Arts Across Canada and Abroad — International Residencies

This grant pays for a musician or ensemble from Canada to take up a residency somewhere outside the country - the travel, the accommodation, the fees and the living costs the host is not covering - so the time abroad can go on creative research, making new work, and meeting people in that scene.

You need an invitation. The residency has to be one you were invited to or selected for by a host organisation, and it must run at least five consecutive days. Hosting a residency yourself, or anything taking place in Canada, is ineligible. Applicants can be individual artists or arts workers, artistic groups, or arts organisations, including First Nations, Inuit and Metis artists, cultural carriers, collectives and not-for-profits.

The ceiling is CAD 20,000 per application, and you can apply twice in a calendar year. Only costs incurred during the residency itself count, and only those the host is not already paying: artist and professional fees, personal costs, travel and accommodation, safety expenses such as supplementary insurance or on-site specialists, child or dependent care needed to take part, and accessibility costs like interpretation, captioning or a support worker.

Applications go through the Council's client portal, any time before your departure date, and are then batched to fixed deadlines - 28 January, 17 June and 21 October in 2026, closing 11:59pm Eastern. Results usually arrive within five months, so apply well ahead of the residency itself. The detailed assessment criteria and the list of required materials sit inside the application preview in the portal rather than on the public page.