Coyote Hunting Quebec, Laws, Regulations, Season, & License Info

Classification and licence

What is the classification of coyotes in Québec?

Small game. Québec prints a list of the small game species that may be hunted, and the coyote is on it — between the common grackle and the crossed fox, alongside the wolf, the red fox, the raccoon and the woodchuck.¹

That single fact carries most of this page, and it points the opposite way from the western United States. In Nevada, Idaho and Montana the useful discovery is that a coyote sits outside the category a restriction names. In Québec it sits inside the main one, so the general rules on hours, orange, roads and gear all reach it. As in British Columbia, do not carry the American instinct north.

Is a hunting licence required to hunt coyotes in Québec?

Yes — a small game hunting licence, and nothing else. There is no coyote tag, no draw and no species licence.

• Small game including snare — $24.65, residents only
• Hunter's certificate — required of residents, for the weapon used

Licences run the wildlife year, 1 April to 31 March, and the fee includes tax and the contribution to the Fondation de la faune du Québec.²

The price above is the resident price. A non-resident pays roughly four and a half times as much and buys a different licence — see what a non-resident needs.

Season, and which ground you are standing on

What is the season for coyote hunting in Québec?

Québec is the tightest coyote season in Canada, and there is no year-round ground anywhere in the province. Coyote and wolf share one table, and it is written by zone:³

Two things fall out of that table that a skim will miss.

The zones that are not listed have no open season at all. The heading is “zone where hunting is permitted,” so zone 17, zone 19 North, zone 20 — Anticosti Island — and zones 22 to 25 in the far north are simply not coyote ground. Compare the woodchuck immediately below it, which is open all year in the same zones. The dates on the coyote row are a decision, not an oversight.

Zones 19 South and 29 get an extra fortnight, to 15 April rather than 31 March. That is the eastern edge of the province, and it is the highest-density coyote country in Québec.

Does the general season apply everywhere?

No, and this is the trap on this page. A wildlife reserve — a réserve faunique — writes its own coyote season, and it is nothing like the zone season. Four examples from the 2026 book:

Port-Daniel’s coyote season is two weeks long, and it opens and closes before the general zone season has started.⁴ Every one of these is also marked “reserved for participants in a quota hunt” — you need a right of access naming the dates and sector, and you report your kills when you leave.⁵

The same logic applies to ZECs, which can close small game hunting in a sector during the moose season, and to outfitters with exclusive rights, where you need the outfitter’s permission to be there at all.⁵

So the question in Québec is never just “what zone am I in”. It is what zone, and what kind of territory — free public land, ZEC, wildlife reserve or outfitter — because the second answer can be shorter than the first by four months.

What is the bag limit for coyotes in Québec?

None. The small game bag limits name grouse, partridge, ptarmigan, hares and cottontails; everything else is covered by one line: “Other species: no bag limit or possession limit.”⁶ Coyote is in “other species.”

That is the one place Québec is more generous than Manitoba, which caps a hunter at a single coyote a year.

Non-residents

Can a non-resident hunt coyotes in Québec?

Yes, unguided, with one licence and no hunter’s certificate. For an American, Québec is one of the two or three easiest doors into Canadian coyote hunting.

“If you are a non-resident, you are not required to have a hunter’s certificate in order to obtain a hunting licence. You may hunt game species with a firearm, crossbow or bow.”⁷

And on species: “You may hunt species considered to be small game. However, you cannot obtain a licence to hunt frogs or a licence to snare hares and Eastern cottontail rabbits.”⁸ Coyote is small game and is not one of the two exclusions.

• Small game (no snare) — $114.71, the non-resident licence
• No hunter's certificate — the resident prerequisite does not apply to you
• Minimum age 12 at purchase, with an accompaniment rule under 18

That $114.71 is the whole provincial cost of a Québec coyote hunt.² There is no guide requirement, no hunter-host scheme and no big game licence prerequisite — a sharp contrast with Alberta and Manitoba, where a visiting American needs a guide or a host, and with Saskatchewan, where every route in is written for residents.

