What you need to repay

You need to repay your OSAP if:

Who needs to start repaying

You may need to start paying back your OSAP loan six months after your study period ends.

You don't need to start paying back your OSAP loan if your school confirms your enrolment for the next study period and we approve your application for one of the following programs:

  • OSAP for Full-Time Students
  • Continuation of Interest-Free Status

If you received loans through the OSAP micro-credentials program, learn about repayment for micro-credentials programs.

Where to repay your loan

You'll make payments to the National Student Loans Service Centre (NSLSC), not to OSAP.

The OSAP loan agreement you signed, known as the Master Student Financial Assistance Agreement (MSFAA), contains the terms and conditions of your loan and states that you make loan payments to the NSLSC.

Bursary overpayment

A grant or bursary overpayment is when you receive more grant or bursary funds than you should have (for example, your study period plans changed after you received your money.)

You may need to repay some or all of the overpayment before you can be considered for more funding from OSAP.

Your financial aid office or the ministry will let you know when and how you need to repay the overpayment.

Pay back OSAP

When it is time to start paying back your OSAP loan, here's what you need to know:

  1. Graduate or leave full-time studies

    You have six months after you graduate or leave full-time studies before you need to start repaying your OSAP loan. This is your six-month grace period.

    You will be charged interest on the Ontario portion of your loan during your six-month grace period. This interest will be added to your loan principal (the balance of money you borrow).

    Effective April 1, 2023, Canada will not charge interest on the federal portion of an OSAP loan.
  2. Estimate your monthly payments

    The interest rates on your first payment date are used to figure out the monthly payment for your loan. Ontario interest rate is calculated at prime rate plus 1%. Canada interest rate is 0%.

    If interest rates change, your monthly payment stays the same. However, the amount applied to your loan principal will change.

  3. Sign in to your National Student Loans Service Centre account

    With your account, you can:

    • check your student loans status and balances
    • update your contact information
    • apply for repayment assistance
    • request a change to the terms of your repayment
  4. Get your repayment package

    Within six months after you graduate or leave full-time studies, you'll get a package from the National Student Loans Service Centre with information about:

    • your total number of payments
    • the date of your first payment
    • the interest rates used to calculate your payment
  5. Extend your grace period by another six months if you:

  6. Start repaying your loan

    You make loan payments to the National Student Loans Service Centre, not to OSAP.

    Your payments are based on a 9½ year pay-back schedule. This pay-back schedule is the average amount of time it takes to pay back an OSAP loan.

    Repaying student loans is an excellent way to establish and improve your credit score. You can make additional payments on your loan at any time if you want to repay it faster.

    Get repayment assistance:

    If you're having trouble repaying your loan, you might be able to get repayment assistance.

    If you have a severe permanent disability and you can't attend work or school, you can apply for the Severe Permanent Disability Benefit. Contact the National Student Loans Service Centre.

    Extend your repayment period:

    You can lower your monthly payments by extending your repayment period from 9½ up to 14½ years. Log in to your National Student Loans Service Centre account.

  7. Finish paying off your loan

    Once you're finished paying off your loan, you'll get a notice from the National Student Loans Service Centre.

Get repayment assistance

You can apply to the Repayment Assistance Plan to lower your monthly loan payments for a six-month period.

Eligibility

To be eligible to apply for the Repayment Assistance Plan, you must:

  • be a resident of Canada
  • have student loans that are in good standing
    (Good standing means your OSAP loan is not in default and is not restricted from repayment assistance for other reasons.)

During your repayment assistance period, you will either:

  • be exempt from making monthly loan payments during the six-month eligibility period
  • make your monthly affordable payment

Repayment Assistance Plan

Both the governments of Ontario and Canada offer repayment assistance to help borrowers who are having difficulty repaying their loans. Although there is a single integrated application for the Repayment Assistance plan, there are different eligibility criteria for federal and provincial repayment assistance programs.

Students may qualify for different levels of assistance for their federal and provincial loans. (For example, students may qualify for zero payment for their federal loan but qualify for an affordable payment for their provincial loan.) Contact the National Student Loans Service Centre for further details. Visit Repayment Assistance Plan – How it works for details regarding the federal loan.

The following outlines the eligibility criteria for the provincial Repayment Assistance Plan. Your affordable payment for the Repayment Assistance Plan is calculated based on your gross family income and your family size.

If your income increases, the payment will gradually grow, but it will never be more than 20% of your family income.

You might not have to make any payments at all if your gross family income falls under the maximum amounts listed below.

