Graduated in the spring? Your student loan payments start November 1 — here's the math

If you finished school in April or May 2026, the National Student Loans Service Centre is about to send you a repayment schedule. Federal student loans come with a six-month grace period, and the first payment is due on the first day of the seventh month — for spring graduates, that's November 1, 2026. It isn't a deadline you apply for. It just arrives.

What the default payment looks like

The average Canadian graduate leaves with roughly $28,000 of student debt, split about 60% federal and 40% provincial. The NSLSC's default term is 114 months — nine and a half years. On that timeline:

• Federal portion (~$16,800): about $147 a month. Canada Student Loans have been permanently interest-free since April 2023, so every dollar goes to principal. Stretched over 114 months, it costs exactly $16,800.
• Provincial portion (~$11,200): this is where the interest lives. Ontario charges prime + 1% — 5.45% with prime at 4.45% today — which works out to about $126 a month and roughly $3,200 of interest over the term. Rates and grace-period rules differ by province; some charge interest during the six months you weren't paying.

Combined, that's about $273 a month — for a decade. On a $55,000 first job in Ontario, take-home is around $42,900 a year, or $3,570 a month, so the loan payment is roughly 8% of what actually lands in your account.

Your student loan is two loans wearing one statement. One of them is free to carry. The other one isn't.

The income line that matters

If the first job hasn't materialized, or pays less than the schedule assumes, the Repayment Assistance Plan (RAP) is the mechanism — and it's better than most graduates realize.

• Below a gross family income of $3,866 a month (about $46,400 a year for a single person), your required payment is $0 and the government covers the interest on the federal portion.
• Above the line, payments are capped at 20% of income over the threshold, and the threshold rises with family size — $4,535 for two people, $5,556 for three.
• You must reapply every six months, and you can only apply once the loan is in repayment — so the earliest window opens the same day the payments do.

That $46,400 line isn't a poverty threshold. It sits at roughly the 51st percentile of individual income in Ontario — about half of tax filers earn less. A new graduate in a starter role has a real chance of qualifying, and qualifying isn't a black mark: RAP time counts toward repayment, and it keeps the loan in good standing. Check where your offer sits with the income percentile tool.

Pay the minimum, or attack it?

Because the two halves behave so differently, the order matters more than the total.

• Never prepay the federal loan first. At 0%, it is the cheapest money you will ever borrow. Any extra dollar you have beats it in a TFSA earning 3–4%, or by paying down anything that charges interest.
• Extra payments go to the provincial portion. At 5.45%, every $1,000 paid early on the Ontario loan saves about $55 a year in interest — better than most guaranteed returns after tax.
• Lengthening the federal term is a free option. You can ask the NSLSC to extend the amortization; on an interest-free loan, a smaller payment for longer costs nothing extra and frees cash flow in the years it's tightest.

The takeaway

Set a reminder for late October to check your NSLSC account, confirm the payment date and amount, and decide which loan gets the extra money. Then run your offer through the take-home pay calculator — the $273 is a fixed number, but what it feels like depends entirely on the paycheque it comes out of.

Take-home and percentile figures delivered by Metrestick. Underlying data: CRA 2026 federal and provincial income-tax parameters and Statistics Canada tax-filer statistics (Open Government Licence – Canada). RAP thresholds: Employment and Social Development Canada, Repayment Assistance Plan, updated July 31, 2026.