What an ECA actually costs: every published line item at the five designated organisations, plus the charges that are not theirs

The five designated ECA organisations publish headline prices between $200 and C$264, which looks like a spread of about thirty dollars. It is not. One of those figures explicitly excludes 13 per cent sales tax and all delivery; another prints “(tax included)” beside every line. Two charge per credential and three per application. And the largest cost in the whole exercise is often not charged by any of them: it is what your own university charges to issue and courier an official transcript, which every one of the five tells you is yours to pay.

Every figure below was read on 3 September 2026 from the organisation’s own fee page. Fees move — one of the five had a notice headed “Fee Increases (September 1)” on its own news panel two days before we read it — so treat this as a map of the line items, not a current price list.

The headline fee, with the unit and the tax line attached

Organisation	Headline	Unit	Tax as stated
ICES	$200 CAD	per educational credential	“all fees are in Canadian dollars (CAD)”; no tax line published
ICAS	$231	per Canadian Immigration Assessment Package	“(tax included)”
CES	$241.50	per application (up to two credentials since 22 September 2025)	not stated
IQAS	$260	for one credential; “$100 per credential” for each additional in the same application	not stated
WES	C$264	per ECA	“Price does not include delivery fees, additional fees, or a 13% Harmonized Sales Tax (HST)”

That last row is the one that breaks naive comparison. A tax-exclusive figure and a tax-inclusive figure are not the same kind of number, and the difference at 13 per cent is not small relative to a thirty-dollar spread.

Every other published line item

Administration and application add-ons

• IQAS: an administration fee of $25 on top of the application fee. “Each applicant must apply separately and pay separate application, administration and courier fees, even if applicants reside at the same household.”
• CES: an “ECA Administration Fee” of $45, described as “A non-refundable application fee required for all ECA applications and services submitted”, with the note that “If your application is deemed out of scope to assess by CES, and cancelled, refunds will still be subject to this fee.” CES’s fee table does not state whether this sits inside or on top of the $241.50; we are not going to infer it.
• ICES: no separate administration fee for a new ECA, but a $50 charge “If ICES receives a cheque that does not cash due to insufficient funds”, and “The evaluation will not be released until all fees have been paid in full.”

Delivery

	Within Canada	To the USA	International	Electronic
ICES	included (regular mail, no tracking); courier $26	courier $75	courier $75	$50 for a PDF via QR code, “meant to be viewed online only; there are no printing privileges included”
ICAS	regular mail $6, courier $35	mail $11, courier $40	mail $11, courier $85	electronic copy included in the package
CES	courier $65 (Canada and continental USA)	courier $65	courier $83	$21 certified electronic copy
IQAS	$25	—	$90	not published as a separate option
WES	“delivery fees apply”; not published as a figure on the page we read	—	—	electronic ECA report included

ICES adds two restrictions worth knowing before choosing regular mail: “There are certain countries where a courier service cannot be used”, and “Courier deliveries cannot be made to post office box numbers.” IQAS says the same in different words: “Do not use an international P.O. Box number as part of your mailing address, because couriers will not deliver to that type of address.”

Extra copies, splits and conversions

• ICES: $20 per extra evaluation report.
• ICAS: $33 each for extra original Assessment Reports (the package includes two).
• CES: $30 per set of duplicate copies plus delivery; $63 per set where a duplicate official transcript goes to an institutional third party; $51 to split credentials into separate reports; $135.60 to convert between a general-purpose assessment and an immigration ECA.
• CES also charges $226 for a pre-enrolment assessment of up to three foreign degree programmes, and $226 to assess whether up to three institutions are recognised — two services the other four do not publish.

Renewal after five years

• ICES: $50. “It may be renewed only after the 5-year time frame has expired.”
• ICAS: $121 (tax included), including “file reactivation, two updated original Assessment Reports”.
• CES: $189.00, with an explicit warning: “Your assessment outcome may change to reflect current CES policy. If it does, the new (renewed) report will supersede the previous report.”
• IQAS: publishes no renewal fee — “When your ECA expires, you must re-apply”, i.e. at full price.
• ICAS additionally charges $35 file reactivation “If your file is more than two years old”.