Repayment Assistance Plan
Family size (number of family members)Gross monthly family income
1$2,083
2$3,254
3$4,205
4$4,959
5 or more$5,652

Note: if your spouse also has government student loans in repayment, your monthly affordable payments will be divided between the two of you, based on your portions of the total student loans held by both of you. If your spouse wishes to be considered for the Repayment Assistance Plan, they will need to submit their own application.

Example:

  • the total combined monthly affordable payment based on your family income is $150
  • your loan makes up two-thirds of the combined loan. Your spouse's loan makes up one-third of the combined loan
  • your monthly affordable payment will be $100 (two-thirds of $150)
  • your spouse's monthly affordable payment will be $50 (one-third of $150)

Your family size refers to the number of family members residing with you permanently, including:

  • yourself
  • spouse or common-law partner
  • dependents

Dependents are children under 21 years of age and living with you or in school full-time.

If you are single, with no dependents, your family size is 1.

How to apply

There are two ways you can apply for the Repayment Assistance Plan. You can:

You have to re-apply to the Repayment Assistance Plan every six months.

Repayment Assistance Plan stages

The plan has two stages: interest relief and debt reduction.

1. Interest relief

The interest relief stage is available for up to 60 months, or until you are out of school for 10 years, whichever comes first.

During the interest relief stage

  • your monthly affordable payment will first go toward paying down your loan principal
  • if your payment is large enough, the remainder will go toward monthly interest
  • the Government of Ontario covers all monthly interest that is not covered by your payment

If you are not required to make any payments at all during this stage, the Government of Ontario will cover your entire monthly interest charges and your loan principal would stay frozen.

Visit the National Student Loans Service Centre website to get more information.

2. Debt reduction

The debt reduction stage occurs after the interest relief stage, which is after you have received interest relief for a minimum of 60 months or you have been out of school for 10 years, whichever comes first.

During the debt reduction stage:

  • you will make either no payments or a monthly affordable payment, depending on your income and family size
  • your monthly affordable payment, if any, will go first toward paying down your loan principal
  • if your payment is large enough, the remainder will go toward paying monthly interest

The Government of Ontario covers all monthly interest and principal amounts not covered by your payment. Provincial payments would ensure your debt is eliminated within a maximum of 15 years from being out of school, or within a maximum of 10 years if you have a permanent disability or a persistent or prolonged disability, as long as you maintain eligibility.

Visit the National Student Loans Service Centre website to get more information.

Repayment Assistance Plan for Borrowers with Disabilities

If you are applying and have a disability

If you were confirmed as having a permanent disability when you applied for OSAP while you were a postsecondary student, you do not need to provide any further documentation. If you were confirmed as having a persistent or prolonged disability while you were a postsecondary student, you may have to provide verification of your disability status with your initial Repayment Assistance Plan for Borrowers with Disabilities application. If this verification is not required, you would provide an attestation to indicate your persistent or prolonged disability is ongoing.

If you were not confirmed as having a permanent disability or a persistent or prolonged disability when you applied for OSAP, you will need to provide medical documentation to support your disability status. Contact the National Student Loans Service Centre to get more information.

Repayment terms

If you have a confirmed permanent disability or a confirmed persistent or prolonged disability, you can apply to the debt reduction stage immediately when you enter repayment, without receiving any interest relief as part of stage one.

The Government of Ontario helps borrowers who have disabilities pay off their loans in 10 years, as long as they remain eligible for the Repayment Assistance Plan for Borrowers with Disabilities.

You can also provide documentation to have your disability-related expenses considered when your affordable monthly payment is calculated. To do this, you must:

Revise the terms of your loan

You can request to change the amount of your monthly payments and the time it takes to repay your loan by contacting the National Student Loans Service Centre or the National Student Loans Service Centre for OSAP Micro-credentials Program as applicable.

Lowering your monthly payments

Typically, when you enter the repayment period for your loan, you have up to 91/2 years to repay it.

If you need more time to repay your loan, you can extend the repayment period to 141/2 years. This will lower your monthly payments, but it will increase the total amount you repay because more interest will accumulate over a longer period of time.

By revising the terms of your plan, you can:

  1. Decrease payment for a short period, which will temporarily make the repayment period of your loan longer to reduce the amount of your monthly payment.
  2. Extend the total repayment time of your loan (to permanently decrease monthly payments).
  3. Make interest-only payments for a short period. You may do this for a maximum of 12 months during the lifetime of your loans.

