Master’s Scholarships in Canada for International Students

Canada is one of the most realistic destinations in the world for a funded master’s degree — not because every student receives a large named scholarship, but because Canadian universities combine several funding layers at once: entrance scholarships, departmental awards, research assistantships, teaching assistantships, provincial scholarships and, at a small number of universities, genuinely full scholarships that cover tuition and living costs. If you are an international student from Bangladesh, India, Pakistan, Nepal, Nigeria, Indonesia or anywhere else planning a master’s degree for the 2026/2027 cycle, this guide explains exactly how master’s funding in Canada works, which awards are actually open to you, what they pay, when they close, and how to build an application strong enough to compete for them.

The most important thing to understand before you read any list is that a Canadian master’s is funded differently depending on the type of program. A thesis-based or research master’s (MSc, MA with thesis, MASc) is normally attached to a supervisor and a research grant, so funding often arrives as a package negotiated with your department. A course-based or professional master’s (MEng, MBA, MPH, MEd coursework routes and similar programs) is usually self-funded, with smaller entrance awards on top. Neither route is automatically better. The research route can be close to fully funded at some universities; the professional route can lead to strong employment outcomes but requires you to budget honestly for tuition that can be several times the domestic rate. This guide covers both, and it is honest about the awards international students cannot apply for — because wasting months on an ineligible competition is one of the most common and most avoidable mistakes in this entire process.

You can browse the universities discussed here in our global university directory, compare them in the world university rankings, and keep every deadline in one place using the planning resources in our student tools section.

Master’s Scholarships in Canada at a Glance

The table below summarises the main funding routes covered in this guide. Amounts are in Canadian dollars and were checked against official or university sources at the time of writing; always confirm the current cycle’s figures on the official page before you apply, because values, quotas and deadlines change every year.

Two lessons fall out of that table immediately. First, the single most generous master’s award open to international students in Canada is the McCall MacBain Scholarship at McGill University, and it is also one of the most competitive leadership scholarships in the country. Second, for most research master’s students, the realistic funding goal is not one giant award but a stack: an entrance scholarship plus a supervisor’s research assistantship plus a teaching assistantship plus, in Ontario, a shot at an OGS award in your second year. Students who understand stacking early budget better, choose programs better, and are far less likely to arrive in Canada underfunded.

Who Is Eligible for Master’s Scholarships in Canada?

Eligibility has four layers, and you need to pass all four: academic eligibility for the master’s program itself, scholarship-specific eligibility, immigration eligibility for a study permit, and financial eligibility to show Immigration, Refugees and Citizenship Canada (IRCC) that you can support yourself. A scholarship offer helps enormously with the last layer, but it never replaces it.

Academically, a Canadian master’s normally requires a four-year bachelor’s degree (or equivalent) with a strong final-years average — most research universities describe this as a B+ to A range, roughly 75–85% or a GPA around 3.3–3.7 on a 4.0 scale, though the exact minimum is set by each program and competitive programs admit well above their published minimums. If your degree is from Bangladesh, India, Pakistan, Nepal, Nigeria or Indonesia, the university will assess it against its own country-specific equivalency table, so check the graduate admissions page of each university rather than relying on conversion websites. English proficiency is normally proven with IELTS, TOEFL, Duolingo English Test or an accepted alternative at the score your program sets; a small number of programs waive testing for degrees taught entirely in English, but you should never assume a waiver exists until the program confirms it in writing.

For scholarship eligibility specifically, read citizenship wording with extreme care. Some Canadian awards are open to all students regardless of citizenship. Some are open to international students only within a small reserved quota. And some of the most famous federal awards — including the tri-agency Canada Graduate Research Scholarship at master’s level (CGRS-M, CAD 27,000 for 12 months) — are restricted to Canadian citizens, permanent residents and protected persons. International students on a study permit cannot apply for CGRS-M. That is not a technicality you can argue around; it is a hard rule published by the agencies and repeated on every university’s funding page. The doctoral counterpart, CGRS-D, works differently and does admit a limited share of international students — that distinction is covered in our PhD guide — but at master’s level, plan your funding around university, provincial and supervisor sources instead.

