Functional guidance on temporary residents: Table of contents
This section contains policy, procedures and guidance used by IRCC staff. It is posted on the department’s website as a courtesy to stakeholders.
On this page
- General visa requirements
- Extension, restoration and loss of temporary resident status
- Electronic travel authorization (eTA)
- Temporary resident permits (TRPs)
- International student program
- International Mobility Program (IMP) and Temporary Foreign Worker Program (TFWP)
- Labour market impact assessment (LMIA)
- Labour market impact assessment (LMIA) exemptions
General visa requirements
Intake
- Temporary resident status
- Visa-required countries
- Visa exemptions by purpose of entry
- Fee requirements
- Place of application
Processing
- Documents required with a TRV application
- Reviewing the documentation
- Eligibility and admissibility considerations
- Evidence supporting purpose of entry
- Dual intent
- Proof of funds/financial support
- Medical requirements for foreign nationals
- Issuing the visa: Transit, single-entry and multiple-entry visas
- Issuing the visa: Duration of visits
- Visa categories
- Specific requirements by type of applicant
- Refusals overview
- Cancellation of a TRV
- Visa validity (expiry dates)
- Examinations and admission at the port of entry
- Refusals at the port of entry
- Security deposits and guarantees
Extension, restoration and loss of temporary resident status
- Eligibility for extending temporary resident status
- Extensions for minors
- Maintained status during processing (previously called implied status)
- Inland applications for permanent residence and temporary resident status extension
- Restoration of temporary resident status
- Visitor record
- Fees and cost recovery for extensions
- Loss of status
- Individuals named in an immigration warrant
Electronic travel authorization (eTA)
Temporary resident permits (TRPs)
Intake
Processing
- Eligibility and assessment
- Final decisions and issuing permits
- Validity, conditions and cancellation
- Subsequent permits
- Work and study permits
- Applications for permanent residence
- Additional procedures and considerations:
Administration
- Authorities and accountability
- Information-gathering (including interviews)
- Preparing a case summary, recommendation and documenting decisions
International student program
Intake
- Who needs a study permit
- Making an application
- Student Direct Stream (SDS)
- Minors
- Refugees and protected persons
- Designated learning institutions
Processing
- Assessing an application
- Letters of acceptance
- Studying in Quebec
- Scholarship and award recipients
- Other considerations
- Final decisions
Work
- On-campus work
- Co-op Work Permit Program
- Off-campus Work Permit Program
- Spouses or common-law spouses of full-time students
Enforcement
International Mobility Program (IMP) and Temporary Foreign Worker Program (TFWP)
Work permits
Intake
- Steps to determine work and assessment of work permit application
- Step 1: What is work
- Step 2: Authorization to work without a work permit
- R186(a) – Business visitors
- R186(b) – Foreign representatives
- International Mobility Program: Foreign government officials not accredited to Canada
- International Mobility Program: Domestic workers of foreign representatives
- Locally engaged staff of diplomatic and consular missions and international organizations: Reciprocal employment (LMIA exemption code C20)
- R186(c) – Family members of foreign representatives
- R186(d) – Military personnel
- R186(e) – Foreign government officers
- R186(f) – On-campus employment
- R186(g) – Performing artists
- R186(h) – Athletes and coaches
- R186(i) – News reporters, media crews
- R186(j) – Public speakers
- R186(k) – Convention organizers
- R186(l) – Religious leaders
- R186(m) – Judges, referees and similar officials
- R186(n) – Examiners and evaluators
- R186(o) – Expert witnesses or investigators
- R186(p) – Short-term students in a foreign health care program
- R186(q) – Civil aviation inspector
- R186(r) – Aviation accident or incident inspector
- R186(s) – Crew
- R186(t) – Emergency service providers
- R186(u) – Pending decision on work permit renewal
- R186(v) – Off-campus work
- R186(w) – Study permit holder who completed studies
- R186(x) – Registered Indians
- Place of application
- Refusal to process applications: Protecting workers from abuse and exploitation
Processing
- Step 3: Employer review
- Assessing genuineness of the offer of employment on work permit application – R200(5)
- Work permit processing – Review of wages, occupation and working conditions provided to previous temporary workers
- Public list of employers who have been non-compliant
- Employer name changes and corporate restructurings
- Step 4: Temporary workers: Eligibility and admissibility
- Step 5: Work permit issuance prohibitions
- Work permit application processing and issuance
- Open work permit – General processing and issuance
- Open work permit options for family members of foreign workers
- Employer-specific work permits – General processing – IMP
- Regulated or certified occupations
- Conditions of the work permit including validity period
- Urgent referrals process for work permits
- Quebec cases (TFWP and IMP)
