Quebec Acceptance Certificate (CAQ) for Pakistani Students: Fees, Funds and Timing in 2026

What is the CAQ, and why does Quebec issue its own document?

Quebec runs its own immigration selection under a long standing agreement with the federal government. Ottawa decides who may enter Canada. Quebec decides who it will accept as a temporary resident on its territory, students included. The Certificat d'acceptation du Quebec, shortened to CAQ, is the provincial half of that arrangement, and it is issued by the ministere de l'Immigration, de la Francisation et de l'Integration, known to everyone as MIFI.

The practical effect is simple. A student going to Toronto deals with one government. A student going to Montreal deals with two, in a fixed order, and the second will not move until the first is finished.

The CAQ is not a visa and it does not let you enter Canada. It is a selection decision. You receive it as a letter in your online MIFI file, not as a card in the post, and you attach that letter to your federal study permit application.

What the certificate is tied to

Two things are written into the CAQ and both matter later.

• The level of study. Quebec uses cycles, so a bachelor degree is first cycle, a masters or DESS is second cycle, and a doctorate is third cycle.
• Your institution, which appears on the attestation letter.

Change either one and you need a fresh CAQ. Move from a masters to a doctorate, or from one Montreal university to another, and the old certificate no longer covers you. Approval of a second application cancels the first, so you cannot hold two at once.

Who needs a CAQ, and who is exempt?

A CAQ for studies is required for any program lasting more than six months at a Quebec institution. That covers essentially every degree and diploma a Pakistani student would fly across the world for.

There is a trap in the wording. If your stay in Quebec is short but forms part of a program whose total length exceeds six months, you still need the certificate. Quebec looks at the program, not at your calendar.

The exemptions that exist

Quebec publishes a list of situations where no CAQ is needed. Very few of them apply to a student flying in from Pakistan.

• A program of six months or less, taken on its own.
• Scholarship holders under a federal assistance program for developing countries, including Commonwealth, Global Affairs Canada and Francophonie awards.
• Recognised refugees and protected persons in Canada.
• People already authorised to study in Canada without a study permit.

Two situations produce no CAQ at all, whatever you do. One is a program taken entirely online, whether you sit in Quebec or in Pakistan. The other is French courses run by the Quebec government itself.

Does the CAQ replace the provincial attestation letter?

Yes. Since Canada introduced study permit caps, most applicants must attach a provincial or territorial attestation letter to their federal application. In Quebec the letter confirming your CAQ also serves as your Provincial Attestation Letter, so there is no separate PAL to chase. Quebec built the attestation into the certificate rather than issuing a second piece of paper.

This confuses a lot of applicants, and it shows up in refusals. The federal portal asks for a PAL and asks for a CAQ in two different places. The same document goes in both. If you upload nothing in the PAL field because you believe you were never issued one, the application can be returned as incomplete.

If you are applying anywhere else in Canada, the mechanics are different, and our guide to the provincial attestation letter for a Canada study permit sets out how the other provinces handle it.

Can you be locked out by the application caps?

You can, and this is the part of the Quebec system that almost nobody explains to families in Pakistan.

For the period running from 17 December 2025 to 16 December 2027, the Quebec government has capped by order the number of temporary selection applications each institution may receive in a one year period, covering vocational, college and university studies. Each college, university, school service centre and school board has a ceiling. Once an institution hits its ceiling for the year, MIFI stops accepting applications naming it.

Places do free up. Applications found ineligible are refunded and the space returns to the pool, and Quebec reallocates vacant places on selected Thursdays at two in the afternoon according to a published quarterly schedule. That is a scramble, not a plan.

What this means for your timing

Apply the day your admission letter arrives. Not after the tuition deposit clears, not after the family finishes discussing it, not in the week before the intake. Institutions that are popular with international students exhaust their allocation early, and there is no queue to join once the number is reached.

A small number of exemptions let you apply even when an institution is full. They cover continuing the same program at the same institution and the same level, asylum seekers, dependent children of a temporary worker or foreign student, refresher training required by a health professional order, holders of a Quebec Protocol certificate, certain scholarship winners in vocational training, and students forced to transfer because their institution stopped operating. Each one needs a supporting document. None of them is a general route for a new student from Pakistan.

How do you apply for a CAQ from Pakistan, step by step?

The process runs across two separate government platforms, which is the single most common source of confusion. One holds your application. The other takes your money and your documents.

