount due with line-item breakdown
- Your business information
- Holdback amounts shown separately
If you are still sending one-line invoices that say "Labour and materials, twelve thousand five hundred" and hoping nobody asks questions, that ends when this Act comes into force. Owners who used invoice ambiguity to stall will lose that leverage. But only if your invoices are compliant.
The Cash Flow Reality Nobody Mentioned
This Act does not guarantee you get paid faster. It guarantees you have a legal mechanism to force payment faster. That is not the same thing.
Contractors who will benefit most do four things.
They document everything in real time. Daily reports. Photos. Change order sign-offs. They invoice monthly on a fixed schedule. Not whenever they remember. They use contracts that reference the CPPA timelines explicitly. They know how to start adjudication without panicking.
Contractors who will struggle do four different things.
They treat invoicing as an afterthought. They rely on verbal approvals for extra work. They let disputed invoices sit because they do not want to damage the relationship. They have no cash reserves for a thirty-day adjudication period.
Thirty days is fast for the legal system. It is an eternity when payroll is next Friday.
The Bigger Picture
Ontario has prompt payment. Alberta has it. Saskatchewan has it. The federal government has it on Crown projects. BC was the last province to get here.
The BCCA pushed for this for years. Not because contractors are litigious. Because late payment is the single biggest cash flow killer for small and mid-sized trades businesses.
The Act is moving from the Attorney General to the Ministry of Infrastructure. The government sees this as an operations issue. Not a legal curiosity.
Regulations are still pending. The adjudication authority has not been named. Education campaigns are promised. Realistically, contractors have six to twelve months to get ready before this hits live projects.
What ESR Is Doing
We are treating this as an operational upgrade. Not a legal headache.
Invoice template overhaul. Monthly proper invoices. All required fields. Automated from our CRM so nothing gets missed.
Contract review. All new contracts include CPPA-aligned terms. No more net forty-five buried in the fine print.
Daily documentation. Every extra. Every change. Every site condition. Logged same day. Adjudication needs records. We are building the habit now.
Cash flow modeling. We are stress-testing our reserves against thirty-day delays. If you do not know how long you can operate without a major invoice being paid, you need to find out.
Adjudication readiness. We are documenting the process. If a dispute ever reaches that point, we will not be learning the system while our money is frozen.
The Bottom Line
Prompt payment legislation does not fix bad clients. It does not eliminate payment disputes. What it does is replace the system where a subcontractor at the bottom waits months or years while money gets held upstream. With a predictable timeline. And a way to enforce it.
For contractors who run clean operations and invoice properly, this is an advantage. For contractors who wing it, this is a wake-up call.
The finish line is years away. The starting line is right now.
ESR Electric works with GCs and project owners across the Lower Mainland. If you want a straight conversation about your next project, reach out.