Three conditions do apply, and two of them cost money:

North of the 52nd parallel you need an outfitter. “If you wish to hunt north of the 52nd parallel or east of Rivière Saint-Augustin in zone 19 south, you must use the services of an outfitter, although the services in question need not necessarily include lodging.”⁷ Zone 19 South is coyote country and part of it is behind that line, so read it before booking the eastern trip.

A restricted-access sector of a wildlife reserve is residents-only. “To hunt an animal other than a black bear in a restricted access sector of a wildlife reserve, you must be a resident and have been selected in a random draw.”⁵ A non-resident can still reserve a place left over after the draw, and can accompany someone who was drawn — but cannot enter the draw.

The season is short and it is the same season a resident gets. There is no year-round option to fall back on. Book inside the dates in the table above.

The federal side — the firearm declaration at the border, the fee, and what a past conviction does — is on the Canada regulations index.

Night, lights and optics

Can you hunt coyotes at night in Québec?

No. The hours rule is written for every species, and coyote is not one of the exceptions:

“Hunting of all species (except those listed below) is permitted from half an hour before sunrise to half an hour after sunset.”⁹

The listed exceptions are wild turkey, snaring hares and cottontails, frogs, and raccoon with dogs in zones 4 to 8. That last one is a genuine night hunt with a light attached to it, and it is the one people try to stretch. It cannot be stretched: it names the raccoon, it names five zones, and it requires dogs and a .22 rimfire. Shooting a coyote under it would be hunting a species out of hours. Night hunting is not part of the Québec picture.

Can you use night vision or thermal in Québec?

No — and this is the strongest optics rule in the series so far, because it is not a night rule. Night vision and thermal appear in the general list of prohibited gear, under “It is prohibited to hunt”:

“A night vision or thermal imaging device.”¹⁰

One line, no qualifier, no species, no time of day. A thermal scanner is unlawful for hunting in Québec at two in the afternoon. British Columbia makes possessing infrared optics on a hunting expedition the offence; Québec makes hunting with the device the offence and does not bound it to darkness at all.

The same list bans one thing an American hunter will not expect: a phone tied to a live camera at the hunting site.

“Using a means or device (electronic or otherwise) to identify, detect or indicate to the hunter the immediate presence of an animal when the hunter is at the hunting site with the intent to hunt. Thus, smartphones connected to a camera-based surveillance system (including a drone) operating at the hunting site are not permitted when the hunter is present at the site, watching for game and possessing a weapon.”¹⁰

A cellular trail camera pushing you a live picture while you sit is inside that sentence. An earpiece that amplifies what you can already hear is expressly outside it.

Can you use artificial lights?

There is no lawful night hunt for a coyote for a light to serve. The night prohibitions are written around big game — spotting big game with a light, reflector, night vision or thermal, and the presumption that a person carrying a light and a firearm where big game lives is hunting at night — but the hours rule closes the coyote question before the light question arises.⁹

Firearms

What firearms are allowed for coyote hunting in Québec?

Everything, and this is the cleanest scoping win on the page — because the coyote has its own weapons table.

Québec splits small game into two lists. The first covers most of it and is severely limited: rifles only “with rimfire cartridges,” shotguns only with shot 5.6 mm or smaller. The coyote is expressly carved out of that list — “Petit gibier (sauf : coyote, loup, marmotte, renard argenté, croisé ou roux, raton laveur, oiseaux migrateurs)” — and gets its own row:¹¹

Read the air rifle row twice. It is the inversion that catches people: an air rifle is a lawful small game weapon in Québec — .177 or larger, 500 fps and up — and it is lawful on a ruffed grouse and a snowshoe hare. It is not lawful on a coyote. The centrefire rifle runs the other way: barred for most small game, permitted without limit for this one.

So there is no calibre floor, no calibre ceiling and no magazine limit for a Québec coyote beyond federal firearms law, which caps most centrefire semi-automatic magazines at five rounds. Compare Ontario, which sets a maximum of .275 calibre across twenty-one southern counties. Québec sets nothing. What to carry is your decision, not the province’s.

Can you use a .22 LR on a coyote in Québec?