The McCall MacBain Scholarship: Canada’s Flagship Funded Master’s

The McCall MacBain Scholarship at McGill University in Montreal is the award most international master’s applicants should examine first. It funds scholars pursuing a full-time master’s degree — or a second-entry professional undergraduate program such as law — at McGill, and it is explicitly open to Canadian, United States and international applicants. According to the program’s published terms, a full scholarship covers tuition and fees for the full normal duration of the master’s or professional program, a living stipend of CAD 2,300 per month during academic terms, and a one-time relocation grant for moving to Montreal. Scholars who are not in an academic term during the summer may also apply for up to CAD 5,000 to pursue a meaningful summer initiative, and the program includes French language courses, mentoring, coaching and an interdisciplinary leadership curriculum alongside the money.

Eligibility for the 2027 cohort follows a distinctive pattern you should check against your own graduation date. You qualify if you are a current student on track to earn your first bachelor’s degree by August 2027; or you earned your first bachelor’s degree in the last five years (January 2021 or later); or you earned your first bachelor’s degree more than five years ago and were 30 years old or younger on January 1, 2026. You must also meet the minimum degree and language requirements of the McGill master’s program you want to enter, and the program must be an eligible full-time program of 45 credits or more, delivered mainly on McGill’s downtown or Macdonald campus. Graduate certificates, executive programs, part-time programs and PhDs are not covered — if your target is doctoral study, this is not your award.

What McCall MacBain selects for is just as important as what it pays for. The scholarship describes its scholars in terms of character, community engagement, leadership potential, entrepreneurial spirit and intellectual curiosity. A flawless transcript with no evidence of leading, building or serving anything will struggle here, while a slightly less perfect transcript attached to a real record of initiative — founding a society, running a community project, leading a team, publishing, volunteering with measurable results — fits the brief the program actually publishes. There are also smaller Finalist and Regional awards for strong applicants who reach the later stages without receiving a full scholarship; published figures for these have varied by cycle (finalist awards up to CAD 20,000 and regional awards of CAD 10,000 have been reported), so confirm the current cycle’s structure on the official site rather than budgeting around any specific fallback amount.

Practically, the McCall MacBain application opens well before McGill’s own graduate admission deadlines, and you apply for the scholarship first and for admission to McGill separately if you progress. Because McGill is in Quebec, admitted students also deal with Quebec’s own immigration step — the Quebec Acceptance Certificate (CAQ) — before the federal study permit. None of this is difficult, but all of it rewards starting early. You can read the university’s profile and program range in our McGill University guide and verify every current term on the official McCall MacBain and McGill pages linked in the Sources section below.

University and Departmental Funding: Where Most Money Actually Comes From

For every McCall MacBain scholar, there are thousands of international master’s students funded less glamorously but very really by their own universities. Understanding this system is the difference between a workable budget and a fantasy one.

At the University of Alberta, newly admitted graduate students are considered for entrance funding allocated through their departments, and the Alberta Graduate Excellence Scholarship (AGES) provides merit awards reported in the CAD 11,000–15,000 range, with a portion of awards directed to top international students. The exact value and number of AGES awards change by cycle and faculty, so treat any figure you see — including here — as a range to verify on the University of Alberta’s Faculty of Graduate and Postdoctoral Studies pages, not as a promise. Alberta’s research intensity means thesis-based master’s students in science, engineering, agriculture and health fields frequently combine an entrance award with paid research work in their supervisor’s laboratory.

At the University of Calgary, graduate funding runs through the Faculty of Graduate Studies’ awards system, including a Graduate Award Competition whose individual awards span a wide range (published guides describe awards from under CAD 1,000 up to the mid-CAD 30,000s depending on the specific named award), and an International Graduate Tuition Award that offsets part of the international tuition differential. Calgary also promotes guaranteed minimum funding packages for thesis-based graduate students in many programs — the principle matters more than any single number: when a university publishes a minimum doctoral or master’s funding commitment, ask the department, in writing, what your specific offer includes, for how many terms, and what conditions (such as maintaining full-time registration and satisfactory progress) attach to it.

