Three provinces, three different clocks, and none of them run on a handshake.
Short answer
Yes, but the mechanism is province-specific, and none of them work by simple agreement. British Columbia releases holdback per subcontract once that subcontract has its own certificate of completion. Ontario has moved from optional to mandatory annual release since 1 January 2026. Alberta allows phased release, but only on large, long-duration projects under its own statutory conditions.
Under BC's Builders Lien Act, s.9(1), “a contractor is entitled to receive, from the holdback retained by the owner from the contractor, an amount equal to the holdback amount applicable to a subcontract if (a) a certificate of completion has been issued in respect of the subcontract … and (b) the holdback period established under section 8(1) has expired without any claims of lien being filed.” Section 8's holdback period is 55 days from that certificate. So a large multi-subcontract project can release holdback subcontract by subcontract as each one wraps, rather than waiting for the whole project to finish.
ODACC confirms that further amendments to the Construction Act took effect on 1 January 2026. Since that date, per treadstonelaw, “accrued holdback must be released annually rather than at the payer's option: the owner publishes a notice in the prescribed form within 14 days after each anniversary of the contract, pays within the window that follows, and the money then flows down the chain within days at each tier.” The 10% retention itself and the 1 January 2026 date are confirmed by the regulator; the specific “14 days” figure is the source's own wording and worth confirming against the current text before relying on it for a filing deadline.
Alberta's rule applies only to bigger, longer jobs. Per the province's guidance under s.24.1 of the Prompt Payment and Construction Lien Act, “projects that have a minimum $10 million contract value and exceed 12 months in duration will be able to utilize new rules that allow for quicker release of holdbacks. Unless the contract allows for progressive or phased releases, holdbacks will be released annually. Phased or progressive holdbacks must be less than one year.” The $10 million figure is Alberta's own guidance wording; the Act itself refers only to “the prescribed amount,” so attribute the number to the regulator, not the statute.
Assuming “phased release” means the parties can simply agree to release early whenever cash is tight. All three of these are statutory pathways with their own trigger — a certificate, a contract anniversary, a $10 million threshold — not a discretionary handshake. See what happens when holdback release goes wrong mid-project and BC's holdback mechanics in more depth.
The other mistake is applying one province's rule to a job in another. BC's per-subcontract mechanism, Ontario's now-mandatory annual clock, and Alberta's large-project carve-out are not interchangeable — see the tax-timing side of holdback for how the accounting treatment differs again.
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