Pr
The application fee is the part everyone budgets for. Here is the whole stack — and the difference between money you pay out and money you only have to show.
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You have the invitation to apply and money set aside for the IRCC application fee. That is the number everyone quotes, so that is the number people budget for. It is nowhere near the whole figure — and the largest item on the real list is not a payment at all.
At a glance
The total splits cleanly in two, and almost every budgeting mistake comes from mixing them. There is money that leaves your account for good — test fees, assessment fees, government fees, medicals, translations, flights. And there is money you must simply show you have, which stays yours. People add both together, panic at the size of it, and stop. Others ignore the second kind entirely and are refused for it.
The paid-out side is spread over many months, not due in one go. You buy each item at the point the process needs it. The shown side is different: it has to be in place at a single moment, when you submit, and it must still hold up if an officer asks about it later. Knowing which is which tells you what to arrange first and what can wait.
Before Express Entry will even score you, two things have to exist: an approved language test result and, for a degree earned outside Canada, an educational credential assessment. Both are paid to private organisations, not to IRCC. Both are needed per person if your spouse's language score or degree is being counted for points. Both expire, so buying them far too early can mean buying them twice.
Retakes are a line item people rarely plan for. A language score one band short can cost you points, and sitting the test again by choice rather than by failure is common. Assume one retake in your budget and be pleasantly surprised if you do not need it.
IRCC's own charges arrive in a predictable set: a processing fee for each adult, a lower one for each dependent child, biometrics, and the right of permanent residence fee. Every one of these is set by the government and revised without much warning, and all of them are published on IRCC's fee page. We deliberately do not print the amounts here. A stale fee on a visa website is worse than no fee at all.
The right of permanent residence fee is separate from processing and is charged per adult. You may pay it with the application or wait until IRCC asks for it, and it is refunded if you do not become a permanent resident. Medicals work differently again — you pay an IRCC panel physician directly, and the clinic sets that price, not the department.
This is a widely misread part of the process. Settlement funds are not a fee. Nobody takes this money, no department holds it, and no consultant should ever ask you to send it anywhere. You are demonstrating that you can support your family after landing, and the money remains yours to spend in Canada on rent, deposits and food while you find work. The required amount is set by IRCC, rises with each family member, and is revised annually — which is exactly why we will not print it.
The shape of the money matters as much as the amount. It must be readily available: not locked in property, not gold, not a provident fund you cannot touch, and not borrowed. Officers want official letters from your financial institution on its own letterhead, showing account numbers, current balances and the average balance over recent months. A large sum that appeared last week with no explanation raises more doubt than a smaller, older, well-documented balance.
There is one structural exception worth knowing. Applicants under the Canadian Experience Class, and those already authorised to work in Canada with a valid job offer, do not have to show settlement funds at all. Arranging employment abroad sits outside our licence, so we neither offer that route nor advise on it.
Creating an Express Entry profile costs nothing. You open an account on IRCC's site, enter your details, and the profile sits in the pool for up to a year while rounds of invitations take place. Anyone charging a fee purely to "create your profile" is charging you for a free step. What is genuinely worth paying for is judgement — whether your score is realistic, whether your credential assessment and occupation classification will survive scrutiny, and whether your documents match what you have claimed.
The same scepticism applies to promises. No consultant controls the cut-off score, which categories are drawn, or what an officer decides. If someone offers you a guaranteed outcome or a guaranteed timeline, that is the moment to walk away. You are being sold a certainty that does not exist anywhere in this system, and you will be paying a premium for it.
The budget does not end at your confirmation of permanent residence. There are one-way flights for the whole family, often booked at short notice. There is the first month or two of rent plus a deposit before any income arrives, a phone connection, winter clothing bought at Canadian prices, and transport until you hold a local licence. Your settlement funds exist precisely to absorb this, which is why they must still be intact when you land rather than spent on the application itself.
If you work in a regulated profession — nursing, medicine, engineering, teaching, law, pharmacy — there is normally a separate provincial regulator with its own assessment, examinations and fees before you may practise. None of that is part of the PR application and none of it is covered by it. Identify your regulator early and start reading its requirements while your file is still in progress; it runs on its own timetable, entirely separate from IRCC.
