What changed
- On 25 June 2025 IRCC added 119 fields of study and removed 178, leaving 920 eligible.
- Nine days later, on 4 July, it put some of the removed fields back.
- The list that binds you is the one in force the day your study permit was filed, and the rule reaches non-degree programmes only.
The notice
IRCC updated the list of fields of study that qualify for a post-graduation work permit on 25 June 2025, to match the 2025 Express Entry priorities. It added 119 fields in health care and social services, education and trades, and removed 178 that it no longer treated as linked to occupations in long-term shortage. That left 920 eligible fields.
On 4 July 2025, nine days later, the department added back fields it had removed on 25 June. Those fields stay eligible until the list is next updated, and anybody who filed a study permit application in one of them between 25 June and 4 July still meets the requirement when they graduate.
The list is tied to labour market shortage, which is why it moves. It has moved twice inside ten days once already.
Does this rule even apply to you?
For a large share of students, no. The field of study requirement reaches non-degree programmes only, meaning anything other than a bachelor's, master's or doctoral degree. A degree graduate faces no field of study test at all, whatever their subject and whenever they applied.
It reaches college and polytechnic programmes, and university programmes that are not degrees. In Brampton that is a large number of people, because a two year college diploma is one of the most common routes taken here.
The study permit page on this site sets the three PGWP tests out by credential, because the language level and the permit length change with it as well.
Which version of the list binds you
The one in force on the day your study permit application was filed, not the day you graduate and not the day you apply for the permit. A student who applied before 25 June 2025 keeps eligibility if their field was on the list then, even where it has since been removed.
That single point decides most of these files, and it is the one most often got wrong, because the instinct is to check today's list against today's programme. Somebody graduating in 2026 is usually being measured against a list published in 2023 or 2024.
The requirement itself only applies where the study permit application was made on or after 1 November 2024. Before that date there was no field of study test for anybody.
What to do with a programme that came off the list
Check the filing date first. If the study permit application predates the removal, the removal does not reach you, and a college telling a student otherwise is describing a rule that does not apply to them.
If the filing date does fall after a removal, the field of study test is a PGWP eligibility question rather than a study permit one, so it surfaces at the end rather than the beginning. That is late to discover it, which is the argument for checking the classification of the programme against the list in force on the filing date now rather than in final term.
The detail sits on Study permits and PGWP, which is kept current as the rules move.
