First Nations Child Welfare Settlement (Canada) — Up to $40,000 CAD

Canadian Settlement · Claims Open

Current Status

Claims are open for two of the settlement’s nine classes: the Removed Child Class and the Removed Child Family Class. People who were already at the age of majority when the claims period opened on March 10, 2025 have until March 10, 2028 at 11:59 p.m. Pacific Time; people who were younger have age-based deadlines described below. The other seven classes — including the Jordan’s Principle and Trout classes — had no open claims process as of October 3, 2026. The Federal Court approved the settlement on October 24, 2023, and Removed Child payments are being issued as claims are approved: the Assembly of First Nations reported in August 2026 that more than 30,000 Removed Children had been paid over $1.2 billion. Removed Child Family payments are not scheduled to begin until after March 10, 2029.

What Changed Recently?

On August 17, 2026, the Assembly of First Nations announced that more than 30,000 First Nations people who were removed from their homes as children had received compensation, totaling more than $1.2 billion. The same release confirmed that claims are being accepted in only two of the nine classes, that the March 10, 2028 deadline applies to people who reached the age of majority by March 10, 2025, and that Removed Child Family payments will start after the one-year extension window closes on March 10, 2029.

The settlement resolves three Federal Court class actions against the Government of Canada and the related Canadian Human Rights Tribunal proceeding. The Tribunal had found that Canada’s underfunding of First Nations child and family services on reserve and in the Yukon, and its narrow approach to Jordan’s Principle, were discriminatory, and it ordered compensation; the Federal Court upheld those compensation orders in 2021 (2021 FC 969). Canada agreed to pay $23,343,940,000 into a trust to fund all nine classes, and the Federal Court approved the agreement on October 24, 2023 (2023 FC 1466). The court separately approved the claims process for the Removed Child and Removed Child Family classes, which opened on March 10, 2025.

Who Qualifies?

Removed Child Class. First Nations individuals who, while under the age of majority, were removed from their homes by child welfare authorities between April 1, 1991 and March 31, 2022. At the time of removal, the child or at least one caregiving parent or grandparent must have been ordinarily resident on reserve or living in the Yukon, and the placement must have been funded by Indigenous Services Canada. Children who were Crown wards, and children who were removed and later returned home, may qualify. The class does not include Métis or Inuit children, removals in the Northwest Territories or Nunavut, children who left home without child welfare involvement and without an ISC-funded placement, or children who stayed home under court supervision without being removed.

Removed Child Family Class. The caregiving parents or caregiving grandparents — biological, adoptive, or a First Nations stepparent — who were living with the child, were exercising parental responsibility, and were the people the child was first removed from. A First Nations stepparent must have lived with the child’s biological parent and supported the child for at least three years before the removal. Siblings, other relatives (unless they adopted the child), non-caregiving parents and grandparents, and foster parents are not eligible for individual compensation in this class.

Classes that are not open. The Kith Child, Kith Family, Jordan’s Principle, Jordan’s Principle Family, Trout Child, Trout Family and Essential Service classes are part of the same settlement but each needs its own court-approved claims process. The official settlement website lists all seven as “not yet available.” This page covers only the two open classes.