Yes. “Rifles — all” includes rimfire. It is legal; whether it is enough gun is a separate argument.

Are suppressors allowed?

No. Suppressors are prohibited devices under Canada’s Criminal Code, everywhere in the country. No provincial licence changes it, and the answer is the same on all thirteen Canadian pages.

Are there ammunition restrictions?

Two, both in the general prohibited list rather than in the coyote row: tracer bullets and hard-point military-type bullets with non-flattening tips.¹⁰ Non-toxic shot rules are written for migratory birds and do not reach a coyote.

Calls, bait and dogs

Are electronic calls allowed for coyote hunting in Québec?

Yes, and Québec is the only province in this series that says so affirmatively rather than by exception.

“Electronic devices such as earphones or a headset that amplify sounds to make them easier to hear are authorized for hunting, as are electronic devices to call an animal.”¹²

That sits under the heading Authorized gear, not under an exemption to a ban. The only recorded-call prohibition anywhere in the book is for bird calls when hunting migratory birds, snow geese excepted.

That makes six provinces and six different mechanisms reaching the same answer. British Columbia names the coyote as an exception to a general ban. Alberta names it and lists the permitted sounds. Saskatchewan scopes the ban to waterfowl. Manitoba scopes it to big game, which a coyote is not. Ontario scopes it to wild turkey. Québec simply authorizes the device. Six rulebooks, six routes, one answer — and not one of them is obvious from the first clause you land on. See the best coyote call for what to run.

Are decoys allowed?

Yes, with one hard limit: “Using a live animal as a decoy” is prohibited gear.¹⁰ An inanimate decoy is not addressed and is not restricted.

Is baiting allowed for coyote hunting in Québec?

Québec does not legislate bait for coyote, in either direction. Every baiting rule in the book is scoped to a named species: white-tailed deer bait is permitted 1 September to 30 November, black bear bait has its own periods, and wild turkey baiting is prohibited outright. None of that framework mentions the coyote.

Do not read that silence as permission — it means the question has not been answered, not that the answer is yes. If you intend to bait, ring the regional wildlife office and get it in writing. Note also the turkey rule reaches sideways: you may not hunt a turkey within 100 metres of any bait, whatever species it was put out for.

Can you use dogs to hunt coyotes in Québec?

Yes. “The use of a dog to hunt small game is permitted,” and the Hunting Regulations “specify that hunting with dogs is only permitted for small game hunting.”¹³ A coyote is small game, so it is inside the permission and the deer, moose and bear prohibition does not touch it.

You must be present throughout and supervise the dog, and a sound communication system or GPS collar between you and your dog is expressly permitted — a useful carve-out, given the ban above on devices that indicate an animal’s presence.¹³

Roads, buildings and land

Where can you legally shoot?

Québec regulates the shot itself in a way no US state on this site does, and small game — so the coyote — gets its own tier.

In zones 3 to 11, 15 East, 26 East and parts of zones 1, 2 East, 27 and 28, it is forbidden to shoot an animal from a public road, from a 10-metre strip beyond either shoulder, or toward or across such a road. There is a small game exemption from that ban — but it only covers shot smaller than 5.6 mm, small muzzle-loading projectiles, and bows and crossbows.¹⁴ A centrefire rifle never qualifies for it. In those zones a coyote rifle stays off the road entirely.

And a third prohibition applies to small game in most of the same zones:

“Neither the hunter nor the small game animal must be less than 100 metres from a building intended to house people, shelter animals or store items.”¹⁴

Read the subject of that sentence. The animal’s position matters as much as yours — a coyote standing 80 metres from a barn is out of bounds even if you are half a kilometre back. No US page on this site carries a rule written that way.

Can you shoot coyotes on private property?

You need the landowner’s permission, and in five regions the province enforces it directly:

“Anyone who hunts on these landowners’ private property without permission will be prosecuted directly by the government.”¹⁵

That covers land under a hunting access agreement in Bas-Saint-Laurent, Centre-du-Québec, Chaudière-Appalaches, Estrie and Montérégie — which is, not coincidentally, the farm country where the coyotes are.

