Canada Student Grants: Types, Amounts and How They Are Assessed

Canada Student Grants are federal money for college and university that you don’t repay. There is no separate application: you are assessed automatically when you apply for student aid through your province or territory, and any grant you qualify for is counted before loans in your aid package. Students from Quebec, the Northwest Territories and Nunavut don’t receive them, because those governments run their own student aid programs.

This guide covers each grant, its 2026-27 amount and who qualifies. How the grants fit with provincial loans is on the student loans hub.

The grants at a glance

The school year runs from August 1 to July 31. (Sources: canada.ca, grants for full-time students, part-time students, students with dependants, students with disabilities and services and equipment.)

Grant for full-time students

You can qualify if you are a full-time student in a qualified program at a designated school and your previous year’s gross family income is below the cut-off for your family size. Below a lower threshold you get the full $4,200; between the two the grant shrinks; at or above the cut-off there is none. For a single student (family size of one), the full grant applies below $38,474 of family income and the grant ends at $69,987; the thresholds rise with family size and are listed on canada.ca. You can get it for each year of undergraduate study while you stay in school full-time.

Most students at private, for-profit schools in Canada are no longer eligible, although some programs are exempt from that restriction.

Grant for part-time students

Part-time students with family income below the part-time thresholds can get up to $2,520 a year, but never more than their assessed need: someone assessed as needing $1,200 gets $1,200. To keep receiving it, you must have successfully completed the courses you got a grant for before.

Grant for full-time students with dependants

On top of the full-time grant, students with a dependant under 12 at the start of the study period (or an older dependant with a permanent disability) can receive $280 for each month in school per dependant, if family income is below the thresholds for this grant.

Grants for students with disabilities

The grant for students with disabilities pays the same $2,800 a year whatever your assessed need, for each year of study while you qualify, and it can reduce or replace the loan part of your aid. You provide a document showing the disability with your application. A separate grant for services and equipment pays up to $20,000 a school year toward disability-related costs such as tutors, note-takers, interpreters or technical aids, applied for with your school’s financial aid administrator.

After school, borrowers with disabilities have their own repayment rules and can have loans cancelled in some cases; see student loan forgiveness in Canada.

How the assessment works

1. You apply for student aid through your provincial or territorial program, such as OSAP in Ontario or StudentAid BC (BC student loans).
2. The application assesses your costs, your and your family’s income and your family size.
3. Federal and provincial grants you qualify for are counted first; loans cover remaining assessed need.
4. The money is paid at the start of your study period, together with any loan.

Provinces add their own grants through the same application, from BC’s Access Grant to Nova Scotia’s grant worth 40% of the provincial loan; they are compared in the provincial student grants guide, and each province’s page on this hub describes its own. Quebec’s bursaries come from its separate system (Quebec student loans).

Grants vs loans

A grant can become a loan: if you withdraw, or switch from full-time to part-time, within 30 calendar days of the first day of classes, the Canada Student Grants for that study period are converted into a repayable Canada Student Loan (StudentAidNL FAQ). Repaying the loan part is covered in how to pay off student loans, and help with payments in the Repayment Assistance Plan guide.