Spend in the order the process demands. Sit the language test first, because everything after it depends on that score being competitive. Then the credential assessment. Only once your profile is genuinely in range do government fees, medicals and police clearances become worth paying for. Meanwhile, build your funds history quietly in the background — it is a record accumulated over months, not a transfer made on the day you apply.
For current figures, use IRCC's fee page and its settlement-funds table. They are the only authoritative sources and they do change. Our Canada CRS calculator shows where you stand on points before you spend anything, and our visa fee calculator sets out the government charges per destination. Our own consultancy fee is published, fixed, and already includes 18% GST inside the quoted number; embassy and VFS charges are passed on at cost, exactly as billed.
Before you pay us anything, you get a straight verdict on your case: file it now, fix this first, or do not apply yet. One named officer then handles the file from that point. If the honest answer is that your score is not going to attract an invitation, we would rather tell you that than take your money and let you find out slowly.
There is no single honest figure, and any site quoting one is quoting a number that has already moved. The real answer is a stack of separate costs: language test, educational credential assessment, certified translations, IRCC processing fees, biometrics, the right of permanent residence fee, medicals, police clearances, flights, and your first months of living costs in Canada. On top of that sits proof of settlement funds, which you must show but never pay to anyone. Current government amounts are published on IRCC's fee page and its settlement-funds table — read them there, not from a blog.
No. Settlement funds are money you show, not money you hand over. Nobody collects it, no department holds it, and it stays yours to spend on rent, deposits and living costs after you land. What IRCC checks is that the money genuinely exists, is readily available to you, and is not borrowed or tied up in property you would have to sell. You prove it with official letters from your financial institution showing balances and recent history. The required amount rises with family size and is revised annually, so always read the current table on IRCC's own site.
Yes — entering the Express Entry pool costs nothing at all. You create an account on IRCC's website, submit your profile, and it remains in the pool for up to a year while draws take place. Government fees only begin once you are invited to apply. Before that, your spending goes to private organisations for the language test and the credential assessment, not to IRCC. If a consultant charges you purely to create the profile, you are paying for a free step. Paying someone to assess your score and documents honestly is a different service entirely.
You can pay it along with your application or wait until IRCC asks for it, which is usually near the end of processing. It is charged per adult, not for dependent children, and it is separate from the processing fee. If your application is refused, or you decide not to become a permanent resident, the fee is refunded. Paying it upfront removes one step at the end; paying later keeps the money in your account for longer. The current amount is on IRCC's fee page, which is the only place worth reading it.
Usually more than India alone. IRCC sets the rule on how long a stay has to have been before a clearance is required, and its own checklist is the authority — read it against your own history rather than guessing. Each country has its own procedure, its own cost and its own waiting period, and some issue certificates only through their embassy or a mission abroad. This is a common cause of delay, because the two years in Dubai or Singapore are easy to forget until a checklist asks. Write down every country and address first, then start the slowest clearance immediately, before touching the rest of the paperwork.
IRCC requires settlement funds to be available to you and not borrowed, and its own guidance is the authority on what counts. The funds must be readily available to you, free of debt secured against them, and not dependent on selling a house or redeeming a policy at some future date. A gift genuinely transferred into your own account well before you apply is a different situation from a loan parked there for the file. If a relative is helping you, move the money early and be ready to explain clearly where it came from.
No. Arranging employment abroad requires an MEA Recruiting Agent licence under the Emigration Act, which we do not hold, so we neither find jobs nor advise on work permits. Our Punjab consultancy licence, No. 849/DC/PTA/PLA/LC-3/2024, covers visa consultancy and travel services. We can prepare and file a permanent residence application, and we file business visitor visas for meetings, conferences and negotiations. If your plan depends on a Canadian employer, you need a licensed recruiter rather than us — and treat anyone selling job offers alongside a visa with real suspicion.
Our consultancy fee is published, fixed, and already has 18% GST inside the quoted number — no separate tax appears at the end. Government, embassy and VFS charges are not ours and are passed on at cost, exactly as billed, with the receipts. Before you pay us anything you get a verdict on your case: file it now, fix this first, or do not apply yet. One named officer then handles your file from that point onward. We do not charge anything for creating an Express Entry profile, because that step is free for everyone.
Want this checked before you file? Message us on WhatsApp and a consultant will read your case and tell you honestly where you stand — file it now, fix this first, or do not apply yet. Fixed published fees, GST already inside the number quoted, and embassy charges passed on at cost.
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