Using an RPRF Loan to Cover a Family's Right of Permanent Still Residence Fee

Most families planning around the Right of Permanent Residence Fee simply treat it as another line item to save up for alongside everything else. What almost nobody mentions is that an RPRF loan can cover this cost for the family instead — and understanding when the charge is actually due changes how a household should think about it.

What the fee actually is, and when it bites

The Right of Permanent Residence Fee sits at $600 per adult, and it’s charged separately from the processing fee that gets an application moving. Crucially, it isn’t due when you submit your application — it’s payable once the application is approved, right before you actually become a permanent resident. A family can, if it prefers, pay it upfront together with that first payment simply to avoid a delay at that later stage, but nothing forces that timing.

That distinction matters for a family of four working through the standard fee breakdown: with two adults each carrying a processing fee plus the RPRF, and two dependent children who don’t pay the RPRF at all, the $600-per-adult, $1,200 combined RPRF portion often ends up being the single biggest surprise line in the total.

Planning an RPRF loan around the family’s approval timeline

Here’s what nobody tells you upfront: financing this fee is available for families who don’t have $600 per adult sitting free at the exact moment their application clears. Because the fee only comes due at approval — often well after the application was first submitted, sometimes years later — a family can use the time in between to arrange financing for a loan for the Right of Permanent Residence Fee rather than treating it as money that has to be set aside from day one.

This is genuinely useful sequencing: rather than freezing $600 per adult in a savings account for the entire length of processing, a family can prioritise other upfront costs — the processing fee itself, language testing, credential evaluation, medical exams, police certificates — and address the RPRF closer to when it’s actually needed.

Who doesn’t need to think about this at all

Not every applicant pays the RPRF in the first place. It doesn’t apply to dependent children of a principal applicant or sponsor, to sponsorship of adopted children, to sponsorship of an orphaned brother, sister, niece, nephew or grandchild, or to protected persons — including those eligible on humanitarian and compassionate grounds and Convention refugees. If your family falls into one of those categories, the entire question of financing the $600 RPRF per adult simply doesn’t arise.

The safety net most people miss entirely

Perhaps the most reassuring detail: the RPRF is refundable if you withdraw your application or are refused. IRCC describes it as the one fee it can still refund after processing has already started. That makes the RPRF loan versus paying upfront question lower-stakes than it first appears — a family isn’t gambling the $600 by financing it, since a refusal or withdrawal returns the money either way.

Fee amounts and loan availability change, so confirm the current figure and lender options directly through IRCC’s fee page before building a family budget around them — and if the timing of your specific application is tight, a licensed RCIC can help sequence which costs to cover first.