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Ontario · Provincial Offences Act s.9 · s.69

What happens if you don't pay a speeding ticket in Ontario

An Ontario speeding ticket you neither pay, dispute nor answer within 15 days of being served becomes a conviction, entered by a court clerk in your absence and without a hearing under s.9 of the Provincial Offences Act. The fine is due 15 days after it is imposed and in default 15 days after that, when the Act says a justiceshall order your licence suspended until it is paid. Ignoring the ticket earns you no hearing; it removes every route to reducing it.

No judge or justice of the peace looks at an ignored speeding ticket.Section 9(2) hands the certificate of offence to theclerk of the court, who enters the conviction and imposes the set fine. The demerit points land exactly as if you had paid — and 30 days later the unpaid fine is in default, and the order suspending your licence follows.

Three 15-day clocks run between the ticket and the suspension

The Provincial Offences Act runs three 15-day clocks before an unpaid speeding fine reaches the Registrar: 15 days to respond, 15 to pay once the fine is imposed, and 15 past the due date before default. A fourth 15-day window, to reopen the conviction, runs from the day you become aware of it.

  1. Ticket served Day 0

    Pay the set fine (a guilty plea and conviction), request an early-resolution meeting where offered, request a trial, or — where no meeting is offered — plead guilty before a justice with submissions on penalty, including a lesser fine or time to pay.

    POA s.8, s.5.1, s.5, s.7

  2. No response After 15 full days from service

    Deemed not to dispute. The clerk examines the certificate and, if not defective, convicts you without a hearing: set fine, $10 fixed costs ($5 service, $5 s.9 conviction) and the victim fine surcharge (O. Reg. 161/00 brackets).

    POA s.9(1)(a), s.9(2)(a), s.60.1; Reg. 945 s.1

  3. Notice of fine Notice given after conviction (usually by mail)

    Clerk must notify you of the fine, its due date and your right to seek more time to pay. Due 15 days after imposition.

    POA s.66(5), s.66(1)

  4. Fine unpaid 15 days past due

    The fine is in default.

    POA s.69(1)

  5. Default Once a justice of the peace, or a person designated under the regulations, is satisfied the fine is in default

    A justice shall order the licence suspended until paid; a designated official must direct HTA licence suspension and plate-validation refusal; civil enforcement and collection costs possible.

    POA s.69(2), (3), (5); HTA s.46(3), s.7(12.0.1); POA s.68, s.70.1

  6. Reinstatement When paid

    Fine plus the $281 reinstatement fee — unless another default order or suspension is outstanding, or interest or a penalty under the Highway Traffic Act, or a dishonoured-payment fee, is unpaid.

    HTA s.46(4); ontario.ca

  7. Reopening Within 15 days of learning of the conviction

    Clerk must strike the conviction if, through no fault of yours, you did not receive the notice or could not attend; the ticket is live again.

    POA s.11(1)-(2); OCJ Form 102 / 102.1

Fifteen days of silence is treated as not disputing the charge

Section 9(1)(a) of the Provincial Offences Act deems you not to wish to dispute the charge once at least 15 days have elapsed after service with no trial request, no meeting request and no guilty plea under s.7 or s.8. Section 9(2) then has the clerk examine the certificate of offence and, unless it is defective, enter a conviction "in the defendant's absence and without a hearing" and impose the set fine.

Silence does not raise the set fine — Reg. 945 adds $5 for service and $5 for the s.9 conviction, plus the s.60.1 victim fine surcharge — but it forfeits the early-resolution meeting, disclosure, the trial and a s.7 plea with submissions on penalty — every route by which a speeding fine is reduced. Under s.12(2)(a)(iii) thedemerit pointsattach in full — 3 for 16–29 km/h over, 4 for 30–49 (a charge of 50 km/h or more over carries no set fine, proceeds by summons and is outside the s.9 clerk-conviction route) — for two years from the offence date, with the conviction on your abstract for three.

