Study Permit Proof of Funds: The Exact Amounts IRCC and Quebec Require in 2026

For nearly two decades, the cost-of-living figure a study permit applicant had to show was a flat $10,000 — unchanged since the early 2000s, and increasingly disconnected from what it actually costs to live in Canada. On January 1, 2024, Ottawa broke that number for the first time, tying it to Statistics Canada's low-income cut-off (LICO) and setting it at $20,635 for a single applicant. On September 1, 2025, it rose again, to $22,895. Quebec, which runs its own separate financial test through the Ministère de l'Immigration, de la Francisation et de l'Intégration (MIFI), moved even further: as of January 1, 2026, a single applicant there must show $24,617. Both figures are scheduled to move again. This is not a one-time increase — it is now an annual recalculation, and getting the number wrong is not a paperwork problem. Section 220 of the Immigration and Refugee Protection Regulations gives officers no discretion once funds are found insufficient: refusal is mandatory.

What the law actually requires

Section 220 of the Immigration and Refugee Protection Regulations (IRPR) states that an officer shall not issue a study permit unless the applicant has sufficient and available financial resources — without working in Canada — to do three things: pay the tuition fees for the program they intend to pursue; maintain themself and any accompanying family members during their studies; and pay the transportation costs to and from Canada for themself and those family members. The phrase "without working in Canada" is doing real work in that sentence. A study permit lets many students work part-time once they arrive, but that future income cannot be counted toward the funds shown at the application stage. The money has to already exist, independent of any job you have not yet been offered.

The current cost-of-living table — rest of Canada

The cost-of-living amount is separate from tuition and travel costs, and it is recalculated every year as StatCan updates the LICO. Applicants outside Quebec who apply on or after September 1, 2025 must show the following, in Canadian dollars, per year, on top of tuition and transportation:

• 1 person (just the applicant): $22,895
• 2 people: $28,502
• 3 people: $35,040
• 4 people: $42,543
• 5 people: $48,252
• 6 people: $54,420
• 7 people: $60,589
• Each additional family member beyond 7: +$6,170

For context, applicants who applied between January 1, 2024 and August 31, 2025 were held to a lower table — $20,635 for a single applicant, rising by roughly $5,000 to $5,600 per additional family member. The rest-of-Canada figure has therefore moved twice in under two years, and gone up by more than 128 percent since the old flat $10,000 rate. There is no indication the annual adjustments will stop; budget for the number to be higher again by the time you apply than it is today.

Quebec runs a separate system, and it just changed

If your destination is a Quebec institution, the cost-of-living table above does not apply to you. Quebec assesses financial capacity independently through MIFI, as part of the Quebec Acceptance Certificate (Certificat d'acceptation du Québec, or CAQ) that every applicant to a Quebec institution must obtain before IRCC will consider the study permit itself. As of January 1, 2026, MIFI's table is:

• 1 person: $24,617
• 2 people: $34,814
• 3 people: $42,638
• 4 people: $49,234
• 5 people: $55,045
• 6 people: $60,299
• Each additional person beyond 6: +$5,254

One detail worth knowing before you budget: Quebec's figure now bundles health and hospitalization insurance for the applicant and any accompanying family members into the single "basic needs" number, along with food, housing (including move-in costs), clothing, local transport and other necessities. Previously, insurance was priced separately on top of the living-cost figure — so the headline jump in the Quebec number partly reflects a change in what it covers, not a pure increase in the cost of living itself. Tuition and the cost of getting to Quebec are still separate, additional line items, exactly as on the federal side.

The practical sequence for Quebec is two stages, not two pools of money. You first demonstrate your financial capacity to MIFI to obtain the CAQ, then demonstrate financial capacity to IRCC for the study permit itself. The same funds can support both applications — you do not need to show the Quebec amount and the federal amount as separate, additive pots of money.

You only have to fund the first year — but you need a credible plan for the rest

This is the detail that saves — and occasionally costs — applicants the most money. Regardless of how long your program runs, you are only required to demonstrate funds for the first year of study. IRCC's own operational guidance to officers spells out exactly how this works with a worked example: a single student entering a four-year degree program in Ontario with annual tuition of $15,000 must show they can cover the first year of tuition — $15,000, not the full $60,000 for all four years — plus one year of living expenses at the applicable table amount, plus travel costs. You are not expected to have four years of costs sitting in an account before you leave.

