Everything International Students Need to Know Before Applying to Canadian Universities

Four things about studying in Canada changed between 2024 and now. The federal government capped study permits and split the places between provinces. From 22 January 2024 it added a new document, the provincial attestation letter. In November 2024 it added language and field-of-study conditions to the work permit graduates rely on. And the amount of money you must prove you hold went up again this September.

Every rule below is from the Government of Canada's own pages, and every fee and tuition figure is from the body that publishes it. Where a number is our arithmetic on those figures, it says so.

What it costs

Statistics Canada publishes the average tuition every year, and the gap between what a Canadian pays and what you pay has been widening for a decade. For 2025-26, a Canadian undergraduate pays an average of $7,734. An international undergraduate pays $41,746, which is 5.0 times as much. Ten years ago the multiple was 3.6.

The number that matters more is the one by province, because it moves by a factor of 2.6 for the same degree, the same study permit and the same work rights.

Statistics Canada notes that Ontario has held the most expensive position for the past decade, and puts Newfoundland and Labrador as the most affordable province for 2025-26. The difference between them is $30,935 a year, which on our arithmetic is about $124,000 across four years if the rates held. The study permit, the work rules and the post-graduation work permit are identical in both.

This is worth sitting with before you build your list. Memorial University of Newfoundland and the University of New Brunswick sit in the two cheapest provinces in the country. Toronto, Waterloo, McMaster, Queen's, Western and York are all in the most expensive one.

The study permit

You need a study permit for any program longer than six months, and the permit costs $150. Three things decide whether you get one.

Your school has to be on the list. Only designated learning institutions can host international students, and being on that list is not the same as being eligible for a work permit afterwards. Check both before you accept an offer.

You need a provincial attestation letter. This document did not exist before 22 January 2024. The province or territory issues the PAL or TAL through your school, and it confirms you have been assigned one of that province's capped places. In most cases you have to accept your offer and pay tuition, in part or in full, before your school will issue it. IRCC says to submit it with your study permit application rather than afterwards. Quebec runs its own version, the Certificat d'acceptation du Québec.

You have to prove you hold the money. For applications submitted on or after 1 September 2026, a single student must show $23,448 for the first year of living expenses, and that figure excludes tuition and excludes your flights. You also have to explain how you will pay for the rest of the program, not only year one. Government-accepted proof includes a Canadian bank account in your name, a guaranteed investment certificate from a Canadian bank, six months of bank statements with the source of the money documented, or a scholarship letter.

Add it up for a first year in Ontario and you are proving roughly $73,000. In Newfoundland it is roughly $42,000. That single requirement prices some students out of one province and into another.

How you apply

Three provinces pool their universities into a single application. Everywhere else you apply to each university directly.

• Ontario runs the Ontario Universities' Application Centre. As an international applicant you are a Group B applicant, with its own deadlines and document requirements. The fee is $159 for the base application plus $51 for each additional choice, so three Ontario universities costs $261.
• British Columbia runs EducationPlannerBC, one account covering all 25 of the province's public post-secondary institutions.
• Alberta runs ApplyAlberta, covering all 26 publicly funded institutions in the province, with transcript transfer built in.

Quebec adds its own immigration certificate, the CAQ, on top of whatever the university asks for.

So a Canadian list is assembled from several systems rather than one. There is no single national deadline and no single national form.

Scholarships

Most of the money for international undergraduates in Canada sits in a few named programs, and the two largest are worth understanding in detail.

Lester B. Pearson International Scholarships, University of Toronto

Toronto calls this one of the largest scholarship programs for international students in Canada. The barrier to it is not academic.

It covers tuition, books, incidental fees and full residence for four years. Toronto gives 37 of them a year, to students from 188 countries, and put over $12 million into the program in 2024.

The barrier is the nomination. Your school nominates you, and a school may nominate one student per year. If your school has never participated, it has to apply to join the program before it can nominate anyone. Enkhjin, the first Mongolian to win one, only heard about it from an academic advisor because a student two years above her had connected the school to Toronto's admissions officers. If nobody at your school has done that, the first job is getting your school registered, and that has its own deadline months before yours.

International Scholars Program, University of British Columbia

UBC puts more than $35 million a year into international undergraduate support and has funded over 680 International Scholars since 2001. The program is need-based: you have to document family income, expenses and assets, and show that a UBC degree would be impossible without meaningful help.

UBC also runs two merit awards, both automatic once you apply by the admissions deadline. The International Major Entrance Scholarship is worth $10,000 to $25,000 a year for 2026-27 and renews for up to three further years. The Outstanding International Student Award is worth $10,000 to $25,000 as a one-time entrance scholarship.

The decision to understand is that you cannot have both. Applying to the International Scholars Program removes you from consideration for the merit awards. Read UBC's own comparison before you choose, because for a student with strong grades and moderate need, the automatic merit route can be worth more than an unsuccessful need-based application.

Outside programs like these, check each university's own international award page for what it publishes, and build your list on what you can pay rather than on what you hope to be given.

Working during your degree, and after it

During term you can work 24 hours a week off campus without a separate work permit, and without limit during scheduled breaks. Our comparison of student work rights across 15 countries has the full rule and how Canada ranks against the alternatives.

After graduation comes the post-graduation work permit, and this is where the recent changes get misreported.

A program of two years or more earns a three-year open work permit. Shorter programs earn a permit matching the program length. The permit costs $255 and you must apply within 180 days of finishing, with a study permit that was valid at some point in those 180 days.

Two conditions were added in November 2024, and the difference between them matters:

Language. Bachelor's, master's and doctoral graduates need Canadian Language Benchmarks 7 in all four skills. College and non-degree graduates need CLB 5.

Field of study. This is the one people get wrong. A field-of-study restriction now applies to college programs and to non-degree university programs, limiting them to fields linked to occupations in long-term shortage. There is no field-of-study requirement for bachelor's, master's or doctoral graduates. If you are coming for a degree, you can study what you want and still qualify.

Start your own journey

Canada rewards students who treat the province as a decision rather than a detail. The degree, the permit, the 24 hours a week and the three-year work permit are the same in St. John's as in Toronto. The price is not.

Work out what you can pay, then look at which provinces have universities in that range, then build the list. It is the opposite order from how most students do it, and it is the reason some of them end up funded.

Kai, the Borderless AI college counselor, works out what each Canadian university would cost you, tracks which ones still take applications in your program, and keeps the study permit documents in order. It's free to use.

Start with Kai, and read the stories from students who made it to Canada.