We list 10 scholarships Open to Nigerian Students in Canada, with the deadline, study level and eligibility of each one taken from the award's own terms. 7 of them are fully funded. Awards with a known closing date are listed soonest first.
Written from the 10 awards on this page — every figure below is counted from what the awards themselves state. 5 min read.
This page collects 10 scholarships in Canada that are open to Nigerian students. Every one of them is a Canadian award, and every one of them sits at a Canadian institution or a Canadian funding body. The list is built for students applying from Nigeria, or applying as Nigerians already studying elsewhere, who need to know which Canadian awards will actually consider them.
The short answer on eligibility: all 10 awards on this page carry no nationality restriction. None of them names Nigeria, or West Africa, or Africa, as a required region. That is not a loophole. It means the award text is written for international applicants generally, and a Nigerian passport is not a barrier in any of the ten.
The list splits across study levels, and several awards accept more than one level, so the counts below add up to more than ten.
Undergraduate funding dominates, which matters if you are finishing WAEC or NECO and looking at a Canadian degree rather than a postgraduate one. The postgraduate side is thinner but real: five awards at master's level and five at doctoral level, including the Vanier Canada Graduate Scholarship and the UBC Four Years Doctoral Fellowship.
Seven of the ten are labelled fully funded. Three do not state their funding either way in their own text, so this page makes no claim about what those three cover. Read each award page before you build a budget around it.
Where funding is described, the wording is specific to the award. One award names tuition in its own text. Beyond that, the value, the number of awards on offer and the exact components are set out on the individual pages rather than summarised here, because they differ from award to award and from year to year.
Some awards run for a defined period. The durations stated in the award texts include 3 years, 4 years, 3-4 years depending on the selected program, and 4 years for an undergraduate with 2 years for a master's. If you are planning a four-year undergraduate degree or a doctoral programme that runs long, check the duration line on the award you are targeting.
The awards on this page are not concentrated in one faculty. Where a field is named in the award text, the spread is:
Several awards on the list are open across disciplines rather than tied to a named field, which is why these counts do not total ten. If your course is not named above, that does not rule you out of the awards that are not field-restricted.
The requirements stated in the award texts give a fair picture of the paperwork involved.
Three awards asking for references is the practical bottleneck for most Nigerian applicants. Referees need time, and if your lecturer is on strike, on leave, or simply slow with email, that is the part of the application that slips. Ask early, ask in writing, and give your referee the award name, the deadline and a copy of your draft so they are not writing from nothing.
The award that requires an admission offer first is a sequencing problem, not a paperwork problem. You cannot apply for that funding until a Canadian institution has already admitted you, which pushes your timeline back by however long that admission takes.
The providers represented here are Canadian universities and one national doctoral scheme. The named institutions include the University of Toronto, the University of British Columbia, York University, McGill University and the University of Waterloo. One award, the Vanier Canada Graduate Scholarship, is hosted through a Canadian institution that holds a quota to host Vanier scholars.
The remaining four awards on the page follow the same pattern: Canadian institutions, no nationality restriction, and funding described in each award's own terms.
One award on this page carries a dated deadline. Nine are undated in the brief, meaning the award text does not fix a date, and one of those is described as recurring. Do not read "undated" as "open indefinitely". It usually means the date is set annually, or that the deadline is tied to an admission cycle rather than a fixed calendar day.
The dated award closing soonest is the UBC Undergraduate Scholarships 2026-2027, which closes on 15 January. January is the busiest month on this list. The Vanier Canada Graduate Scholarship is anticipated before November 2026 for its 2027 cycle. York University's text points to a Fall 2026 admission deadline of 15 February 2026.
Because so few dates are fixed, the working method is to open each award page, note whether the deadline is a date or an admission cycle, and build your own calendar from that. Treat any date you find as the one that matters for that award, not this page.
Canada is not a marginal destination for Nigerian students. According to the UNESCO Institute for Statistics, 12,072 Nigerian students were studying in Canada in 2023, making Nigeria the third-largest source of international students in the country that year. The awards on this page sit inside that existing pipeline, not outside it.
That number is context, not a promise. It tells you that Nigerian students are already navigating Canadian admissions, study permits and funding, and that the institutions on this list have seen Nigerian applications before.
Start with the level you are actually applying at, not the level you hope to reach later. If you are finishing secondary school, the eight undergraduate awards are your list. If you hold a B.Sc or HND and are looking at a master's, work from the five master's awards. If you have an M.Sc and a research direction, the five doctoral awards and the Vanier scheme are where your effort belongs.
Then check two things on each award page before you invest time: whether the award requires an admission offer first, and whether it asks for a research proposal. Those two requirements change the order in which you do everything else.
Finally, handle your documents in parallel with your applications, not after. Transcripts from your Nigerian institution and courier costs are yours to carry, and they take longer than most applicants expect. The UBC award closing 15 January is the nearest fixed date on this page. Work backwards from it.
Looking to study in Canada without the burden of tuition fees? Great news for aspiring international students! Canada offers a wide range of fully funded scholarships for Nigerian students in 2026-2027, making world-class education accessible and affordable. These scholarships cover tuition, living expenses, health insurance, and even travel costs—opening doors to top-ranked Canadian universities. Whether you're applying for undergraduate, master's, or PhD programs, this guide lists the best funding opportunities available. Studying in Canada not only provides academic excellence but also a multicultural environment, permanent residency pathways, and globally recognized degrees. Read on to explore the top scholarship programs in Canada for international students and learn how to apply successfully.
*UNESCO Institute for Statistics, inbound internationally mobile students from Nigeria, 2023.
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