How an unpaid fine becomes a suspended licence

A speeding fine imposed by the clerk is due 15 days after imposition (s.66(1)), and s.66(5) requires the clerk to give you notice of the fine, its due date and your right to apply for more time under s.66.0.1 (delivery is usually by mail, s.87(1)). Any part still unpaid 15 days after the due date is in default (s.69(1)), and at default the Act stops being optional: s.69(2)(a) says a justice of the peace satisfied the fine is in default shallorder the licence suspended until it is paid, s.69(5) requires a designated official to direct the same suspension for a Highway Traffic Act licence without a justice, and HTA s.46(3) obliges the Registrar to suspend. Nothing in the order sets an end date; it runs until payment, or until an extension of time to pay under s.66.0.1 is approved (how long a suspended licence lastscovers that open-ended period), and reinstatement costs the fine plus a$281 fee, which s.46(4) withholds while any other default order or suspension, interest or a penalty under the Highway Traffic Act, or a dishonoured-payment fee is outstanding.

Why your licence plate gets caught as well

The same default that suspends the licence reaches the vehicle. Section 69(2)(b) and s.69(3) of the Provincial Offences Act, read with HTA s.7(12.0.1), direct that no permit held by the defaulter be validated and none issued until the fine is paid — a licence-plate denial that reaches every permit in your name. (The one-permit-at-a-time limit in HTA s.7(12) applies only to parking, red-light-camera and similar fines under s.7(10)–(11), not to a speeding default.) The fine also starts to behave like a debt: s.68 lets the clerk file it in civil court as a deemed judgment, enforcement costs included; s.70.1 makes a municipality's collection-agency costs part of the fine; and after at least 90 days in default, s.69.1 lets the Ministry of the Attorney General report your name, the amount and the default date to a consumer reporting agency.

The notice goes to the address on your licence, whether you live there or not

Section 87(2) of the Provincial Offences Act presumes that a notice mailed to your last known address on the court's records was delivered — rebuttable, but only by someone who knows to. O. Reg. 340/94 gives a licence holder six days to report an address change, and a driver who moved without doing so usually learns of the whole chain at a roadside stop. That stop is where an unpaid speeding fine becomes a s.53 charge of driving while suspended — $1,000 to $5,000 on a first offence, up to six months in jail, and a further six-month suspension stacked on the one you did not know you had; Ontario has no restricted or work licence for either. Those figures are in force as of September 2026; an enacted amendment, not yet in force (it takes effect on a day named by order of the Lieutenant Governor in Council), will raise the first-offence range to $2,000–$10,000, and thedriving-under-suspension pagecarries the full schedule.

How to undo a conviction you never knew about

A conviction entered without a hearing can be struck out under s.11 of the Provincial Offences Act if you apply within 15 days after becoming aware of it. The clerk must strike it out on your affidavit that, through no fault of your own, you could not attend the meeting or hearing, or did not receive a notice or document relating to the offence. Form 102 or 102.1, filed at the court office on the ticket, revives the ticket if it succeeds; s.9(3) adds a parallel application to a justice where the certificate of offence itself is defective.

Where the conviction stands and the problem is money, s.66.0.1 allows an extension-of-time-to-pay application (Form 125) at any time, which the clerk may grant if it is made in good faith and not to evade payment; an approved extension keeps the fine out of default.

On these files the first filing is the s.11 reopening or the s.66.0.1 extension at the court office named on the ticket, because everything downstream — the default, the suspension, any s.53 charge — hangs on that conviction. Once the conviction is struck, the revivedspeeding ticketis defended on its merits.

Sources:Provincial Offences Act, R.S.O. 1990, c. P.33(ss.5–9, 11, 12, 60.1, 66–70.1, 87);R.R.O. 1990, Reg. 945;O. Reg. 161/00;Highway Traffic Act, R.S.O. 1990, c. H.8(ss.7, 46, 53);O. Reg. 340/94;O. Reg. 339/94;OCJ Guide for Defendants in Provincial Offences Cases; ontario.ca onlicence reinstatementandplate renewals. Figures current as at the last review date; verify against the current Acts before relying on them. Legal information, not legal advice.

