Please review the fee schedule corresponding to the year you are applying for.
2026 Fee Schedule
2027 Fee Schedule
The NSPR establishes its annual fee schedule through a mandate-driven approach to self-regulation. Self-regulation is a shared responsibility across the profession. It is a privilege granted by the public, through legislation, to pharmacies and pharmacy professionals in exchange for the privilege of exclusive authority to practice restricted activities. To fulfill this social contract, the profession collectively funds the regulatory work needed to ensure optimal, safe, and accountable patient care.
How the Budget and Fee Schedule Are Established
1. Workplan First, Resources Second: Each year, the NSPR Board, which is comprised of pharmacy professionals and public members, considers: “What work must be completed to fulfill our legislated mandate to ensure the profession best serves the public’s health interests?” This guides the scope of the NSPR’s annual strategic and operational workplans, and the budget required to resource it is then established.
Nova Scotia has been well served by this approach, with the public benefiting from a profession that is able to practice to the top of its competencies, and a professional workforce that is shored up by modernized licensing pathways.
The NSPR’s workplans reflect the current reality of regulatory work required to meet the NSPR’s responsibilities to the public in a rapidly evolving healthcare system, and to also meet the expanded requirements of regulators by government under the Regulated Health Professions Act.
This work includes:
- Continuing to apply equity, diversity, inclusivity, accessibility, and reconciliatory lenses in all functional areas of the NPSR.
- Continuing to align the NSPR’s quality assurance process with the evolved role of the pharmacist and pharmacy technician in primary care delivery to assure the quality of care provided, and in a manner that inspires versus demoralizes practitioners.
- Ongoing work to ensure pharmacies are appropriately staffed to meet the workload demands on the pharmacy staff team in meeting the care needs of their patients.
- Ensuring the NSPR meets legislative timelines for licence approval for various categories of applicants.
- Continuing to work with Nova Scotia Health and the Department of Health and Wellness and other key partners on the macro and meso level issues required to redesign healthcare delivery so that the public benefits from pharmacy professionals practicing to the top of their potential.
- Engaging in efforts to guide the adoption of AI in healthcare, and in pharmacy practice specifically, so that it serves and does not undermine the public’s interests.
- Continuing policy development required under the Regulated Health Professions Act and policy needs arising from pharmacy practice evolution.
- Establishing communication forums to improve engagement and transparency with registrants and the public.
2. Aligning Fees with Regulatory Workload: To distribute costs fairly, the NSPR is moving towards a target of 50/50 sharing of the costs to regulate the profession in Nova Scotia between pharmacies and pharmacy professionals. This balanced model reflects where regulatory work and oversight resources are allocated.
3. Public Interest and Sustainability Considerations: Fee setting involves considering the work involved in a particular regulatory service. Annual increases are set in consideration of the potential impacts on the pharmacy workforce:
- Pharmacists: Fee changes are aimed at being at or below the annual Cost-of-Living Index (COI).
- Pharmacy Technicians: In consideration of a lower earning potential, fee adjustments are consistently applied below COI.
- Pharmacies: Fee increases are structured to move towards generating a target 50% of revenue from pharmacies, in alignment with the proportion of work arising from regulating pharmacies vs pharmacy professionals.
For any questions, please contact NSPR Registrations & Licensing Team at registrations@nspharmacy.ca or 902-422-8528 ext. 250.
