I think you have more than one problem here.

First, 1.64% was the employee EI rate for 2025.  The 2026 rate is 1.63%.  You need to check that you're using Sage 2026.1 as that is the one with the correct tax tables for paycheques dated in 2026.

Second, you are making a really common mistake when dealing with EI.  You are confusing the employee's EI rate and the employer's EI factor for that employee.

- Employee's EI rate = the amount that will be deducted from the employee's paycheque = set by the federal government each year, cannot be changed.  It will be 1.63% for all employees in Canada for all of 2026.

- Employer's EI factor = how the employer's EI 'matching payment' is calculated.  For almost all employers, the 'matching payment' is 1.4x the employee's amount.  This means that if the employee has $100 deducted from their paycheque, the employer will have a 'matching' payment of $140, making the amount owing to the Receiver General because of this employee $240.  However, in some cases and for some employees, it's possible to reduce the $140 'matching' payment.  An example would be if you offer a good short-term disability plan so your employees won't need to use EI sickness benefits - if you register the plan with the government, you'll get a note back saying 'your matching payments for employees on the plan can be reduced to (say) 1.2x'.

So, what you need to do next:

1. Make sure you're using the right version of Sage.

2. Unless you have registered your benefit plan with the government and gotten a 'reduced EI factor' letter back, make sure that the EI factor for all of your employees is set to 1.4.

Thank you so much for responding.  I did check for any updates and my Sage is up to date.  However, when I go into that window Setup/Settings/Payroll/Taxes it does say 6.4 under "EI factor for new employees" and everytime I add a new employee it puts that amount in under the employee detail as well.  All of my other employees who are populating correctly have 1.4 under their employee detail.

Yes, this is exactly what was wrong.  Thank you so much for your help!!

Hi LovedCreation23 , if the above suggested answer helped, please do mark it as verified  (by clicking the "…" button next to Reply, on the response) for the benefit of others in this forum . Thank you!