Canada Study Permit: Requirements and Rules for 2026

What a study permit is and what it is not

A study permit is the document that allows a foreign national to study at a designated learning institution in Canada. It is not a work permit, it is not a visa, and it does not make you eligible to stay permanently. It is a time-limited authorisation to attend a specific school under specific conditions, and it is the document that unlocks the post-graduation work permit at the end of your programme.

The permit normally covers the length of your programme plus an extra 90 days, and it stops being valid 90 days after your school confirms that you completed the programme, whatever date is printed on the card. That single rule explains most of the confusion students have about their own expiry date, and it is the reason institutions are careful about the date they send the confirmation of completion letter.

A study permit also carries conditions, and they are enforceable. You must be enrolled at a designated learning institution, you must be actively pursuing your studies by being enrolled full-time or part-time in every academic semester, excluding scheduled breaks, and you must be making progress toward completing your courses. You may take an authorised leave of no more than 150 days. You have to apply to extend your permit if you want to change school, and you have to end your studies and leave Canada when the permit expires. IRCC may check at any time, and proof can be demanded.

Who can get a study permit

Eligibility has five parts and each one has to be evidenced.

• An offer of admission from a designated learning institution, confirmed by a letter of acceptance. If the school cannot verify the letter, the application is returned and the fee refunded, so this is a school problem as much as an applicant problem.
• A provincial or territorial letter of approval, or a provincial letter of approval and a territorial letter of approval, or a Quebec acceptance certificate, depending on the programme. These are usually required before you can apply, and the letter of approval normally requires you to accept the offer and pay tuition in part or in full.
• Proof of identity, meaning the information page of your passport and two recent passport-size photos with your name and date of birth written on the back.
• Proof of financial support, which is covered in full in a separate section of this guide and is one of the most common reasons applications are refused.
• A letter of explanation, which is not mandatory but which is worth writing, because it is where you explain your study plan, your career goals and why you chose this programme.

Health and character are also tested. Depending on where you have lived and how long you are staying, you may need a medical examination, and you may need a police certificate. If you are travelling with children under 17, you need to show that you have arranged care for them. The medical examination applies in three situations: staying more than six months, having recently lived in certain countries, and taking a job in a regulated field.

Proof of financial support

You must show that you can pay your tuition, your living expenses and your return transportation without working in Canada. The requirement covers you and every family member who is coming with you, and it has to be shown for the first year of your programme. If your programme is longer than a year, you also have to explain how you will pay for the full duration.

The amounts were increased for applications made on or after September 1, 2026, and the table below shows both the current amounts and the amounts that applied for applications from January 1, 2025 to August 31, 2026, because applications filed in the earlier window are still being assessed against those figures.

These amounts exclude tuition and transportation, and they are the same in every province and territory except Quebec, where you must meet the cost requirements set by the ministry responsible for immigration and francisation. The figures are the annual living cost you must demonstrate for yourself and each accompanying family member, and they are the number most applications are measured against.

The evidence can come from several places, and this is where most refused files lose their money. Acceptable proof includes receipts for paid first-year tuition and housing, a student or education loan approval, a scholarship or funding letter for a government-funded programme, recent pay stubs, a sponsor letter that sets out the sponsor's employment, the relationship to you, the dependants being supported and the amount, plus identification and business registration, and bank statements covering the past six months including the month you applied or the month before. If your country has foreign exchange controls, you also have to show that you are allowed to export the funds.

How to apply, step by step

The application is online, in the IRCC secure account, and the steps are the same shape as every other Canadian immigration application.

1. Create or sign in to your IRCC secure account and start the study permit application.
2. Complete the application form in the account, which asks for your passport details, your programme, your school and your family situation.
3. Upload the documents against the personalised checklist: letter of acceptance, approval letter, passport page, photos, proof of funds, letter of explanation, medical examination, police certificate and care arrangements for children, as applicable.
4. Pay the fee. A study permit costs C$150 per person, including extensions, and biometrics cost C$85 for an individual or C$170 for a family of two or more.
5. Submit the complete application, then give biometrics when the instruction letter arrives and book the appointment within the window given.
6. Attend the medical examination if one is required, and attend an interview if IRCC asks for one. Interviews are not standard for study permit applications, but they do happen, and refusing one is a serious problem.

After the application is submitted, you will see the checklist, the document requests and the status in your account, and you should check it regularly. A file that goes quiet is usually a file with an unanswered document request, and an unanswered request is the most common reason a study permit application takes longer than the published processing time.

Working while you study

A full-time student holding a valid study permit can work on campus without any additional authorisation. That is the simplest rule in this area and it is often the only one people need. Off-campus work requires an open work permit, and the common routes to it are the post-graduation work permit, a spouse or common-law partner route, and the International Experience Canada Working Holiday category, which allows study and work simultaneously in participating countries.

