Industries that Require Workplace Injury Insurance Coverage
If your industry appears in the list below, you must register for workplace injury insurance with WCB Nova Scotia.
Important notes
- Mandatory coverage is set in the Workers’ Compensation Act and General Regulations.
- The need to have coverage depends on what you actually do, not just the exact label on the list. If your work is similar to something that's listed—same risks, same kind of tasks—you may still have to register even if your exact industry name isn’t shown.
- This list may not include all who are required to register—it's for information and assistance only.
Where to confirm details
Read the Workers’ Compensation General Regulations ↗️for complete requirements.
Not sure if you’re included?
Get more details on who needs to register for WCB insurance.
List of Occupations Subject to the Act
From Appendix A of the Workers’ Compensation General Regulations, made under Section 184 of the Workers’ Compensation Act.
- Abattoirs, including preparation of meats and manufacturing of
meat products - Agricultural implements manufacturing
- Aircraft manufacturing and assembling, not including aerial testing,
flying or demonstrating - Artificial ice manufacturing
- Automobile assembly and manufacturing
- Aviation and aerial transportation
- Awning and tent manufacturing, sail making and burlap manufacturing
- Axe manufacturing
- Bakeries
- Bakeries and manufacturing of confectionery
- Barytes mining and milling
- Beverage manufacturing and breweries
- Bill posting
- Blacksmith shops
- Boat building, including manufacture of blocks and spars for ships
- Boiler scaling and cleaning
- Boiler making, machine shops, general metal repairs and marine engineering
- Bolt, nut and other metal products manufacturing
- Bookbinding and printing
- Boot and shoe manufacturing
- Box shooks manufacturing and box making
- Brick, tile, pottery, sewer pipe manufacturing
- Bridge building, operation of bridges
- Broadcasting stations
- Building
- Building construction: Carpentry, cellar excavation, concrete, brick or masonry work in connection with building construction, glazing or
installation of plate or leaded glass, lathing, installation of mantels or
grates, paper-hanging, decorating and renovating, plastering, painting,
roofing and building moving - Bus transportation service
- Butter, cheese and other dairy products manufacturing
- Cable or telephone system
- Canneries
- Canning
- Carbonic acid gas manufacturing and manufacturing of dry ice and
bottling and distributing propane gas - Carpet and rug manufacturing
- Catering
- Cement manufacturing
- Chimneys or stacks, elevated water tanks, stand-pipes or
water towers, steeples - Cider manufacturing and syrup and extracts manufacturing and distillery
- Cleaning products manufacturing
- Cleaning and dyeing
- Clothing manufacturing
- Coal mining
- Coal yards, including delivery
- Coffin and casket manufacturing
- Cold storage plants
- Cold storage warehouses
- Condensed milk manufacturing
- Construction
- Construction of electric power plants
- Cooperage stock (assembling) with machinery or handwork
- Cordage manufacturing
- Creosoting timber
- Cutlery manufacturing
- Cutting and selling of Christmas trees
- Dairies
- Decorating
- Departmental and mail order stores
- Distributing fuel oil and installation of heating equipment,
when in conjunction - Dredging
- Drilling
- Drug manufacturing
- Dry docks operation and steel ship building and repairs
- Dyeing and cleaning
- Electric wiring of buildings, installation of electrical systems and fixtures
- Electric light and power plants operation and maintenance, extension of
lines and making service connections - Electric light or power plant or system
- Elevators
- Enamel ware manufacturing
- Engine manufacturing
- Engine and machinery installation and repairs
- Engineering
- Excavation
- Express companies
- Fertilizer manufacturing
- Fish curing and packing, marine products manufacturing,
and canning of lobsters and other shellfish - Fishing, sealing, whaling and dredging
- Foundries
- Fruit evaporating
- Fruit packing, feed mixing and combining
- Furniture manufacturing
- Garages, including motor vehicle repairs and vulcanizing, auto sales and
service, and service stations - General stores
- Geophysical explorations
- Grist mills
- Handling of hides
- Hat and cap manufacturing
- Heating and sanitary engineering
- Highway bridge and overpass construction
- Hotels, restaurants, taverns, lounges, motels and catering
- Ice harvesting, storing and delivery
- Jewellery manufacturing and lens manufacturing
- Junk dealers and junk scrapping
- Landscaping
- Laundries
- Leather goods manufacturing and rubber stamps manufacturing
- Lithographing and engraving
- Lumbering: Logging, woods operations, river driving, rafting, booming, cutting and peeling pulpwood, sawmills, shingle mills, lath mills, rossing plants, excelsior mills, cooperage stock manufacturing with sawmills,
hauling and loading on cars or vessels, as a business or in an industry in
this group, and surveying of lines of timberlands in an industry in
this group; Christmas tree operations and the construction and
repair of dams, camps, sawmills and other buildings - Lumber yards, lumber yards (commercial)
- Machinery and engine installation and repairs
- Manufacture of shipping containers
- Manufacture, sale and distribution of artificial ice
- Manufacturing
- Manufacturing of warm air furnaces
- Manufacturing of concrete products
- Manufacturing television sets, radar and electronic instruments
- Marine railway and dry dock operations
- Marine railway operation
- Mattress manufacturing
- Milk dealers and ice cream manufacturing, including delivery
- Mining
- Mining not otherwise classified
- Oil refining
- Operation of any railway, tramway, telegraph, cable or telephone system
- Operation of hospitals, nursing homes, homes for the aged,
welfare homes, municipal homes, convalescent homes and veterinary hospitals - Oxygen and dissolved acetylene gas manufacturing
- Packing houses
- Paint manufacturing
- Painting
- Peat processing
- Plaster milling
- Plastics manufacture, manufacture of hardboard
- Plumbing, including house connections, and heating
- Printing
- Prospecting and development of mining properties
- Prospecting, development and geophysical explorations, boring or sinking artesian wells as a business, diamond drilling
- Pulp and paper mill
- Pulp manufacturing
- Quarrying
- Rafting of lumber
- Railroad car manufacturing
- Railroad construction
- Railroad operation
- Refrigeration
- Renovating
- Restaurants
- Retail stores and establishments
- Riverdriving
- Road and street making and paving
- Road construction and repairs
- Rock wool manufacturing
- Rolling mills
- Salt mining
- Salt processing and refining
- Sand, clay and gravel digging
- Scavenging
- Sealing
- Service stations
- Sewer construction
- Sewers, waterworks, gas works, and any public utility
- Sheet metal works
- Shipbuilding
- Spice mills
- Spring bed manufacturing
- Steam packing and insulation manufacturing
- Steel and iron works
- Stevedoring
- Stone cutting, dressing and polishing
- Stone crushing
- Street cleaning,
- Streets and sidewalks maintenance and construction carried on by municipalities
- Structural steel erection
- Structural steel - iron and metal fabrication
- Sugar refining
- Supermarkets
- Tanks - erection of steel storage tanks when placed on the ground
- Tanning
- Tar manufacturing
- Taverns and lounges
- Teaming
- Telegraph & telephone companies: operation, maintenance, extension of lines, etc.
- Telegraph & telephone companies: office and exchange employees
- Textile manufacturing
- Theatres
- Tinsmith shop and can manufacturing
- Transportation
- Trucking and transportation - automotive
- Warehouses
- Warehouses, not otherwise classified
- Waterworks construction
- Waterworks operation
- Whaling
- Wharf and breakwater construction
- Wholesale stores and establishments
- Window cleaning
- Wooden articles manufacturing not otherwise classified
- Wooden shipbuilding
- Woodworking factories and planning and moulding mills, without rotary saw
- Yeast manufacturing