- Assessing a temporary foreign worker’s eligibility to work in Alberta in a compulsory certification trade position
- Bilingual Remarks/Observations for Visitor Records, Work Permits and Study Permits
- Priority processing – Global Skills Strategy (GSS) – TEER 0 and 1 occupations
- Priority processing – Temporary workers in essential occupations
Labour market impact assessment (LMIA)
- Labour market impact assessments
- Labour market impact assessment review
- Recognized Employer Pilot
- Refusal to process or suspension of the processing of a labour market impact assessment application
- Revocation or suspension of labour market impact assessment and effect on work permit
- Seafood and fish plant workers (low-wage cap exempt) – TFWP
- Seasonal Agricultural Worker Program - TFWP
- Work permits for caregiver pathways – TFWP and IMP
Labour market impact assessment (LMIA) exemptions
Agreements or arrangements [R204]
- International Free Trade Agreements (FTAs) [R204(a)]
- Canada-United States-Mexico Agreement (CUSMA)
- Canada-Chile FTA
- Canada-Peru FTA
- Canada-Colombia FTA (in addition code: T25)
- Canada-Korea FTA
- Canada-European Union Comprehensive Economic and Trade Agreement (CETA)
- Business visitors and business visitors for investment purposes (work permit exempt under R186(a) and R187)
- Investors - CETA
- Contractual service suppliers and independent professional - CETA
- Intra-corporate (company) transferees (ICT) – CETA
- Engineering technologists and scientific technologists – CETA
- Canada-Ukraine Free Trade Agreement (CUFTA) overview – Agreements or arrangements – International Mobility Program
- Agreement on Trade Continuity between Canada and the United Kingdom of Great Britain and Northern Ireland (CUKTCA)
- Business visitors and business visitors for investment purposes (work permit exempt under R186(a) and R187)
- Investors – CUKTCA
- Contractual service providers and independent professionals – CUKTCA
- Intra-corporate (company) transferees (ICT) – CUKTCA
- Engineering technologists and scientific technologists - CUKTCA
- Canada–Panama Free Trade Agreement (CPAFTA)
- General Agreement on Trade in Services (GATS) (T33)
- Comprehensive and Progressive Agreement for Trans-Pacific Partnership (CPTPP) overview
- Canada-International Non-Trade Agreements (T11)
- Quebec investors – Issuance of open work permits to candidates who have received a Quebec notice of intent to select [R204(c) – T10]
- Federal-provincial agreements overview [R204(c) – T13]
- International Experience Canada (IEC) (C21)
- Overview
- Eligibility requirements
- Processing applications
- Bilateral agreements and arrangements
- IEC-recognized organizations
- Increasing the validity period of work permits under the International Experience Canada (IEC) Program
- In-Canada work permit printing for subsequent IEC participants with a letter of introduction
Canadian interests [R205]
Significant benefit [R205(a)]
- General guidelines (C10)
- Airline personnel (foreign airline security guards)
- Interns with international organizations recognized under the Foreign Missions and International Organizations Act
- Rail grinder operators, rail welders or other specialized track maintenance workers
- Experts on mission, working for a United Nations office in Canada
- Foreign physicians coming to work in Quebec
- Caribbean Agricultural Liaison Officers
- Entrepreneurs or self-employed individuals seeking only temporary residence (C11)
- Intra-company transferees (C61, C62, and C63)
- Emergency repair personnel or repair for out-of-warranty equipment (C13)
- Essential workers for the production stage of television and film (C14)
- Provincial business candidates or Quebec self-employed applicants approved for a Quebec selection certificate seeking eventual permanent residence (C60)
- Live-in caregivers whose permanent residence application is submitted (A71)
- Occupation-restricted open work permit under Home Child Care Provider Pilot or Home Support Worker Pilot – Category A applicants and family members (C90 and C91)
- Bridging open work permits (A75)
- Open work permits under Home Child Care Provider pilot or Home Support Worker pilot – Work experience completed (A75)
- Certain Quebec Selection Certificate holders currently in Quebec (A73)
- Start-up business class (SUV) Open work permits for permanent resident applicants (A77)
- Quebec Selection Certificate (CSQ) holders currently outside Quebec [R205(a) – A76] – International Mobility Program (IMP)
Reciprocal employment [R205(b)]
- General guidelines (C10)
- Caribbean Agricultural Liaison Officers
- Interns with international organizations recognized under the Foreign Missions and International Organizations Act
- Experts on mission, working for a United Nations office in Canada
- Foreign airline security guards stationed in airports who are responsible for checking passengers and their luggage before they board the aircraft
- Foreign physicians coming to work in Quebec
- Marine workers – Seaspan above-deck retrofit foreign workers
- Rail grinder operators, rail welders or other specialized track maintenance workers
- Some circus performers working for Canadian-based circuses
- World Anti-Doping Agency international employees
- Academic exchanges (C22)