At the University of Waterloo, the model is explicit and unusually transparent. International students in full-time research-based master’s programs receive a published minimum funding package from their faculty, and selected students are additionally awarded the International Master’s Award of Excellence (IMAE) — CAD 2,500 per term for a maximum of five terms — on top of that minimum funding, with faculties nominating students based on academic excellence shown in the admission application. Waterloo also runs a general University of Waterloo Graduate Scholarship, normally CAD 1,000 per term for up to three terms, for full-time master’s and doctoral students with a first-class (80%) average, allocated by departmental nomination. None of these awards alone pays for a degree; together with research and teaching assistantships, they form the stack that makes a Waterloo research master’s financially possible.

The University of Toronto and the University of British Columbia operate on the same underlying logic at larger scale: funding is held by faculties, departments and supervisors rather than by a single central scholarship office, research master’s students are typically offered a funding package described in their offer letter, and professional master’s students should expect to self-fund with smaller merit awards. At UBC, for example, many research programs describe a minimum funding guarantee for eligible full-time research students; at Toronto, the School of Graduate Studies and each graduate unit publish their own award competitions, including Ontario Graduate Scholarship allocations. The practical skill to develop is reading an offer letter like a contract: total value, duration, the split between scholarship, RA and TA components, tuition obligations, and what happens to your funding if you switch from thesis to coursework. Ask those questions before you accept, not after you land.

The Ontario Graduate Scholarship (OGS) and the International Quota

The Ontario Graduate Scholarship deserves its own section because it is frequently misdescribed online as either fully open or fully closed to international students. The truth is narrower. OGS is a merit-based provincial program, jointly funded by the Province of Ontario and participating universities, worth CAD 5,000 per term — CAD 10,000 for two terms or CAD 15,000 for three terms within one academic year. It supports master’s and doctoral students in all disciplines at Ontario universities, and each university receives an allocation of awards. Within that allocation, only a limited number of awards may go to international students studying in Ontario on a study permit. To give you the scale honestly: one large Ontario university’s published 2026–27 allocation listed 133 OGS awards in total, of which just 4 were for international students; the University of Toronto’s graduate units were allocated 22 international OGS awards across the whole university for the same cycle. Universities also handle eligibility differently — Waterloo, for instance, states that because of the limited international quota, prospective international students are not eligible to apply for OGS and only current Waterloo graduate students may compete, whereas other universities run their own internal rules.

The correct way to use OGS in your plan is therefore as a second-year opportunity, not as admission funding. Apply for your master’s, secure your core funding stack, arrive, perform at a first-class level, and then compete for OGS through your department for the following year. Selection weighs academic excellence most heavily, then research ability and potential, then communication and leadership skills, with the exact weightings varying by faculty. Master’s students face lifetime limits on how many years of OGS support they can hold, and the award is not transferable between universities. Deadlines are set by each university and each graduate unit — commonly in the late autumn or winter before the award year — so the only reliable deadline is the one your own department publishes.

How Much Does a Master’s in Canada Actually Cost?

Scholarships only make sense against real costs. International master’s tuition in Canada varies enormously: research-based programs at many universities charge international tuition in a broad band roughly between CAD 10,000 and CAD 30,000 per year, while professional programs — especially MBAs and specialised business, technology and health programs in large cities — can run far higher, sometimes beyond CAD 50,000–60,000 per year. Those are planning ranges, not quotes; the only tuition figure that matters is the one on your chosen program’s official fees page for your entry year, including compulsory fees and health insurance. Living costs vary just as much: Toronto and Vancouver are Canada’s most expensive student cities, Montreal, Calgary, Edmonton, Waterloo and smaller university cities are noticeably cheaper, and your housing choices will move your budget more than any other single decision.

Immigration law adds a hard floor beneath your budget. For study permit applications submitted on or after September 1, 2025, a single applicant outside Quebec must show at least CAD 22,895 for one year of living expenses, in addition to first-year tuition and transportation costs, with higher amounts for accompanying family members; Quebec applies its own financial capacity rules. That figure is an IRCC minimum for approval, not a realistic comfort budget, and officers also assess whether your funds are genuinely available and credibly sourced. A scholarship letter, an assistantship offer or a funding package from your university is powerful evidence inside that application — which is one more reason to chase documented funding rather than informal promises. Always re-check the current amount on IRCC’s official financial support page before you file, because the threshold is updated periodically.

How to Apply: A Step-by-Step Plan for the 2026/2027 Cycle

Step 1 — Choose the program type before the university. Decide whether you want a thesis-based research master’s or a course-based professional master’s. This single decision determines your funding model, your supervisor strategy and your realistic budget more than rankings do.

