What changed
- The optional Start-up Visa work permit stopped taking applications on 19 December 2025.
- The programme closed to new applications on 31 December 2025, and the last window for 2025 commitment holders shut on 30 June 2026.
- IRCC said a replacement entrepreneur pilot would be communicated in 2026 and has not published one in any of its twenty notices this year.
The notice
IRCC's notice of 19 December 2025 made three changes at once and set a fourth in motion.
Effective that day, the optional work permit available to Start-up Visa applicants stopped accepting applications. The one exception was somebody already in Canada extending a work permit they already held under the programme. The department also said it would prioritise the permanent residence applications of people already here on a Start-up Visa work permit, as the levels plan allowed.
Effective 31 December 2025 at 11:59 p.m., the programme itself stopped taking new applications, except from applicants holding a valid commitment from a designated organisation made in 2025 who had not yet applied. That remaining window closed on 30 June 2026.
The pause on the Self-Employed Persons Program was extended at the same time, until further notice.
What happened to the promised pilot?
The notice said these measures would set the foundation for a new, targeted pilot programme for immigrant entrepreneurs, and that more information would be communicated in 2026.
IRCC has published twenty notices in 2026. None of them mentions an entrepreneur pilot, a business immigration programme, or a pilot of any kind. The Start-up Visa page still reads as paused and the Self-Employed page still reads as paused.
That is the position as it stands rather than a prediction. A pilot may be announced. Nobody outside the department knows when, and a plan that depends on it is a plan without a date.
What this leaves for a business owner
No federal programme currently takes a business founder to permanent residence. Both of the routes that did are shut, and the provincial picture narrowed at the same time, with Ontario removing its entrepreneur stream in June 2026 and Saskatchewan closing its pathways permanently in March 2025.
What is open is a work permit first and residence second, planned in that order rather than as one move. A significant benefit permit under code C11 asks what the business does for Canada. An intra-company transfer moves somebody from a related company abroad. Neither is a residence application, and both need the residence route thought about before the permit is filed rather than after.
Several provinces still run entrepreneur streams that reach nomination. The business immigration pages on this site set out which, and what each currently asks for.
If you hold a Start-up Visa work permit already
You are in the group the notice carved out. Extensions from inside Canada were still accepted after 19 December 2025, and the department said it would prioritise permanent residence applications from people in exactly that position, subject to the levels plan.
That is worth acting on rather than waiting on. The prioritisation was stated as a departmental intention against annual targets, not as a guarantee attached to any individual file, and the programme it belongs to is closed behind you.
The detail sits on Start-up Visa status, which is kept current as the rules move.
