RCMP lists *licence fees* for March 2027
The RCMP’s September 10 fee table lists higher PAL charges from March 31, 2027. Current fees remain in place until then, and an older official table differs.
A non-restricted possession and acquisition licence (PAL) will cost $72.35 under the RCMP's current table for March 31, 2027. The fee for restricted or prohibited privileges will be $96.47. Until March 30, the same page lists $70.38 and $93.84.
The RCMP's Changes to service fees page carries a September 10 modification date. Those future amounts differ slightly from figures in its older annual fees report. Both documents remain available, which gives an owner looking ahead to renewal a small, avoidable question about which number to use.
I went through the PAL/RPAL process because I wanted to shoot. The licence is part of participating in the sport, alongside learning at the range and doing the work at the bench. I want the administrative side to be straightforward enough that an owner can finish it and get back to that purpose.
The amount and the date
The dedicated fee page gives this comparison for individuals:
| Licence activity | Through March 30, 2027 | From March 31, 2027 | Increase |
|---|---|---|---|
| Non-restricted PAL | $70.38 | $72.35 | $1.97 |
| Restricted or prohibited privileges | $93.84 | $96.47 | $2.63 |
| Upgrade to restricted or prohibited privileges | $46.92 | $48.24 | $1.32 |
The increases work out to approximately 2.8 per cent. The RCMP describes an inflation adjustment and says fees absent from its tables remain unchanged at that time.
That is a modest increase for an individual owner. It belongs in the cost of keeping a licence current, with the effective date attached. Sharing the future price without the date would give someone applying this autumn the wrong impression about what the RCMP currently lists.
Two RCMP documents disagree
The 2024-25 Fees Report, whose page carries an October 30, 2025 modification date, already included March 31, 2027 adjustments. It gave $72.28 for a non-restricted PAL, $96.37 for restricted or prohibited privileges, and $48.20 for the upgrade.
Compared with that report, the dedicated fee page is seven cents higher for the non-restricted licence, ten cents higher for restricted or prohibited privileges, and four cents higher for the upgrade. Neither page explains the difference. Calling it a rounding correction or an amended forecast would go beyond the published evidence.
For planning, I would use the dedicated current service-fee page and check it again when applying. An annual report remains a legitimate source to consult. An owner who saved its future-fee figures could have done careful research and still arrive at a different answer.
The RCMP should explain the difference or direct readers of the report to the current schedule. The small sums make this easy to dismiss, but a published fee should be dependable down to the cent. Licensed owners have enough dates and requirements to keep straight without reconciling two federal tables.
The Service Fees Act provides the broader framework. Section 17 ties applicable annual adjustments to the 12-month change in Canada's April All-items Consumer Price Index from the previous fiscal year. It also provides exceptions, including carrying forward changes below one per cent, and allows rounding down under Treasury Board policies.
Inflation indexing has a reasonable administrative purpose: governments can keep applicable fees current using an established method. The same system ought to make the resulting price easy for an applicant to identify. Owners can accept the scale of an adjustment and still expect clear information about it.
Renewal follows your own expiry date
The RCMP's renewal instructions say the programme sends notices three months before a valid individual licence expires. Online preparation includes a digital photograph, credit-card information, and the required current and recent spousal information.
Check your expiry date and assemble that information while you have time. The RCMP lists several circumstances that prevent online renewal, including an application already in progress or a licence that has expired or otherwise become invalid. Follow the route that applies to your file.
The pages reviewed here do not settle which fee applies to every application submitted around the March 31 change. A promise that submitting on a particular day will secure the lower amount would need further confirmation. For a difference of a few dollars, keeping the renewal complete and timely deserves more attention than trying to time the adjustment.
Keep the current fee page with your renewal information, and check both the amount and the effective date when you apply.
Sources
- RCMP, Changes to service fees, modified September 10, 2026; checked September 11, 2026.
- RCMP, Fees Report Fiscal year 2024-25, modified October 30, 2025; checked September 11, 2026.
- Justice Canada, Service Fees Act, sections 17 and 20, consolidation current to June 21, 2026; checked September 11, 2026.
- RCMP, Licence renewal for individuals, modified October 25, 2024; checked September 11, 2026.
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