What It Costs Specially a Family to Immigrate Through the Start-Up Markedly Visa or Self-Employed Program

The fee schedule alone tells you these two programmes aren’t built for an average household budget: before a single business plan is reviewed or a credential assessed, start up visa self employed program family fees for a family of four run higher than under most other immigration pathways.

The principal applicant’s fee, first

Both programmes are charged under the same federal business-immigration fee table, starting with the principal applicant:

• Principal applicant, including the Right of Permanent Residence Fee: $2,495
• Principal applicant, processing fee only (RPRF paid later, before landing): $1,895

That’s already noticeably higher than the $1,590 an Express Entry principal applicant pays including RPRF — a direct reflection of the extra scrutiny a business-based application carries.

What a spouse and children add

The spouse and dependent-child fees track the general economic-immigration schedule rather than a separate, higher business rate:

• Spouse or partner, including RPRF: $1,590
• Spouse or partner, processing fee only: $990
• Each dependent child: $270
• Biometrics, family cap of two or more applying together: $170

None of those spouse, child or biometrics figures are unique to business immigration — they’re the same charges an Express Entry family pays. The gap between the two pathways sits entirely in the principal applicant’s own fee.

Business immigration canada family cost, added up

Business immigration canada family cost for a family of four — principal, spouse and two children, all fees including RPRF, plus the family biometrics cap — comes to roughly $4,795, before translations, an educational credential assessment, medical exams, police certificates or any legal and consulting fees a business-based application typically requires. That’s roughly $900 more than the equivalent Express Entry family bill of $3,890, a gap that traces entirely back to the principal applicant’s higher fee, and it’s before accounting for the far larger up-front costs of actually establishing or buying into a qualifying business.

Start-up visa spouse and children fees versus self-employed spouse and children fees

Here’s the detail that surprises people: start up visa spouse and children fees and the equivalent self-employed programme fees are, at the federal level, identical line items on the same table. The two programmes differ sharply in eligibility, structure and what an applicant has to demonstrate about a business — but the government’s own fee schedule doesn’t charge one route more than the other for a spouse or a child. Self employed program family application cost and Start-Up Visa family application cost land on the exact same numbers.

Why the sticker price is only the start

None of the figures above include what actually makes these programmes expensive in practice: legal or accounting support to structure a qualifying business, travel for due diligence, and — for the Start-Up Visa specifically — the commitment a designated organisation requires before a candidate can even apply. That’s the real shape of what a family pays under the Start-Up Visa or the self-employed programme: identical spouse and child costs, a higher principal-applicant fee, and a long list of costs the federal table doesn’t even try to capture. Whether either programme is currently accepting new applications, and whether a specific family’s business plan would actually qualify, are questions this fee breakdown deliberately doesn’t answer — that’s a conversation for a licensed RCIC or immigration lawyer, working from your own numbers rather than a published table.