Disagreeing with the result

• CES: $199, “fee refundable if appeal is successful”.
• ICAS: $200, “ICAS refunds this fee if the appeal is successful”.
• IQAS: $200, “automatically refunded only if the reassessment results in a change from the original assessment decision. Other requests for refunds of the reassessment fee will not be considered.”
• ICES: free within one year; “After one year there is a $75 to re-open the file.”
• WES: no published review or appeal fee found on 3 September 2026.

Rush

Only IQAS publishes one: $250 “in addition to application, administration, and courier fees”, subject to a daily quota, and “If IQAS cannot complete an assessment, your application will be cancelled, and the rush service fee will not be refunded.”

The refund rules, which are stricter than most people expect

• IQAS: “All IQAS fees are non-refundable. Refund requests for fees will not be considered once an application is submitted to IQAS. The fees cover the cost of processing your application and are required whether an assessment certificate is issued or not.” It adds, in the same breath: “There is no guarantee you will be issued an assessment certificate, or that a specific educational credential will have the desired outcome.”
• ICES: “No refunds are offered for cancelled ECA applications. It is up to the client to ensure all document requirements can be met, prior to applying. Also, refunds are not offered if you change your mind and no longer require the assessment.” For general applications it publishes a cancellation route “less the administration fee ($75)”.
• CES: the $45 administration fee survives even a cancellation for being out of scope.

Read together, these mean the same thing from three directions: the money is spent when the application is submitted, not when a report is issued. Checking the exclusion lists at the agency comparison before paying is the single cheapest step in this whole process.

The costs none of the five charge — and all five make yours

Every organisation states that obtaining official documents is the applicant’s own expense. ICAS puts it most directly: “Applicants are responsible for paying any fees associated with an official records request.” CES routes applicants to their institutions to request records and offers its request form “for your convenience… it’s not necessary that you use it.”

The published line items that generate those outside charges are:

• Transcript issue fees charged by your university, examinations board or council, per credential and sometimes per copy. For several countries the agencies require a year-by-year set of mark sheets rather than a consolidated document, which can multiply the number of pieces the institution has to certify.
• Courier from your institution to the agency. Because three of the five require the envelope to travel from the institution directly, this is usually an international courier charge you cannot avoid by posting it yourself.
• Certified translation. None of the five provides translation. WES states plainly that “WES does not offer a translation service.” IQAS requires “a word-for-word translation of the original document” by “a qualified professional translator who does not need to be certified in Canada”. ICAS requires the translator to “provide complete contact information including an e-mail address”.
• Country-specific verification products. For some countries an agency requires a verification report issued by a third body before it will proceed. That report is a separate purchase from a separate organisation, and no ECA agency’s fee page includes it.
• A second ECA for a spouse or partner. ICES: “Each client is required to apply as an individual. You cannot apply as a couple or as a family.” IQAS says the same. If you intend to claim points for a partner’s education, it is a second full price, not a discount.

How to read all this

1. Build your own total in this order: number of credentials × the agency’s unit price, plus administration, plus tax if the agency quotes tax-exclusive, plus delivery, plus your institution’s charges, plus translation. Only then compare organisations.
2. A cheap headline with an expensive courier is not cheap. CES’s international courier is $83; ICAS’s regular international mail is $11. That single line is larger than the gap between several of the headline fees.
3. Renewal is not a rounding error. Over a five-year Express Entry horizon the difference between a $50 renewal and re-applying at $260 is real money, and only two of the five publish a renewal price under $150.
4. “Refundable if successful” is not the same as refundable. Three of the four published appeal fees are returned only when the outcome actually changes.

What this page does not do

It does not say which organisation is cheapest for you, because that depends on how many credentials you need assessed and where you live. It does not reproduce any organisation’s price list as a current quotation. And it does not comment on whether an ECA is worth buying at all — that depends on what the receiving body requires, which is covered in which report each purpose asks for.