Federal loan limits: the weekly cap and the 60 percent rule
A federal student loan is not a blank cheque for your costs. It is a capped share of your assessed need, and the cap works differently for full-time and part-time students. This page sets out the federal limits for 2025-2026, verified from the regulations, and explains the arithmetic your Notice of Assessment is doing behind the scenes.
Full-time students: $300 a week, and only 60 percent of need
For 2025-2026, the federal weekly loan limit for full-time students is $300, starting August 1, 2025. Your federal loan is the lesser of 60 percent of your assessed financial need or that weekly maximum multiplied by your weeks of study. Suppose your assessed need for a 34-week study period is $10,000. Sixty percent of that is $6,000, and the weekly cap allows $300 times 34, or $10,200 — so your federal loan would be $6,000, because the 60 percent figure is lower. If instead your assessed need were $20,000, sixty percent would be $12,000 but the weekly cap would allow only $10,200, so the weekly cap would bind and your federal loan would be $10,200. The remaining need is where provincial or territorial aid, and your own resources, come in. The weekly limit has a history worth knowing: it sat at $210 from 2005-2006, was raised temporarily to $350 in 2020-2021, and has been set at $300 for 2023-2024, 2024-2025, and 2025-2026, with the 2026-2027 regulations extending the same funding levels.
Part-time students: a $10,000 outstanding cap
Part-time federal loans have no weekly limit at all. They work as a rotating line of credit with a maximum outstanding balance of $10,000: you can borrow up to that balance across your part-time study, and as you repay, borrowing room opens up again within the cap. The loan is still limited by your assessed need, which for part-time students is based on educational costs only, so in practice many part-time borrowers never approach the $10,000 ceiling. But if you study part-time for many years, the cap is the number to watch — it is a lifetime-of-part-time-study style ceiling on what you can have outstanding at once, not an annual allowance.
| Item | What it means | Why it matters |
|---|---|---|
| Full-time federal loan | Lesser of 60% of assessed need or $300 per week | 2025-2026, loan year from August 1, 2025 |
| Part-time federal loan | Lesser of assessed need or $10,000 outstanding | Rotating line of credit; no weekly limit |
| Canada Apprentice Loan | Up to $4,000 per period of technical training | Lifetime maximum $20,000 over up to five periods |
Two things the federal limit does not cover. First, it does not include your provincial or territorial loan, which has its own limits set by your province or territory — in integrated provinces the two are administered as one loan, but the federal limit still describes only the federal share. Second, it does not include private borrowing. Banks and lines of credit have their own terms, interest, and repayment rules, and they are not part of the federal program's protections: no Repayment Assistance Plan, no interest-free federal treatment, and no NSLSC servicing. Borrow federal and provincial first, and treat private borrowing as a last resort after a careful comparison.
Sources: Canada Gazette Part II, SOR/2025-113 and SOR/2026-139 (weekly limit $300 for 2025-2026, 60 percent rule, $10,000 part-time cap, limit history); Canada.ca, Canada Apprentice Loan evaluation summary ($4,000 per period, $20,000 lifetime).