Canada tightens financial checks for study permits

Applicants for Canadian study permits now face tougher financial checks.

The immigration department detailed the stricter assessment process on the government website, in instructions to officers updated on July 24, 2026.

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The updated instructions, “Study permits: Assessing the application,” direct officers to scrutinize the amount(s) and source(s) of applicants’ funding, and state that “in all cases, the source of funds” “must be assessed.”

The updated instructions also specify, without qualification, that “reviewing and verifying” “supplementary individual or family financial and employment documentation may be necessary to ensure that only genuine students capable of supporting themselves for the full duration of their program of studies are granted study permits.”

The previous version of the instructions suggested digging into supplementary documentation only “in some very high-risk environments”—a qualifying phrase that has been deleted in the update.

The most recent update also specifies that officers' discretion to request additional supporting documents is to be exercised based on “the facts of the application,” rather than “based on the known incidence of indigent and non-bona fide applicants,” as had been written in the previous version.

For proof of funds documentation, the updated instructions suggest six months of bank statements, including “the month or month prior” to when the application was submitted, where the previous version of the instructions had listed simply the past four months of bank statements.

The updated instructions also say that in the case of study permit renewals, the amount of funds must be assessed based on the first year following the extension.

There are also two examples of financial documentation for proof of funds which had not been included in the previous version: pension income and income from rental properties.

The example of “a bank draft that can be converted to Canadian dollars,” which appeared in the previous version, has been removed from the list of examples of proof of funds documents.

Required amounts unchanged

The updated instructions have made no changes to the amount of funds required.

Applicants are required to show a fixed amount for a year of financial support, on top of the funds required to pay for tuition and travel to and from Canada.

This amount varies depending on the size of the applicant's family, whether the applicant intends to study outside or within Quebec, and whether the applicant is applying under the standard study permit stream or under a specific initiative such as the Francophone Minority Communities Student Pilot (FMCSP) or an in-force temporary public policy.

The amount is typically increased each year proportionate to increases in the cost of living in Canada.

For a sole applicant with no family members intending to study outside Quebec under the standard study permit stream, the amount is $22,895, as of the time of writing, according to the government's proof of financial support webpage for study permit applicants.

A tighter-run system

The update to the study permit assessment guidance comes in the context of increased scrutiny of Canada’s immigration system, with particular focus on the international student program and the asylum process.

A report published by Canada’s Auditor General on March 23, 2026 found that between 2023 and 2024, the immigration department had flagged “over 153,000 students” for non-compliance “but had funding to investigate only 2,000 cases each year.”

On March 26, 2026, Canada’s federal government passed major reforms to Canadian immigration law, authorizing the Governor in Council to mass terminate applications and mass cancel immigration documents. The reform also introduced two new asylum bans: a ban on claims filed over a year after an applicant's first entry to Canada, and a ban on claims filed by irregular crossers from the Canada-US border.

In June 2026, the immigration department published new instructions to officers for assessing language test results, including additional checks such as cross-referencing photographs.

The number of international students arriving in Canada in 2026 has fallen by 70% relative to 2024, a decrease of 225,335. The compared period runs from January through May, the most recent data available on the government’s temporary resident numbers webpage, as of the time of writing.

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