Zero-Emission Vehicle Infrastructure Program (ZEVIP)

The Government of Canada is investing $680 million to help deploy EV chargers where Canadians live, work, and play.

Who is ZEVIP for?

The Zero-Emission Vehicle Infrastructure Program (ZEVIP) is a broad program that makes EV charging more accessible for Canadians coast to coast. The initiative is administered by Natural Resources Canada (NRCan) and is planned to run until 2027. The program offers up to a 50% financial contribution to help deploy EV chargers in the following use cases or “streams”:

• Public Places: including but not limited to service stations, retail, restaurants, arenas, libraries, medical offices, park and ride, etc.
• On-Street: EV charging deployed by local governments along public streets.
• Workplaces: any location where employees perform duties related to their job.
• Light, Medium and Heavy-Duty Vehicle Fleets: including fleets of taxis, car rentals, municipal vehicles, car sharing, last-mile delivery trucks, school buses, refuse trucks, public utility vehicles, etc.
• Multi-Unit Residential Buildings (MURBs): any residential building with at least three (3) dwelling units.

The most important nuance of ZEVIP is that it is a multi-phase, RFP-based program. While the overall program addresses many use cases, specific RFPs will address different use-cases at different times. If your business is seeking funding to deploy workplace EV chargers and you apply to the fleet RFP, your application will be rejected—and vice versa.

Here is a detailed breakdown of the past, current, and planned future rounds of ZEVIP:

*Third-party delivery RFPs will focus on eligible Delivery Organizations to distribute a component of the ZEVIP funding to Ultimate Recipients to install electric vehicle charging infrastructure projects in public places, on-street, in multi-unit residential buildings, at workplaces, or for light-duty vehicle fleets.

How does it work?

Natural Resources Canada releases an Applicants Guide at the start of each ZEVIP round. Organizations have until the submission deadline to put together a detailed project proposal. After a review period, NRCan will send notices of funding decisions to app applicants.

Successful applicants will receive a Letter of Conditional Approval and shortly afterwards sign a Contribution Agreement with NRCan. Each round of ZEVIP has different requirements for minimum and maximum project size, deployment timeline, and supported use cases.

What does it cover?

For accepted ZEVIP projects, NRCan contributes 50% of Total Project Costs up to a maximum per-charger amount. Eligible costs include site design, project management, EV chargers, installation costs, licenses/permits, and other direct deployment costs.

For most ZEVIP RFPs, NRCan contributions are conditionally repayable. If you profit from EV chargers funded by the program, you must repay NRCan’s contribution on a pro-rata basis.

The maximum funding per type of EV charger is as follows: