Canada's arrival admin is straightforward, but each piece feeds the next: SIN before your first shift, bank to unlock your GIC funds, credit history for year-two housing, and your province decides your healthcare. Here is the working order.
Get your SIN, ideally at the airport
The Social Insurance Number is required to work and takes minutes. Major airports issue it at arrival service desks, otherwise any Service Canada office or online. Bring your study permit and passport. Guard it, share it only with employers and banks, SIN scams by fake CRA callers are a Canadian rite of passage, real agencies never demand payment by gift card.
Open your bank account and release your GIC
If you did the GIC route, your bank (often the same one, like Scotiabank, ICICI Canada, RBC or CIBC) needs an in-person or video verification to activate the account that drip-feeds your GIC funds monthly. All big banks run newcomer student packages with no monthly fees and a free credit card, take the credit card even if it scares you, see step 4.
Phone plan
Canadian telecom is expensive. Budget brands (Public Mobile, Fido, Freedom, Koodo) run CAD 25-45 a month. Bring an unlocked phone from India, financing a phone here costs real money and needs the credit you do not have yet.
Start your credit history in month one
Canadian credit works like the US: you start at zero, and your score later decides apartments, car insurance rates and phone financing. Use the newcomer credit card for groceries, keep utilization low, autopay in full. Two years of this quietly sets up your post-graduation life.
Sort your health coverage, it depends on the province
BC (MSP after a waiting period), Alberta and some others cover international students under provincial plans, apply immediately. Ontario does not, universities enrol you in UHIP instead, and Quebec has its own RAMQ arrangements for some nationalities. Learn what YOUR province gives you, where the campus clinic is, and that walk-in clinics and telehealth exist, because emergency rooms without coverage bill hundreds to thousands.
Transit and the winter kit
Most universities bundle a U-Pass transit pass into fees, activate it. And before November: a real winter jacket (rated to minus 20 and below), insulated boots and gloves. Thrift stores and end-of-season sales make this affordable, shivering through January in a fashion jacket is a mistake every batch makes once.
Housing first: the Canadian housing guide. The PR big picture is in Canada PR in 2026, and a mentor in Canada can walk you through your specific province's quirks.