Example:

Revising the term of your loan can significantly reduce your monthly payments
Repayable loanInterest rate (rate shown is illustrative only)Payment periodMonthly loan payment
$20,0005%91/2 years$226
$20,0005%141/2 years$167

Increasing your monthly payments

If your income increases or expenses decrease, you can shorten the repayment period and make larger monthly payments.

Tools to simplify the repayment process

National Student Loans Service Centre (NSLSC)

You can find tools on the NSLSC website to help simplify and improve your repayment process. These include:

Pre-authorized debit: activate this option online to automatically make student loan payments every month.

Repayment notice: important information about your repayment terms, such as amount owing, repayment start date and repayment amount can be found by accessing the repayment notice feature online.

Virtual repayment counsellor: a virtual repayment counsellor can help you identify the best repayment path and ensure regular, timely loan repayments.

One-time payment: make lump-sum payments through the NSLSC website to accelerate repaying your loan.

Financial Consumer Agency of Canada

The Financial Consumer Agency of Canada offers a wide range of financial literacy tools and resources, such as videos and modules, to help you increase your financial knowledge and learn about effectively managing your personal finances.

Ontario Student Opportunity Grant (2016–17 loans only)

If you received OSAP loans for the 2016-17 academic year, you will not owe more than:

  • $7,500 for a two-term academic year
  • $11,250 for a three-term academic year

Go to the Ontario Student Opportunity Grant page for complete details.

If you don't repay your loans

If you don't make your loan payments, you will be in default.

An OSAP loan is considered to be in default when no required payments have been made for 270 days.

Being in default means:

  • your debt will be turned over to a collection agency
  • you will be reported to a credit bureau
  • you could be ineligible for further OSAP until the default is cleared
  • your ability to get a car loan, mortgage or credit card can be affected
  • your income tax refund and HST rebate can be withheld
  • interest will continue to build up on the unpaid balance of your loan

Your OSAP debt will only be erased when you have paid it off in full.

You can bring your defaulted loans back into good standing through the Ontario Student Loan rehabilitation program.

Get a loan out of default

Canada-Ontario Integrated Student Loans

Contact: National Student Loans Service Centre

Canada Student Loans

Contact the collection agency listed on your collection notice.

To confirm which collection agency holds your account call:

Ontario Student Loans

Contact the collection agency listed on your collection notice.

The Account Management and Collections Branch, Ministry of Finance can confirm the collection agency listed on your collection notice.

Call:

If you declare bankruptcy or a related event

If you file for bankruptcy or initiate a related event, such as a consumer proposal or if you obtain a consolidation order, you still have to pay your OSAP loan. This means you must continue to make a regular monthly payment.

Apply to the Repayment Assistance Plan if you can't make these monthly payments.

If you've been out of studies for more than five years, you can ask a bankruptcy court to have your OSAP loan included in your discharge. Contact your bankruptcy trustee for help.

Repayment for micro-credential student loans

  1. Estimate your monthly payments

    You have six months after your studies end before you need to start repaying your micro-credential OSAP loan. This is your six-month grace period.

    You will be charged interest on your loan during your six-month grace period. This interest will be added to your loan balance (also known as your loan principal).

    The interest rates on your first payment date are used to figure out the monthly payment for your loan. Your interest will be calculated at the prime interest rate plus 1%.

  2. Get your repayment package

    Within six months after your studies end, you'll get a package from the National Student Loans Service Centre for OSAP Micro-credentials Program with information about:

    • your total number of payments
    • the date of your first payment
    • the interest rates used to calculate your payment
  3. Start repaying your loan

    You'll make payments for your micro-credential OSAP loan through the National Student Loan Service Centre for OSAP for Micro-credentials Program.

    You can make payments on your loan at any time to repay it faster.

  4. Finish paying off your loan

    Once you're finished paying off your loan, you'll get a notice from the National Student Loans Service Centre for OSAP Micro-credentials Program.

    If you also have OSAP loans from full-time or part-time studies, these loans will remain repayable.

Get repayment assistance for micro-credential student loans

You can apply to the Repayment Assistance Plan for Micro-credentials to lower your monthly loan payments for a six-month period.

Eligibility

To be eligible to apply for the Repayment Assistance Plan for Micro-credentials, you must:

  • be a resident of Canada
  • have student loans that are in good standing
    (Good standing means your micro-credential student loan is not in default and is not restricted from repayment assistance for other reasons.)