Unpaid speeding tickets — common questions

What happens if you ignore a speeding ticket in Ontario?

Ignoring an Ontario speeding ticket produces a conviction, not a hearing. Under s.9 of the Provincial Offences Act, once 15 days have passed since you were served and you have not paid, requested an early-resolution meeting or asked for a trial, you are deemed not to dispute the charge and the court clerk enters a conviction in your absence, without a hearing, imposing the set fine plus $10 in fixed court costs ($5 for service of the notice and $5 for a conviction under s.9, Reg. 945) and the victim fine surcharge under s.60.1. The demerit points and the three-year entry on your driving abstract follow exactly as if you had paid.

How many days do you have to pay a speeding ticket in Ontario?

Three separate 15-day clocks apply. You have 15 days from service to respond to the ticket (s.9(1)(a) of the Provincial Offences Act). Once a fine is imposed, it is due 15 days later (s.66(1)). If any part is still unpaid 15 days after the due date, the fine is in default (s.69(1)) and the court must order your licence suspended until it is paid. Count from the day you were served, and never assume you have more than 15 days to act.

At what point does an unpaid speeding fine suspend your licence?

Once the fine is in default, s.69(2) of the Provincial Offences Act says a justice of the peace shall order the licence suspended until the fine is paid — and for a Highway Traffic Act licence, s.69(5) requires a designated official to direct the suspension without a justice — and s.46(3) of the Highway Traffic Act requires the Registrar to suspend it on receiving that order. The suspension has no fixed length; it ends when the fine is paid, and getting the licence back costs the fine plus a $281 reinstatement fee. The same default also supports an order that no licence plate (permit) be validated or issued to you until the fine is paid, under s.7(12.0.1) of the Highway Traffic Act.

I never received the ticket or the notice of fine — can the conviction be reopened?

A conviction entered without a hearing can be struck out under s.11 of the Provincial Offences Act if you apply within 15 days after becoming aware of it. The clerk must strike it out on affidavit evidence that, through no fault of your own, you did not receive a notice or document relating to the offence, or could not attend the meeting or hearing. The application is made on Form 102 or 102.1 at the court office named on the ticket, and if it succeeds the charge goes back to being a live ticket you can defend.

Does a clerk's conviction under s.9 carry the same demerit points as pleading guilty?

Yes. A conviction entered by the clerk under s.9 is a conviction for every Highway Traffic Act purpose (Provincial Offences Act s.12(2)(a)(iii)), so the demerit points attach — 3 points for 16 to 29 km/h over, 4 for 30 to 49 over — and stay on your record for two years from the offence date, while the conviction itself stays on your driving abstract for three years. Not responding gives up the only routes to reduce or avoid those points.

Can you go to jail for not paying a speeding ticket in Ontario?

Jail is not the routine consequence of an unpaid speeding fine; the routine consequences are the licence suspension, plate denial, civil enforcement and collection costs. The Provincial Offences Act does hold a committal procedure in reserve (s.69(6) to (17)): after other reasonable collection methods have failed or appear unlikely to work, the court clerk can issue a summons (or a justice can issue an arrest warrant) requiring the defaulter to attend a hearing on ability to pay. A warrant of committal may issue only where the justice is not satisfied the person is unable to pay within a reasonable time and is satisfied that jail would not be contrary to the public interest. Where $50 or less is unpaid, the term is three days plus one day. Where more than $50 is unpaid, it is three days plus one day, plus one further day for every full $50 unpaid. For a fine-only offence such as speeding the term is capped at 90 days. A person who genuinely cannot pay is instead given an extension, a payment schedule or, in exceptional circumstances, a reduced or cancelled fine, and none of this applies to a defaulter under 18.

Convicted in your absence, or heading for default

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