What if a coyote is killing livestock?

That is not hunting, and it is not on your licence. Section 67 of the Act respecting the conservation and development of wildlife lets a person, or someone helping them, capture, move or kill an animal that attacks them or damages property in their care when they cannot scare it off or stop the damage — and section 35 says an animal killed under section 67 was not hunted, so no season and no licence apply.¹⁶

Two obligations come attached, and both are easy to miss. Section 68 requires you, without delay, to declare a wounded or dead animal to a wildlife protection officer and hand it over if the officer demands it. And the coyote is on the province’s reportable list by name — “Coyote and hybrids” — alongside the cougar, the lynx and the wolf.¹⁷ SOS Braconnage takes the call on 1 800 463-2191.

The province states the licence position plainly for a nuisance animal you have caught and cannot otherwise deter: you may release it on the spot outside a building, or kill it as a last resort — “aucun permis n’est requis dans ce contexte, et cela peut être fait en dehors des périodes de chasse et de piégeage.” No permit is needed, and it may be done outside the hunting and trapping seasons.¹⁸ That is a damage remedy, not a season extension.

Can you catch a coyote and release it somewhere else?

Not in a large part of southern Québec. Around every known case of raccoon rabies, in Estrie and Montérégie, it is prohibited to move or relocate live raccoons, striped skunks, grey and red foxes, and coyotes and their hybrids — and rehabilitating an illegally moved animal is prohibited too.¹⁹

That is a disease-control boundary rather than a wildlife one, and it covers exactly the farm country where the coyote pressure is. The list of municipalities is published as a separate PDF, so check it rather than assuming.

Is it legal to destroy a den?

No, and this one has no US analogue on the site. Section 26 of the Act: no person may disturb, destroy or damage a beaver dam, or the eggs, nest or den of an animal. The only way out is the property-damage exception above — you may breach it if you cannot otherwise stop an animal damaging property in your care.²⁰

Denning a litter of pups in April is a standard predator-control tactic in much of the United States. In Québec it is an offence unless it is genuine, documented damage control.

Is it legal to trap or snare coyotes?

Not on a hunting licence. “Using traps or snares” is prohibited gear for hunting, with an express exception only for hares and cottontail rabbits.¹⁰ Trapping a coyote is a separate regime with its own licence, its own fur management units and its own dates — the province runs about 7,500 trapping permits a year — and it is not something a small game licence buys.

Poison is prohibited outright: “Using a poison, an explosive, a toxic substance or an electrical discharge.”¹⁰

Can you hunt from a vehicle?

No. It is prohibited to pursue, wound or deliberately kill an animal using a vehicle, aircraft or motorized boat; to use an aircraft to locate or drive animals; or to be aboard a vehicle with a chambered round or a cocked crossbow.¹⁰ At night, an unloaded firearm in a vehicle must be in a closed case or in the trunk.

After the shot

Do you have to wear blaze orange?

Yes — and then, from 1 December, no. Québec requires 2,580 cm² (400 square inches) of solid fluorescent orange, visible from every angle, across the back, shoulders and chest, and you must keep it visible even wearing a pack. Everyone with you wears it too.

Then comes the exception:

“when hunting coyotes, wolves and foxes (silver, patched or red) from December 1 to March 31.”²¹

So the orange requirement covers the first six weeks of the coyote season and lifts for the remaining four months. That is the inverse of what most hunters assume — the rule relaxes as the season goes on, because by December the overlapping big game seasons are done.

Can you sell a coyote pelt?

Yes. “Resident hunters do not need a dealer’s licence or a tanner’s licence to sell or tan furs that are the product of their own hunting activities.”²² Possession, purchase, sale and transport of animal parts generally — skin, bones, antlers — is permitted.

Can you take a pelt back to the United States?

Yes, and Québec makes it unusually easy.

“As a non-resident, you do not need a dealer’s licence or a tanner’s licence or an export form to export raw fur that is the product of your own hunting. However, if you sell or tan a pelt in Québec, you must obtain a licence from a regional wildlife management office.”²³

Note the split: exporting your own raw fur is free of paperwork; selling or tanning it inside Québec is not.