Step one: get an admission letter that MIFI will accept

The letter has to carry the program name, the diploma type, start and end dates, the credit count, course hours completed in Quebec and abroad, internship hours where they exist, admission conditions, and the tuition amount. A short congratulatory email is not enough. Ask the registrar for the full letter if what you received looks thin.

Step two: create your Arrima account

Arrima is the Quebec immigration platform. Create the account before you touch the application form, and enter your first and last names exactly as your passport shows them. A mismatch between the Arrima profile and the application form causes real delays.

Step three: complete the online application in one sitting

The form cannot be saved and returned to. Have the passport, the admission letter and the tuition figures in front of you before you begin. Set up your consultation profile while you are there, because that is how MIFI notifies you when something changes.

Step four: pay, quickly

You have one hour from submitting the online form to pay the fee on Arrima, and the application is not treated as submitted until the payment lands. Any Visa, Mastercard or American Express card works, and it does not have to be yours. A parent's card is fine.

Step five: upload the documents

Once the fee is paid you have 15 days to upload the required documents through Arrima, and missing that window cancels the application with no refund. Your file number appears within 48 hours of payment and you need it to send anything. Scan multi page documents into a single PDF each, and send everything in one transmission rather than in pieces.

Step six: wait, and watch the right inbox

MIFI communicates through your online file on its own portal, not through Arrima. Check it. A notice of intent to refuse is not a refusal, it is a request for more documents with a deadline attached, and students who miss it because they were watching the wrong screen lose the application outright.

How much money does Quebec want to see?

Quebec raised this figure sharply for 2026 and it is now the highest financial bar of any Canadian province.

As of 25 September 2026, the Quebec page on the costs of studying puts the amount one person must show for essential expenses over a year at $24,617 in Canadian dollars, with tuition and a return airfare counted on top of that. The amount is built on the market basket measure, so it is meant to reflect what living in Quebec actually costs rather than a notional minimum.

As of 25 September 2026, the same Quebec costs page raises the figure to $34,814 for two people, $42,638 for three, $49,234 for four, $55,045 for five and $60,299 for six, adding $5,254 for every person beyond that.

IRCC publishes a separate living cost figure for the rest of Canada, a little over $23,000 for a single applicant on applications filed from September 2026, so Quebec now asks for the higher number of the two.

Where a Pakistani applicant actually proves this

Here is the detail that saves weeks of wasted work. Quebec asks only residents of ten territories to upload financial proof at the CAQ stage: Austria, Canada, the United States, France, Greenland, Hong Kong, Reunion, Monaco, Mexico and Saint Pierre and Miquelon. Pakistan is not on that list, which means a student applying from Lahore or Karachi does not upload bank statements at the CAQ stage at all.

Your money is examined by the Canadian visa office when it assesses the study permit, and the officer applies the Quebec thresholds rather than the federal ones. So the funds still decide your case. They are simply tested one step later, by a different government. A student who prepares a beautiful CAQ financial file and a weak study permit financial file has prepared the wrong one.

The documents Quebec recognises are worth knowing anyway, because the visa office wants the same kinds of evidence: six months of bank statements showing every transaction and the closing balance, a scholarship confirmation stating amount and duration, a bank sanctioned education loan, a GIC from a participating Canadian financial institution, or proof that tuition has already been paid. Business account statements and property titles are not accepted for CAQ purposes. Our explainer on how Pakistani students open a GIC for Canada covers that instrument in detail.

What does the Quebec route cost in fees?

As of 25 September 2026, the Quebec government page on temporary selection for studies sets the processing fee at $135 in Canadian dollars for an international student, payable only by credit card, and adjusted every year on 1 January. It is non refundable even if the certificate is refused. Only an application ruled non receivable gets the money back.

As of 25 September 2026, the IRCC fee list prices the study permit at $150 per person and biometrics at $85 per person, with a family maximum of $170 where two or more eligible people apply together. Biometrics are given once every ten years, so a student who gave them for an earlier Canadian visa may not need to repeat the appointment.

Those are the government charges only. Tuition, the airfare, the first month of rent and the deposit sit on top, and Quebec expects you to have shown all of it before anyone decides anything. The biometrics appointment has its own rhythm in Pakistan, and our note on biometrics for a Canada study permit from Pakistan explains the thirty day letter and where the collection points are.

How long does a CAQ take?

Sources differ here, and the honest answer is a range rather than a number.

