At a glance: what is charged and when it is due
| Category | Stream or pathway | Application fee (CAD) | Payment deadline |
|---|---|---|---|
| Work streams | Skilled Worker | 1,000 | Within 7 calendar days of selection |
| Work streams | Nova Scotia Graduate | 1,000 | Within 7 calendar days of selection |
| Work streams | Nova Scotia: Express Entry | 1,000 | Within 7 calendar days of selection |
| Entrepreneur streams | Starting a new business | 2,000 | Within 90 calendar days of the invitation |
| Entrepreneur streams | Buying an existing business | 2,000 | Within 180 calendar days of the invitation |
| Entrepreneur streams | International Graduate Entrepreneur | 2,000 | Within 90 calendar days of the invitation |
The fee must be paid online in a single transaction using Visa, MasterCard, Discover Card or American Express. The province will not accept instalments, and it will not let applicants split one payment across two cards. The charge is levied per principal applicant, so an accompanying spouse and children add nothing to the bill. Selected candidates receive an email setting out how to pay, and once the payment clears the system sends a second email containing a receipt. That receipt is the proof of payment applicants have to submit — the province states plainly that a screenshot of the payment confirmation page will not be accepted. Fees are non-refundable except where the law requires a refund or where the province itself made an administrative error.
The cutoff is the selection date, not the submission date
Whether the fee applies depends on the date a candidate is picked out of the EOI pool for assessment, not the date the EOI was filed. An expression of interest submitted as far back as 2025 but not selected until after September will still attract the fee. Conversely, applicants who received a selection notice on or before August 31 can still file their provincial nomination application free of charge.
An EOI that misses the payment deadline is closed and never moves to the assessment stage. Applicants who still meet the criteria may submit a fresh EOI, but a second selection means paying a second time. The province has also confirmed that there are no exemptions or reductions of any kind, and that paying does not improve a candidate's chances of being selected, speed up processing, or guarantee a nomination.
2,344 nominations available, 7,942 expressions of interest waiting
In its announcement, the province ties the new charge to the fact that "demand for nominations continues to exceed Nova Scotia's annual federal allocation," and says the fees will help "ensure limited nomination spaces are allocated in support of Nova Scotia's labour market and economic priorities."
The numbers bear that out. Open data published by Nova Scotia's Department of Labour, Skills and Immigration shows the NSNP allocation sliding from 4,263 in 2023 to 3,570 in 2024 and 3,369 in 2025, then dropping again to 2,344 for 2026. Counting the AIP alongside it, the province has 3,709 places to work with in 2026 — close to half the 6,993 it had at its 2023 peak. The queue, meanwhile, has barely moved: at the end of the first and second quarters of 2026 the pool held 7,937 and 7,942 unprocessed NSNP expressions of interest respectively. In 2025 Nova Scotia issued 3,368 nominations covering 6,848 people, using close to 100 percent of its allocation.
Entrepreneurs account for a vanishingly small slice of that activity. Across all of 2025, the province issued a combined total of nine nominations under its entrepreneur and international graduate entrepreneur streams, which means the new $2,000 fee will touch very few applicants in practice.
The fee is not a one-off move either. Nova Scotia has been reshaping the NSNP for a year: it switched the program to an EOI model across the board on November 28, 2025; consolidated 10 streams into 4 on February 18, 2026, folding the former physician, critical construction worker and occupations-in-demand streams into the existing work streams; introduced a three-tier selection framework on April 27, 2026 that puts healthcare and skilled trades at the top; and, from May 1, 2026, capped the validity of an EOI at 12 months.
How Nova Scotia compares
The province says that introducing fees "aligns Nova Scotia with most jurisdictions across Canada." On work stream application fees, Ontario charges between $1,500 and $2,000 depending on whether the job sits inside the Greater Toronto Area; British Columbia charges $1,750; Alberta $1,500; Manitoba and Saskatchewan $500 each; Prince Edward Island $300; and New Brunswick $250. Nova Scotia's $1,000 lands squarely in the middle.
2026 has been a busy year for provincial nomination fees more generally. British Columbia raised its application fee from $1,475 to $1,750 on January 22. Saskatchewan began charging $500 for the first time on April 1. Alberta added a $135 expression of interest submission fee on April 7, on top of its existing $1,500 application fee. Nova Scotia joins the list on September 1. Running the other way is Newfoundland and Labrador, which eliminated all provincial immigration fees back in 2022.
Analysis: a seven-day window and a non-refundable fee
The following is this publication's analysis, not an official statement or third-party quote.
As of publication, no immigration lawyer, licensed consultant or local mainstream outlet has commented publicly on the new fees. Judged on the design of the policy alone, however, two features deserve applicants' attention.
The first is the payment window. Seven calendar days for work stream candidates is among the tightest deadlines of its kind anywhere — the province's own entrepreneur streams allow 90 to 180 days, and the payment arrangements in Alberta and Saskatchewan are more forgiving as well. For candidates in distant time zones, candidates who need to raise $1,000 on short notice, or candidates working around a credit card limit, that is a genuine operational squeeze, and the price of missing the window is an EOI that closes outright and a return to the back of the queue.
The second is where the risk lands. The fee is non-refundable and comes with an explicit disclaimer that it does not guarantee a nomination, which puts the entire sunk cost of a failed assessment on the applicant. For a single applicant in a work stream, the $1,000 provincial fee stacked on top of the federal permanent residence (PR) charges pushes mandatory up-front spending to roughly $2,590.
What applicants still owe Ottawa
A nomination certificate is not the end of the spending. Nominees must still file a permanent residence application with Immigration, Refugees and Citizenship Canada (IRCC) and pay separately, either through the base provincial nominee route or through the Express Entry-enhanced route. Under the rates IRCC increased on April 30, 2026, an economic-class principal applicant pays $1,590 in total — a $990 processing fee plus the $600 Right of Permanent Residence Fee (RPRF) — with an accompanying spouse or common-law partner also charged $1,590 and each dependent child $270. All of it sits on top of the provincial application fee paid to Nova Scotia.
How the NSNP process works
- Confirm you meet the eligibility requirements of at least one NSNP stream;
- Submit an EOI to the province and join the candidate pool (submission is free);
- Wait to be selected for assessment — the province states clearly that selection is not first-come, first-served and is never guaranteed; candidates are drawn from the pool each month as needed, based on program eligibility criteria, labour market priorities and the number of nominations available;
- If selected, submit a complete provincial nomination application and pay the application fee within the stated deadline;
- Once nominated, file a complete permanent residence application with IRCC and pay the federal fees;
- Receive a Confirmation of Permanent Residence (COPR) once IRCC approves the application.
