Montreal stores can stay open later starting this month (even on Sundays)

The extended shopping hours Quebec announced last month are almost here.

Starting March 11, 2026, non-food retailers across the province will be able to stay open from 6 a.m. to 9 p.m., seven days a week, under a one-year voluntary pilot project announced by Samuel Poulin, Quebec's minister for the economy and small and medium-sized businesses. That means no more racing to beat the Sunday closing time.

As we reported in February, the change replaces a smaller pilot that had been running since October 2025 in just three cities: Gatineau, Laval, and Saint-Georges, where select retailers were allowed to stay open later on weekends. That project was a success, and has since evolved into a province-wide version that extends the experiment to every municipality in Quebec and pushes the closing window to 9 p.m. daily.

Participation remains voluntary. No retailer is required to adjust their hours, and businesses can decide for themselves whether the extended window makes sense for them.

What's covered and what isn't

The pilot applies to non-food retailers: shops, boutiques, hardware stores, markets, and similar points of sale. Grocery stores and pharmacies aren't part of this, as they already operate under different rules. Businesses that already had exemptions under existing law are also excluded. A separate pilot covering extended hours for erotic boutiques, also launched in October 2025, continues independently.

For context, Quebec remains one of the only places in North America that still legislates store opening hours at all, which is part of why the Legault government is framing this as a meaningful deregulation move.

What happens after the pilot year?

That's still an open question. How long these extended hours stick around after March 2027 will depend on how both businesses and shoppers actually respond over the course of the next year.

In the meantime, though, shoppers can expect less rushing around to beat the clock.