Quebec states that a decision follows within 25 business days of a complete file in 80 per cent of cases, one Montreal university tells its own students to expect 8 to 10 weeks, and a third puts it at roughly 25 business days while warning that April to June runs slower. Treat five weeks as the best case and ten weeks as the planning assumption.

The clock does not start when you pay. It starts when MIFI has the form, the fee and every required document. An incomplete file simply sits. If a notice of intent to refuse goes out and you answer it, expect two to three further weeks on top once your reply is received.

Why this matters more than it looks

The CAQ is only the first of two waits. After it you still face the federal study permit, and Pakistan is not among the fastest posts. Add the two together and a Fall intake needs work starting in the winter before it, not in the summer of the same year. Our step by step guide to the Canada study permit from Pakistan sets out the federal half.

Which documents does MIFI actually ask for?

After you pay, your online file produces a personalised checklist. It varies with your country of residence and your age. For a Pakistani student aged eighteen or over, applying for a first CAQ, the core set looks like this.

• Passport identity pages showing your details, photo, signature and validity dates. If the passport carries no signature, add another official photo identity document that does.
• The admission letter from your Quebec institution, with all the content described earlier.
• A signed Declaration, Undertakings and Authorization form.
• Proof of an exemption from the application management rules, only if you claimed one.

Documents in Urdu or any language other than French or English need a translation signed and certified by a professional translator. Attach both the original and the translation.

The signature rule that fails more files than it should

Quebec accepts a handwritten signature made with a pen and scanned, or a handwritten signature drawn with a stylus, touchscreen or mouse. It does not accept a typed digital signature or an inserted signature image from a PDF editor. Get this wrong and MIFI issues a notice of intent to refuse, which adds weeks for no reason at all.

What goes wrong most often on Pakistani files?

Patterns repeat. These are the ones worth guarding against.

• Applying to IRCC first. The federal application cannot be completed without the CAQ attestation letter, so the order is fixed.
• Waiting for the tuition deposit to clear before starting the CAQ, and finding the institution's allocation exhausted by then.
• Leaving the PAL field empty in the federal portal because no separate PAL was ever issued.
• Selecting the wrong cycle. Pakistani degree names do not map neatly onto Quebec cycles, so read the admission letter rather than guessing.
• Entering a per term tuition figure where the form wants the annual one.
• Typed signatures on the declaration forms.
• Building the financial file for MIFI when the Canadian visa office is the body that will actually test it.
• Missing the fifteen day document window because the file number took two days to appear.

One more, and it costs the most. A refusal can be challenged through an administrative review, but the review takes time you may not have before the intake begins. Where the refusal is about a fixable document, reapplying is often faster than arguing. Where it is about substance, understanding the reasoning first is the sensible move, and the same logic applies to federal refusals, which is why students order their GCMS notes after a Canadian refusal before doing anything else.

What obligations come with the CAQ after you land?

The certificate is conditional, and Quebec can cancel it. Four commitments run for the whole of your stay.

• Study at the level written on your CAQ.
• Remain at the institution named on the attestation letter.
• Keep studies as your main activity, meaning full time enrolment and passing most of your courses. Students in their final semester are excused from this one.
• Hold health and hospitalisation insurance without a gap, for yourself and for any family who came with you.

Health insurance, specifically

Quebec has social security agreements with a number of countries whose nationals then join the public plan for free. Pakistan is not one of them. So a Pakistani student joins the institution's group plan or buys private cover, and Quebec gives you between five and thirty days after arrival to arrange it. Leave it later than that and insurers may decline you, which puts you in breach of your CAQ conditions.

The cost of getting this wrong is not theoretical. Health and social services not covered by the provincial plan are billed to you with a 200 per cent surcharge on top.

Renewals

A CAQ issued for a shorter period than your program has to be renewed from inside Quebec, several months before it expires. Renewal applications need a transcript covering the full validity of the old certificate, an attendance letter from the institution, and proof that insurance never lapsed. Keep the insurance certificates. Students who cannot produce them at renewal have a difficult conversation ahead.

What does a realistic timeline look like?

Take a Lahore student aiming at a masters starting in September 2027 at a Montreal university. Here is how the dates fall if nothing goes wrong.

Pull that back by three months and the Fall intake becomes a Winter intake. That happens to Quebec applicants every year, and almost always because the CAQ was started late.

Frequently asked questions