What you cannot skip is a credible explanation for how you will pay for the remaining years. Officers are instructed to assess "the probability of funding for future years" and whether "the source of funds is clear" — the guidance gives two concrete examples of what satisfies this: a scholarship that runs for more than one year, or parents who are employed and can therefore be expected to keep supporting you. A one-year GIC with no explanation of what happens in year two is a weaker file than the identical GIC accompanied by a letter confirming your sponsor's ongoing employment and income.

What actually counts as proof

IRCC does not require every document on this list — it is a menu of common, accepted proof types, and officers may request more if the file warrants it. The most frequently used documents are:

• A guaranteed investment certificate (GIC) from a participating Canadian financial institution
• Bank statements — Canadian or foreign — covering recent months, showing the balance held over time rather than a single snapshot
• Proof of a student or education loan from a bank
• A bank draft that can be converted to Canadian dollars
• Proof of a Canadian bank account in your own name, if you have already transferred funds to Canada
• Proof you have already paid your first year of tuition and housing — but this alone is not enough; it must be paired with separate proof you can also cover living expenses and travel
• A letter from the person or institution providing the funds — again, this must be paired with that person's or institution's own proof of funds, not submitted alone
• Proof of financial support within Canada, where a scholarship or Canadian-funded program covers your costs
• Documentation tied to a pension or rental income, where relevant

A gap between the public guide and the officer instructions

Here is something most guides to this topic miss, because they only read the page written for applicants. IRCC's public-facing instructions ask for bank statements covering "the past 4 months." The internal operational manual that officers actually use to assess your file asks them to review statements "for the past 6 months, including the month or month prior to when the application was submitted." Those are two different windows describing the same document.

How officers actually assess the money

Meeting the dollar figure is necessary but not sufficient. IRCC's guidance directs officers to assess both the amount and the source of funds, and explicitly authorizes them to request additional banking documentation or broader financial background information "based on the reliability of financial documentation and the facts of the application." Reviewing the history of funds — not just the current balance — is described as necessary to ensure permits go to genuine students capable of supporting themselves for the full program, not just the moment of application. A large, unexplained deposit that appears shortly before you apply invites exactly this kind of closer review; a balance that has been stable and building over months does not.

If your country has foreign exchange controls

Some countries restrict how much currency residents can move abroad. If you are relying on funds subject to those controls, IRCC requires one of three specific documents rather than an ordinary bank statement:

• A letter from a Canadian financial institution confirming that the full funds required for the upcoming academic year are already on deposit in your name
• A bank draft in convertible currency, for an amount equal to the required funds, made payable jointly to your educational institution and to you
• Written assurance from your bank that the funds are on deposit, together with written assurance from your country's foreign exchange control authority that you will be permitted to export an amount adequate for your maintenance costs in Canada

A small number of exemptions exist

A handful of temporary public policies and pilot programs either waive the proof-of-funds requirement outright or apply different amounts — for example, measures to reunite families of Indigenous people separated by the Canada–U.S. border, and the Francophone Minority Communities Student Pilot, which scales its financial requirement to the size of the community the applicant is moving to rather than the national table. These are narrow exceptions tied to specific eligibility criteria, not a general workaround — check whether your circumstances genuinely fall within a named policy before assuming one applies.

If you are refused for insufficient funds

A refusal under section 220 is not automatically the end of the file. If the funds were genuinely in the application and an officer simply failed to locate or credit them — a real and recurring error — a reconsideration request can be the fastest fix, because the corrective evidence is already in the record you submitted. There is also a procedural detail worth knowing: officers cannot cite the general ground in paragraph R216(1)(b) as the sole basis for a financial refusal — it can only be added alongside section 220 itself. If a refusal letter cites R216(1)(b) without also grounding the decision in section 220, that is worth having reviewed. Where the funds genuinely were not sufficient, or the source was not credible, reapplying with a stronger, better-documented financial package is usually the more reliable path than contesting the original decision.

Building the file that holds up

The applicants who sail through this part of the assessment are the ones who treat it as a documentation exercise, not a one-time balance check. Confirm which table applies to you — Quebec or the rest of Canada — using the destination institution's province, not your nationality or where you currently live. Calculate your household size correctly, including any family members who will accompany you, since the per-person jump in both tables is substantial. Add your actual tuition and a realistic travel budget on top of the living-cost figure rather than assuming it is already included. File six months of statements showing stability, not four months showing a balance that appeared just in time. And if your program runs longer than a year, write the explanation for years two onward directly into your application rather than leaving an officer to guess at it.