Step 2 — Shortlist six to ten programs across at least two provinces. Use our study abroad guides and university profiles to compare tuition bands, funding models and city costs, not just prestige. Include at least two programs where your grades are comfortably above the typical admitted profile — funding follows strength relative to the applicant pool.

Step 3 — For research programs, contact supervisors properly. Read two or three of each professor’s recent papers, then write a short, specific email: who you are, your research preparation, the exact question in their work you want to extend, and what you bring (methods, data skills, field experience). Attach a one-page research outline and a clean CV. Generic mass emails are deleted; specific ones get replies. Do this months before the admission deadline, because a supervisor’s support often decides both admission and funding.

Step 4 — Apply for the named scholarships on their own calendars. McCall MacBain runs earlier than McGill admission. Departmental entrance awards usually ride on your admission application, but some require a separate awards application or a departmental nomination form. Build a single deadline table for every program and check it weekly.

Step 5 — Prepare documents once, properly. You will need official transcripts, degree certificates, English test results where required, a statement of purpose or research proposal, two or three academic reference letters, a CV, and for scholarship competitions, evidence of leadership and service. Order certified translations early if your documents are not in English or French, and give referees at least a month, a copy of your CV, and the exact criteria of each award.

Step 6 — Read your funding offer line by line. Confirm the total, the duration, the conditions, whether tuition is included or separate, and whether assistantship hours are guaranteed or subject to availability. If anything is ambiguous, email the graduate coordinator and keep the reply.

Step 7 — File the study permit with documented finances. Combine your scholarship and funding letters with your remaining proof of funds so the total clearly covers first-year tuition plus at least CAD 22,895 in living expenses (outside Quebec) and travel. Apply for the CAQ first if your university is in Quebec.

Deadlines and Timeline

These are planning windows based on the published rhythm of recent cycles, not guarantees for any single program. A course-based program with rolling admission may still be open in spring; a funded research program may have closed the previous December. Your program’s own page is the only authority.

How Selection Works — and How to Improve Your Chances

Graduate funding committees reward evidence, not adjectives. Academic excellence is shown through transcripts, the trajectory of your grades, and the difficulty of what you attempted. Research potential is shown through a focused proposal, methods you have actually used, prior projects, conference posters, publications where they exist, and referees who can describe your work in detail rather than in superlatives. Leadership and service — decisive for McCall MacBain and relevant for OGS’s communication and leadership component — are shown through sustained responsibility with results: people led, funds raised, programs built, communities served. Start assembling proof of all three a year before you apply, and keep a running file of certificates, letters and links, because reconstructing two years of activity the week before a deadline produces exactly the vague applications committees reject.

Two further habits separate funded students from unfunded ones. First, they apply for everything they are eligible for, in parallel, instead of pinning the plan on one famous award; the stack beats the jackpot. Second, they communicate with graduate administrators politely and precisely. Funding systems are run by people working to deadlines; a clear question sent early, with your full name, program and application number, gets a useful answer. A panicked message after a deadline gets a shorter one.

Common Mistakes That Cost Students Funding

The costliest mistake is applying for awards you are not eligible for — above all, international students spending their application season on CGRS-M, which is closed to them, while missing departmental deadlines that were actually open. The second is treating EduCanada’s Study in Canada Scholarships as full-degree funding: the program now funds short-term exchanges of four to six months, applied for by the Canadian host institution, and it will not finance your master’s degree. The third is budgeting to the IRCC minimum instead of to real city costs, then discovering in month three that Toronto rent does not care about immigration thresholds. The fourth is contacting supervisors with copied-and-pasted emails that name the wrong university or the wrong research area — professors notice instantly. The fifth is assuming a professional master’s carries the same funding as a research master’s at the same university. And the sixth, which appears in almost every cycle, is missing the fact that in Quebec you need the CAQ before the study permit, and that both take time. Every one of these errors is avoidable with the deadline table and honest budgeting this guide has described.

