The consequence escalates on a clock, and every province runs a different clock — from a flat reinstatement fee to being treated as a brand-new applicant.
Short answer
It depends how long you wait. Ontario gives you 24 months to reinstate before you’re “treated as a new applicant” and must redo pre-registration entirely. BC charges a $250 fee if you’re inoperative more than 90 days but not yet expired — but past your requalification date, BC also makes you rewrite the exam. Nova Scotia and Saskatchewan run on annual education deadlines with automatic suspension or termination if missed.
RECO’s reinstatement page is specific: "you will have 24 months from the date of termination to apply to reinstate your registration," and if that window closes, "you will be required to complete the pre-registration requirements once again. You will be treated as a new applicant." Reinstatement inside the window still requires a fresh Criminal Record and Judicial Matters Check if you’ve been out more than 60 days, plus any outstanding education and the insurance premium owed for the gap period.
BCFSA separates "inoperative" from "expired." If you’re unlicensed more than 90 days but your licence hasn’t actually expired, reinstatement is a $250 fee plus a fresh criminal record check and photo ID. If your licence has genuinely lapsed past its requalification date, the consequence is heavier: BCFSA’s own guidance says you’re "required to rewrite the appropriate licensing examination" from scratch, with the associated exam and course-material costs. Whether you land in the cheap lane or the expensive one turns entirely on which side of that requalification date you’re on.
RECA’s current fee schedule prices a broker/associate reinstatement at $750 if you re-register with a brokerage within 36 months of your last registration — or as little as $100 if it’s a same-year switch between brokerages. Nova Scotia and Saskatchewan tie the lapse to a missed education deadline rather than a gap in registration itself: NSREC terminates a licence automatically on July 1 if the annual CPE due June 15 isn’t completed, with a $1,000-plus-HST fee for a 30-day extension; SREC suspends a certificate of registration if its CPD course isn’t done by July 31, after a $300-fee extension to June 30. In every province, the number that matters most is the date on the calendar, not the fact that you lapsed at all.
See also: a case file on a lapsed registration caught mid-deal, a case file on a CE deadline missed by a week, and whether a criminal record blocks registration.
The clock differs by province — a short call now is cheaper than a full pre-registration redo later.