- Performing arts (C23)
Designated by the Minister [R205(c)]
- Work related to a research, educational or training program (C31, C32, C33)
- Research (C31)
- Educational co-op – Post-secondary level (C32)
- Educational co-op – Secondary level (C33)
- Overview of work designated by the Minister [R205(c)(ii)] (C16, C41, C42, C43, C44, C45, C46, C47, C48, C49, C52, C88)
- Spouses or common-law partners of foreign nationals authorized to work in high-skilled occupations TEER 0 or 1, or select occupations TEER 2 or 3 – [R205(c)(ii) – C41] – Canadian interest – International Mobility Program (IMP)
- Family members of foreign nationals authorized to work in high-skilled occupations (TEER 0, 1, 2 or 3) – (C41 and C46)
- Family members of foreign nationals authorized to work in low-skilled occupations (TEER 4 or 5) – (C47 and C48)
- Family members of work permit holders who are Economic Class permanent resident applicants or chosen by a province (C49)
- Spouses and common-law partners of study permit holders (C42)
- Post-Graduation Work Permit (C43)
- Post-doctoral fellows awarded a Doctor of Philosophy (PhD) (C44)
- Foreign medical or dental residents and medical research fellows (C45)
- Academic award recipients for research work (C52)
- Francophone mobility (C16)
- Innovation Stream pilot – Issuance of an LMIA-exempt employer-specific work permit for foreign nationals destined to work for a Global Hypergrowth Project (GHP) employer [R205(c)(ii)] (C88)
Charitable or religious work [R205(d)] (C50)
Applicants with no other means of support (R206) (S61 or S62)
Permanent residence applicants in Canada [R207] (A70)
- Permanent resident (PR) applicants in Canada [R207 – A70]
- Spouses or common-law partner class (SCLPC) - [R207(b) - A70]
- Persons with protected status under A95(2) - [R207(c) - A70]
- Permanent resident applicants for humanitarian and compassionate considerations - [R207(d) - A70)]
- In-Canada Family Members - [R207(e) - A70]
- Live-in caregivers after approval in principle
- Open work permits for applicants under the Interim Pathway for Caregivers
Vulnerable workers [R207.1] (A72)
Humanitarian reasons [R208] (H81 or H82)
Specific work situations
Officer quick reference guide to occupations
- Unique work situations
- Airline personnel
- Bridge and tunnel authorities
- Residential summer camp counsellors
- Caribbean Agricultural Liaison Officers
- Foreign camp owner or director
- Fishing guides
- Interns
- Interns with international organizations recognized under the Foreign Missions and International Organizations Act
- Oceans Act
- United States government personnel
- Rail grinder operators, rail welders or other specialized track maintenance workers
- Foreign freelance horse jockey
- Experts on mission, working for a United Nations office in Canada (LMIA exemption code C10)
Public policies, special initiatives and pilot projects
Pilot projects
- Yukon Community Pilot (A75)
- Rural and Northern Immigration Pilot (C15)
- Rural Community Immigration Pilot (RCIP)(C15)
- FrancophoneCommunity Immigration Pilot (FCIP) (C15)
- Agri-Food Pilot Program
Public policies
- Short-term high-skilled work of 15 or 30 days – Public policy – International Mobility Program (IMP)
- Public policy: 120-day work permit exemption for researchers
- Public policy: Open work permits for applicants under the temporary resident to permanent resident pathway
- Open Work Permits for Hong Kong recent graduates
- Optional open work permits for permanent residence pathways for Hong Kong residents
- Public policy allowing certain visitors in Canada to apply for a work permit
- Public policy on exemptions to work permit conditions when changing employment
- Public policy to facilitate the issuance of an open work permit to former or current PGWP holders – June 13 to December 31, 2022
- Public policy to issue an open work permit to certain PGWP holders – April 6 to December 31, 2023
- Public policy for spouse or common-law partner in Canada class or family class applicants to apply in Canada [R205(a) – A74]]
- Open work permits for H-1B visa holders and their family members
- Public policy exempting temporary foreign worker apprentices in the construction sector from the study permit requirement [R188(1)] – International Mobility Program (IMP)
- Public policy for out-of-status or unauthorized home care workers: Work permits and restoration of status
- Temporary measures for eligible Indigenous persons
- Public Policy to facilitate work permits for prospective permanent residence applicants in Quebec
- Facilitated access to temporary residence for applicants on the pathway to permanent residence: Family reunification for Ukrainian nationals
- Service delivery – Special measures - Instructions for special measures in response to global events
Employer compliance regime
- Employer compliance inspection
- Revocation of work permit due to public policy consideration
- Application of consequences where an employer is found non-compliant with the conditions
- Public list of employers who have been non-compliant
- Collecting administrative monetary penalties and determining when employers are in default of payment
- Exemption from the employer compliance regime for the International Mobility Program (IMP)