The Express Entry Application Cost in Rands, Line by Line

Nobody publishes the express entry application cost in rands as a single figure, because half of it is charged in Canadian dollars and the other half by South African bodies before you can even apply. Most people budget the headline government fee and get blindsided by several smaller ones that arrive earlier.

Here is every fee in the stack, in Canadian dollars, as at 2 August 2026 — with the caveat that every one of them changes without much notice, so treat this as a shopping list to verify at the source rather than a final number.

The fees that go straight to Ottawa

Start with the simplest question: what fees do you pay directly to IRCC? For a principal applicant, the permanent residence application itself is $990 in processing fees plus a $600 Right of Permanent Residence Fee (RPRF), for $1,590 total. A spouse or partner applying with you pays the same $1,590. Dependent children add further processing costs on top of that. Biometrics run $85 per person, with a family cap.

The RPRF is worth understanding on its own: IRCC calls it “the only fee that we can refund after we start processing your application.” It’s refundable if you withdraw or are refused, which the $990 processing fee is not. You can pay it up front alongside the processing fee to avoid a delay once you’re approved.

For a couple applying together, that’s roughly $3,180 paid straight to IRCC — before either of you has touched a language test, a credential assessment or a police clearance.

Cost of language test, ECA and medicals

This is where South Africa adds its own layer. An Educational Credential Assessment through a designated body such as WES or IQAS runs roughly $210–$285 CAD, plus courier costs for transcripts — reported turnarounds run from about three weeks with IQAS to as long as twenty with ICAS, so price and speed pull in different directions. Before that step, South African qualifications generally need verification by Umalusi (matric, 1992 onward) or SAQA (degrees and diplomas), at a reported cost of roughly R3,450 for SAQA verification — a figure from document-service providers, so get a current quote before budgeting against it.

IELTS General Training — never the Academic version, which doesn’t count for Express Entry — is quoted anywhere from roughly R3,620 to R6,620 depending on the centre and booking method. That range is wide enough that confirming the actual price with British Council or IDP South Africa beats trusting a number from a forum post.

The immigration medical exam fee is set by individual panel physicians and wasn’t consistently published anywhere we could verify — get a direct quote from a panel physician such as those associated with IOM Pretoria before you budget for it.

A SAPS police clearance certificate is comparatively cheap on paper, around R190, but realistic turnaround runs four to twelve weeks. The cost that actually bites here is the delay.

What comes back if you’re refused

Knowing which express entry fees are refundable changes how you sequence the spending. The RPRF ($600) comes back if you’re refused or you withdraw. The $990 processing fee doesn’t. Language test fees, ECA fees, SAQA/Umalusi verification, medical exam fees and police clearance fees are sunk the moment you pay them — none of those bodies operate on an immigration-outcome basis.

A rough total, for one applicant

Add it up for a single applicant with no dependants: $990 processing plus $600 RPRF plus $85 biometrics to IRCC, roughly $250 for an ECA, R3,450 for SAQA verification, somewhere in the R3,600–R6,600 range for IELTS, R190 for a police clearance, and an unbudgeted medical exam fee. None of that includes settlement funds, which you need to hold rather than spend. A couple applying together roughly doubles most of these lines, aside from the fixed application-processing costs.

Every one of these numbers moves. Check the current fee on canada.ca before you commit to a figure in your own spreadsheet.

Cape2Canada’s What It Really Costs guide breaks the whole journey down category by category in rand terms — a sensible next stop before you start moving money.