And note which animal needs the federal permit. The booklet lists the black bear and the wolf as CITES species requiring an export permit. The coyote is not CITES-listed — even though Québec regulates it on the same season table as the wolf.²³ Two animals, one table, one of them needs a federal permit at the border and the other does not. If you cannot tell them apart in the truck, you have a bigger problem than paperwork.

Is there a coyote bounty in Québec, and are contests legal?

There is no bounty. Québec pays nothing for a coyote, and the province’s published answer to a coyote problem is a three-step ladder rather than a price per animal:¹⁸

Act progressively. First, prevention, before any damage appears. Then, as a complement, hunting or trapping to reduce the number of coyotes on the periphery while making use of the species. Finally, as a last resort, if those approaches have not produced the expected result and damage is still occurring, an owner may adopt targeted control methods aimed at the offending coyotes.

The prevention half is written for farmers and is specific: stock in the barn at night, lit pens, lambing indoors, shifting breeding so births fall between September and late spring when attacks are least frequent, keeping stock off pasture next to the treeline, guardian dogs, protective collars, electric fence, and getting dead stock off the ground so coyotes never learn the yard is a food source.¹⁸

Contests are neither authorized nor banned. No contest provision appears anywhere in the 2026–2028 book. That is the same posture as Alberta and Saskatchewan, and the opposite of the Northeastern states across the border — Vermont, Massachusetts and New York all restrict or ban them.

If someone offers you money for a coyote in Québec, it is a local arrangement, not a provincial programme. Predator control here is coordinated regionally, so any payment would come from an MRC or a producers’ group and would not be published in the provincial rules. Ask the MRC directly before you count on it — and note that whatever you are paid for, the reporting duty still applies.

Coyotes in Québec

Are there coyotes in Québec, and where?

Yes, and the province publishes a real species account rather than leaving you to infer it — the only other Canadian jurisdiction on this site that does is British Columbia.

The coyote occupies southern Québec and is still moving north, now past the 50th parallel.²⁴ The densities follow the river:

Coyote yields are highest south of the St. Lawrence, where the animal lives without its main competitor, the grey wolf. North of the river its preferred open and agroforestry habitat is scarcer, it overlaps with wolves everywhere, and it arrived more recently — so densities are lower.²⁵

Trappers’ own abundance notes match that exactly: common in the southern maple-forest zone, split between rare and common in the transitional fir zone, and mostly absent in the northern spruce zone.²⁵ That is the same picture the season table draws — a season in the south and centre, nothing at all in the far north.

Harvest sits around 5,000 to 7,000 pelts a year, down from the 2019 peak after the North American Fur Auctions house closed and prices fell. Every monitoring indicator — yield, abundance, trend, trapping success — reads stable.²⁵

The province has also been collaring coyotes in the MRC de Rimouski-Neigette since 2021, fitting GPS collars that drop off after a year, to learn how coyotes use agroforestry country.²⁶ That is Bas-Saint-Laurent — the same ground as the extended 15 April season and the quota-hunt reserves.

When is mating season, and when do pups arrive?

Québec’s own figures: mating February to April, gestation 60 to 66 days, pups born in April or May in a den, five to six per litter. They are blind for 12 to 16 days, eat regurgitated food from about week three, wean at five to seven weeks, and reach adult size at a year — though sexual maturity comes at about two.²⁴

Set against the season, that is tidy: the general season closes 31 March, before the pups are born. The 15 April closing in zones 19 South and 29 runs into the front edge of whelping. When to hunt covers how the calendar changes what works.

Are Québec coyotes dangerous?

An adult is 9 to 23 kg and 114 to 141 cm long — a mid-sized animal that eats voles, mice, woodchucks, porcupines, hares and carrion, and occasionally livestock and poultry.²⁴ It is mostly solitary, most active at dawn and dusk, and adapts to towns readily.

The health note is the practical one: Québec’s coyotes carry rabies, mange, canine distemper and echinococcosis.²⁴ Echinococcosis is the one worth respecting — it is a tapeworm transmissible to people. Gloves on when you skin one.