The hours rule matters. Under the rules that have applied since the pandemic rules were restored, a student working off campus on an open work permit can work up to 24 hours a week during classes, and full time during scheduled breaks such as the winter break, the summer break and the week before a scheduled final exam. A student on a full-time programme who is not working off campus is limited to on-campus work, and the limits are in your permit conditions rather than in general law.

Your school also matters to this. A co-op or internship placement that is a required part of the programme is governed by the co-op work rules rather than by the off-campus rules, and in some cases the placement is treated as work performed on campus. A student who is part of a co-op programme is also not eligible for a spousal open work permit while the co-op is running, which is one of the less obvious rules in the system.

There is a fourth option worth knowing about. Some students are eligible for an open work permit based on being in crisis, being a victim of workplace abuse, or having a specific immigration history, and those routes exist independently of the programme. They are worth a conversation with a licensed immigration representative if your situation has changed mid-study.

Fees and processing times

The study permit fee is C$150 per person, including extensions, and restoring your status as a student is C$396.25, which is made up of a C$246.25 restoration charge and the C$150 permit fee. Biometrics are C$85 for an individual and C$170 for a family of two or more. A change of conditions document check or replacement document is C$30.

The published processing times are work permit processing times by country of application, and they are worth planning around. An application filed from inside Canada is about 16 weeks, from the United States 6 weeks, from the United Kingdom 4 weeks, from China 5 weeks, from the Philippines 9 weeks and from India 10 weeks. A study permit extension is currently 56 days on the non-country dataset and 8 weeks on the by-week dataset, with about 27,800 people waiting.

The length of the application is not the same as the length of the wait, and both matter. The document checklist for a study permit is long, especially where a medical examination and a police certificate are involved, and the medical appointment in particular can add weeks that have nothing to do with IRCC's queue.

Why study permits get refused, and how to avoid it

The refusal reasons cluster into four groups, and three of them are documentation problems.

• Insufficient or unverifiable proof of funds. This is the most common reason by a wide margin, and it is usually a mismatch between the bank statements and the required amount rather than a lack of money.
• A missing or unverified letter of acceptance, or a study permit application for a school that cannot confirm the student, which returns the file and refunds the fee.
• Missing approval documents, most often where a provincial or territorial letter of approval is required and the applicant has not obtained one yet.
• A credible assessment or admissibility concern, which is where a criminal record, a medical condition or a story that does not line up with the documents becomes decisive.

Two avoidable errors account for a large share of the rest. The first is timing the medical examination late: if you are required to complete an upfront medical examination, it has to be valid on the day you arrive, and a long wait for an appointment is a common reason applicants cannot travel on the date they planned. The second is leaving the proof of funds to the last week, because banks issue statements on their own schedule and a statement that does not cover the required period is treated as no evidence at all.

A third habit protects the file after it is approved. Keep your enrolment and your academic records current, because the permit conditions require you to be enrolled and making progress, and IRCC can ask for proof. A student who fails a course, drops below full-time enrolment or stops attending without telling the school creates a condition problem that can end the permit.

Extending your study permit

If your permit expires before your programme finishes, you apply to extend it. The extension is filed online through the IRCC secure account on form IMM 5709, and the school has to send a letter of acceptance or a letter of enrolment as part of the file. Applying at least 30 days before expiry is the recommendation, and IRCC's own help centre says to apply at least 30 days before the expiry date.

If you are changing school or level, the position is tighter. Since January 22, 2025, a new provincial or territorial letter of approval is required when you change your school or your level of study, unless an exception applies. A school that has lost its designated status lets you extend to finish the programme you are already in but not to start a new one, and the same is true for a suspended school. In eligible change-of-school situations you are allowed to begin studying at the new school as soon as you have applied.

If your permit has already expired, you are not extending it, you are restoring your status, and the published fee for restoring student status is C$396.25. IRCC sets the rules for how long after expiry a restoration can be requested, and those rules are separate from the extension route, so it is worth checking them for your own case before assuming you have a two-week window.

The programme checks that decide the file

Before the documents come the programme, and three things about it have to be true for the application to be worth filing.

1. The school must be a designated learning institution, and the programme you are applying to must appear on the current designated learning institution list. The school has to be able to verify your letter of acceptance, and if it cannot, the application is returned and the fee refunded.
2. You must hold the approval document your programme requires, which is usually a provincial or territorial letter of approval, sometimes both, and a Quebec acceptance certificate in Quebec. These normally require you to have accepted the offer of admission and paid tuition in part or in full, so the order is admission, payment, approval, application.
3. The programme level has to match what you are doing. A certificate, a diploma, a bachelor's, a master's and a doctoral programme are different levels with different rules, and moving between them later requires a new approval letter since January 22, 2025.

