There is one number that decides whether an application is worth starting, and it is not the tuition. It is what your family has to be able to show in a bank account.
Here it is for all five, as of September 2026. Every one of these figures moved in the last twelve months, so check the date on anything else you read.
The UK: £10,539 outside London
Nine months of maintenance at £1,171 a month. In London it is £1,529 a month, so £13,761.
On top: any tuition you have not already paid. A deposit receipt reduces what you show.
The catch: 28 consecutive days in the account, with the closing balance dated no more than 31 days before you apply. If the balance dips below the required amount on any single day in that window, the 28 days start over.
Coming: both figures rise on 30 November 2026, to £1,203 and £1,570 a month.
Canada: CAD 23,448
Raised from CAD 22,895 on 1 September 2026, for a single applicant outside Quebec.
On top: your first year of tuition and your travel costs. This is the one people get wrong. The 23,448 is living expenses only.
Note: a GIC is a clean way to show it but has not been compulsory since the Student Direct Stream closed in November 2024. Bank statements, a paid tuition receipt, an education loan or documented sponsor support all count.
Australia: AUD 29,710
Twelve months of living costs for a single applicant.
On top: your first year of tuition and a return airfare.
The catch: Australia looks past the balance. The department weighs where the money came from, the sponsor's employment history, the stability of the income and whether previous support actually happened. A large balance with no history is worse than a smaller one with six months behind it.
The USA: roughly USD 30,000
There is no single published figure. What you evidence is the cost of attendance printed on your I-20, which the university sets, typically around USD 30,000 for a state university once tuition and living are combined.
The catch: it has to be liquid, and the sponsor has to have provable income. The interview asks about it directly.
New Zealand: NZD 20,000 a year
Living costs, evidenced for each year.
On top: tuition.
The thing families get wrong about all of it
Most people assume the bank balance is a separate pot of money they have to find on top of everything else.
Usually it is not. It is largely the same money, shown before it is spent. What matters is that it is provably yours, sitting in an account, on the day somebody asks.
Where that stops being true is Canada and Australia, where the living-cost figure genuinely does sit on top of the first year of tuition. Read the two sections above again if that is where you are headed.
What actually sinks financial evidence
Not the amount, most of the time. Three other things:
Money that appeared last week. Every one of these countries looks at history. Six months of statements is the minimum that reads as normal; twelve is better.
A sponsor whose income is in cash. However real it is, cash is invisible to a visa officer. This is the most common reason a genuinely funded Nepali application fails on financial grounds, and the fix takes months, so start now: put the income through a bank account.
A relationship you cannot explain. An uncle sponsoring you is fine. An uncle sponsoring you with no documentation of the relationship or of his income is not.
Work out your own number
The cost pages convert all of this to rupees at Nepal Rastra Bank's published rate, refreshed daily, and add the charges people forget: the NOC, the test fee, the translations, the health surcharge, the flight.
Or run the reality check, which asks what you can actually evidence and tells you which of the five that opens.