After Your Master’s: Work Rights in Brief

Many master’s graduates are eligible for a Post-Graduation Work Permit (PGWP) if they complete an eligible program at a Designated Learning Institution and meet IRCC’s conditions, which include applying within 180 days of completing the program and meeting the language requirement that applies to degree graduates. Since February 15, 2024, graduates of master’s programs shorter than two years may qualify for a three-year PGWP if they meet all other eligibility criteria — a significant advantage of the Canadian master’s route. Rules change, programs differ, and a PGWP is never guaranteed: verify your exact situation on IRCC’s official PGWP pages before you rely on post-study work in your financial planning.

Frequently Asked Questions

Can international students get a fully funded master’s in Canada?

Yes, but it is uncommon and competitive. The clearest full-funding route is the McCall MacBain Scholarship at McGill, which covers tuition and fees plus a CAD 2,300 monthly stipend during academic terms. Beyond that, some thesis-based master’s students assemble funding — entrance awards, research assistantships, teaching assistantships and provincial awards — that covers most or all of their costs, particularly outside the most expensive cities. Course-based and professional master’s students should expect to fund the majority of their degree themselves.

Are international students eligible for the Canada Graduate Scholarship for master’s students?

No. The Canada Graduate Research Scholarship – Master’s (CGRS-M), worth CAD 27,000 for 12 months, is restricted to Canadian citizens, permanent residents and protected persons. International students on study permits cannot apply. Do not build a funding plan around it; focus on university, provincial and supervisor funding instead.

How much is the Ontario Graduate Scholarship, and can international students hold it?

OGS is worth CAD 5,000 per term, up to CAD 15,000 for a three-term year. A limited number of each Ontario university’s OGS awards are reserved for international students, and some universities — Waterloo is one published example — only allow current graduate students, not prospective applicants, to compete for those international places. Treat OGS as a funding opportunity for your second year rather than as admission funding.

How much money must I show for a Canadian study permit in 2026/2027?

For applications submitted on or after September 1, 2025, a single applicant outside Quebec must show at least CAD 22,895 for living expenses, plus first-year tuition and transportation. Quebec has separate financial requirements. The amount is updated periodically, so confirm the current figure on IRCC’s official financial support page when you apply — and budget above the minimum for real living costs.

Do I need a supervisor before applying for a master’s in Canada?

For thesis-based research programs, effectively yes at many universities: admission and funding commonly depend on a faculty member agreeing to supervise you, and some programs require you to name a confirmed supervisor in the application. For course-based and professional programs, no supervisor is needed. Check your program’s admissions page — it will state which model applies.

Does the McCall MacBain Scholarship cover PhD study?

No. It covers eligible full-time master’s degrees and second-entry professional undergraduate programs at McGill. Doctoral students should look at doctoral funding routes such as the Canada Graduate Research Scholarship – Doctoral (CGRS-D) and university doctoral packages instead.

Can I work while studying for my master’s in Canada?

Study permit holders who meet IRCC’s conditions may work limited hours off campus during academic sessions and full-time during scheduled breaks, and many graduate students also hold on-campus research or teaching assistantships that form part of their funding package. Work income should supplement a sound budget, never substitute for the proof of funds IRCC requires, because you must show you can support yourself without relying on employment in Canada.

When should I start applying for Fall 2027 master’s funding?

Start supervisor outreach and scholarship preparation in mid-2026. McCall MacBain applications run in the summer and early autumn of 2026, most funded admission deadlines fall between September and December 2026, and funding decisions follow in early 2027. Beginning after Christmas leaves almost no route to funded admission for that cycle.

Sources & Verification

This guide was prepared from official and institutional sources, checked at the time of writing: Immigration, Refugees and Citizenship Canada — study permit proof of financial support (Canada.ca); McCall MacBain Scholarships at McGill — program terms and eligibility as published by the scholarship and summarised by the University of Calgary awards office; University of Waterloo — Ontario Graduate Scholarship information and funding for research-based graduate programs; EduCanada — Study in Canada Scholarships; and the tri-agency CGRS program pages administered by CIHR, NSERC and SSHRC. Amounts, quotas and deadlines change every cycle — always confirm the current figures on the official page of the award you are applying for.

Disclaimer: Scholarship amounts, deadlines and eligibility rules change yearly, so always confirm every detail on the official scholarship or university website before applying. StudyGraduate is an information portal, not an agency or a representative of any university or government. We never promise or guarantee selection, admission, funding or visa approval, and no one can honestly make those promises to you.