The designated learning institution list is published and it changes, and a programme can lose or gain its status, with the practical effect that a school losing its designation lets you finish the programme you are already in but not start a new one. If your school has had a status change, that is a conversation with your international student office before it is a conversation with IRCC.

Arriving in Canada on a study permit

The study permit is issued for entry, and the rules on arrival are specific enough to be worth knowing in advance.

• Your passport has to be valid for the period you are entering, and you need a visitor visa or an electronic travel authorization if your country requires one. A study permit is not a visa and does not replace either.
• You need a letter of introduction or an issued study permit, the letter of acceptance, the approval letter, proof of funds, your passport, and the medical examination confirmation if an upfront examination was required.
• If a medical examination was required, it has to be valid on the day you arrive, and arriving with an expired one is a refusal at the border.
• You must tell the border officer that you are a student, give your school and programme, and expect to be asked for the school address and the programme details, which is why the letter of acceptance should be in your travel documents rather than in your email.

On arrival you will be given the documentation that supports your study permit claim: a study permit document if one was issued, and a record of your status. Keep both, because they are what you present when you apply for a work permit, a post-graduation work permit or a study permit extension, and they are what you show an employer or a border officer if your circumstances change.

Can you change schools on a study permit?

Yes, but not by simply enrolling somewhere else. Since January 22, 2025 a new provincial or territorial letter of approval is required when you change your school or your level of study, unless an exception applies, and that approval is the document that makes the change possible rather than the enrolment itself.

The mechanics are that you obtain the approval first, and in eligible change-of-school situations you may begin studying at the new institution once you have applied. A student who transfers without the approval is enrolled somewhere the permit does not cover, which is a condition problem rather than an administrative one.

Two institutional cases differ. If your school has lost its designated status, you can extend your permit to finish the programme you are already in but cannot start a new one, and the same applies to a suspended school. In both cases the priority is completing what you started.

What should the letter of explanation actually say?

The letter of explanation is optional on the document list and decisive in practice. It is the only place in the file where you explain why this programme, at this school, at this point in your career, and how you will pay for the years after the first one. An officer reads it to understand the logic of the application, and a file with strong documents and no explanation invites the officer to draw their own conclusions.

A useful structure is four short paragraphs, in this order: what you are studying and why this specific programme fits your background; what you will do after you graduate and how the programme connects to that; how the costs will be met for the first year and for the remaining years; and why you will leave Canada at the end of your authorised stay. The last point is not a formality: the study permit is a temporary document, and the assessment includes whether the plan is consistent with temporary residence.

Two habits make the difference between a letter that helps and one that hurts. Keep it factual and cross-referenced to the documents, so that the tuition receipt, the sponsor letter and the bank statements say what the letter says. And keep it short: two pages is generous, and a long letter that repeats the form is a letter that gives an officer nothing new to assess.

If a study permit is refused, what actually works?

Three routes exist and they are not interchangeable: reapply with corrected evidence, request a reconsideration of the same decision, or challenge the decision in Federal Court. The right route depends entirely on why the file failed, and choosing the wrong one costs months.

If the refusal is about evidence, reapply. A missing six-month statement history, an unverified letter of acceptance, a sponsor letter with no supporting documents or a funds figure below the published table are all fixable, and a fresh application with the gap closed is the fastest route. You pay the fee again, but the file is assessed on its merits rather than on the earlier record.

If the refusal contains a clear factual error, such as a document that was in the file being recorded as missing, a reconsideration request is the proportionate step, and it is made through the IRCC web form with the evidence attached. If the refusal turns on a legal question rather than a document, the route is judicial review at the Federal Court, which runs on strict deadlines measured in days, so the decision has to be taken immediately with a lawyer rather than after a few weeks of thinking.

What to do next

A workable sequence looks like this.

1. Get your letter of acceptance and confirm with the school that the designated learning institution list shows your programme, because the school must be able to verify the letter.
2. Secure the approval letter you need, which in most cases requires accepting the offer and paying tuition in part or in full.
3. Build your proof of funds against the current table for your family size, and pull six months of bank statements covering the month of application or the month before.
4. Book the medical examination early if you need one, because it must be valid on the day you travel.
5. File the application online, pay the C$150 fee and the biometrics fee, and answer every document request promptly.
6. After approval, check the conditions on the permit, keep your enrolment current, and diarise the 90-day tail after your programme ends as well as the printed expiry date.

If you are applying to extend, or if your programme's designated status has changed, or if your funds are marginal, a short consultation with a licensed immigration representative or a department-authorised representative is usually cheaper than a second application and a second fee.

Frequently Asked Questions