During your repayment assistance period for your micro-credential student loan, you will either:

  • be exempt from making monthly loan payments during the six-month eligibility period
  • make your monthly affordable payment

Repayment Assistance Plan for Micro-credentials

If your income increases, the payment will gradually grow, but it will never be more than 20% of your family income. You might not have to make any payments at all if your gross family income falls under the maximum amounts listed below.

Repayment Assistance Plan for Micro-Credentials
Family size (number of family members)Gross monthly family income
1$2,083
2$3,254
3$4,205
4$4,959
5 or more$5,652

If you (or, if applicable, your spouse) have other government student loans in repayment, make sure to carefully complete the Repayment Assistance Plan for Micro-credentials application to ensure that all relevant information is considered when determining the amount of repayment assistance available to you.

How to apply

To apply for the Repayment Assistance Plan for Micro-credentials, you need to:

  • complete a paper application
  • send it back to the National Student Loans Service Centre for OSAP Micro-credentials Program

For more information, contact the National Student Loans Service Centre for OSAP Micro-credentials Program at:

Toll-free: 1-888-869-2896
(in North America)

You have to re-apply to the Repayment Assistance Plan for Micro-credentials every six months.

Repayment Assistance Plan for Micro-credentials stages

The plan has two stages: interest relief and debt reduction.

1. Interest relief

The interest relief stage is available for up to 60 months, or until 10 years have passed since your last micro-credential program, whichever comes first.

During the interest relief stage:

  • your monthly affordable payment will first go toward paying down your loan principal
  • if your payment is large enough, the remainder will go toward monthly interest
  • the Government of Ontario covers all monthly interest that is not covered by your payment

If you are not required to make any payments at all during this stage, the Government of Ontario will cover your entire monthly interest charges and your loan principal would stay frozen.

For more information on the Repayment Assistance Plan for Micro-credentials, please contact the National Student Loans Service Centre for OSAP Micro-credentials Program at:

2. Debt reduction

The debt reduction stage occurs after the interest relief stage, which is after you have received interest relief for a minimum of 60 months or until 10 years have passed since your last micro-credential program, whichever comes first.

During the debt reduction stage:

  • you will make either no payments or a monthly affordable payment, depending on your income and family size
  • your monthly affordable payment, if any, will go first toward paying down your loan principal
  • if your payment is large enough, the remainder will go toward paying monthly interest

The Government of Ontario covers all monthly interest and principal amounts not covered by your payment. Provincial payments would ensure your debt is eliminated within a maximum of 15 years since your last micro-credential program, or within a maximum of 10 years if you have a permanent disability or a persistent or prolonged disability, as long as you maintain eligibility.

For more information on the Repayment Assistance Plan for Micro-credentials, please contact the National Student Loans Service Centre for OSAP Micro-credentials Program at:

Repayment Assistance Plan for Micro-credentials for Borrowers with Disabilities

If you are applying and have a disability

If you were confirmed as having a permanent disability when you applied for OSAP or OSAP for Micro-credentials during your study period, you do not need to provide any further documentation. If you were confirmed as having a persistent or prolonged disability supports during your study period, you may have to provide verification of your disability status with your initial Repayment Assistance Plan for Micro-credentials for Borrowers with Disabilities application. If this verification is not required, you would provide an attestation to indicate your persistent or prolonged disability is ongoing.

If you were not confirmed as having a permanent disability or a persistent or prolonged disability when you applied for OSAP or OSAP for Micro-credentials, you will need to provide medical documentation to support your disability status.

For more information on the Repayment Assistance Plan for Micro-credentials, please contact the National Student Loans Service Centre for OSAP Micro-credentials Program at:

Repayment terms

If you have a confirmed permanent disability or a confirmed persistent or prolonged disability, you can apply to the debt reduction stage immediately when you enter repayment, without receiving any interest relief as part of stage one.

The Government of Ontario helps borrowers who have disabilities pay off their micro-credential loans in 10 years, as long as they remain eligible for the Repayment Assistance Plan for Micro-credentials for Borrowers with Disabilities

You can also provide documentation to have your disability-related expenses considered when your affordable monthly payment is calculated. To do this, you must:

  • complete a Repayment Assistance Plan for Micro-credentials for Borrowers with Disabilities – Disability-Related Expenses Form from the National Student Loans Service Centre for OSAP Micro-credentials Program
  • provide proof of your expenses and insurance coverage

For more information on the Repayment Assistance Plan for Micro-credentials, please contact the National Student Loans Service Centre for OSAP Micro-credentials Program at: