01.
Intra-Company Transfers
Codes C61, C62 and C63, the year of employment abroad, and the ceiling on the total stay.
Business and Corporate Immigration to Canada
Business immigration to Canada lost both of its federal routes to permanent residence. The Start-up Visa stopped taking new applications and the Self-Employed Persons Program has been paused since April 2024. Most of what is written about this subject online was true two years ago.
About this work
What is actually open right now?
Three things, and none of them hands anybody permanent residence. Intra-company transfers move an existing employee from a foreign enterprise to a related Canadian one. Significant benefit permits under code C11 cover entrepreneurs and self-employed people whose work would create real economic benefit here, decided on an officer's discretion rather than against a checklist. And the provincial entrepreneur streams run their own competitions, on their own terms, in every province.
All three are work permits or nominations. Turning one into permanent residence is a separate application under a separate programme, usually Express Entry or a provincial nomination, and it is assessed on the applicant rather than on the business. Somebody who cannot score on Express Entry and cannot win a provincial nomination does not get there by owning a company, which is the assumption most of the advice on this subject quietly rests on.
That is worth being blunt about, because the money at stake is large. Buying a business does not buy status. It can create the conditions for a work permit, and the work permit can create Canadian experience, and the experience can raise an Express Entry score. Each of those links has to hold on its own.
What we handle
Which business immigration matters does the firm handle?
9 areas of work
Four routes, and which one fits is decided by what you already have rather than by preference: a federal Start-up Visa backed by a designated organisation, an intra-company transfer if you already run a business abroad, a provincial entrepreneur stream tied to one province, or buying an operating business. Ontario entrepreneur streams closed on 25 June 2026.
Federal routes that are open3
02.
Entrepreneur Work Permits
Code C11, the 51 per cent control threshold, and the 18 months an initial permit normally runs.
03.
Buying a Business
Whether a purchase supports a permit, how the shareholding decides which one, and the owner-operator offer.
Provincial entrepreneur streams5
04.
Provincial Streams by Province
Which provinces still run one. Ontario and Saskatchewan have closed theirs, with dates.
05.
British Columbia
Base and Regional, the net worth and investment figures, and the community referral.
07.
Atlantic Canada
Nova Scotia, New Brunswick and Newfoundland, and how long each has you operate before nominating.
08.
Manitoba
Two pathways that commit the money at opposite ends, and the draw notice on the apply page.
Closed to new applications1
09.
Start-up Visa
Closed to new applications, still being processed on the existing inventory, and what is left instead.
What changed
Both federal routes to residence are closed as things stand
This is the part worth reading before anybody pays a retainer. Neither of the two federal programmes that took a business owner to permanent residence is accepting applications, and the work permit stream that used to bridge to them was withdrawn earlier. Much of the material still circulating describes all three as though they were open.
The Start-up Visa is closed to new applications
Immigration, Refugees and Citizenship Canada took applications only from people holding a valid 2025 commitment certificate, and only until 30 June 2026. That date has passed. The department's own page reads that the programme is closed to all other applications. Applications already in the queue are still being processed.
The Self-Employed Persons Program has been paused since 30 April 2024
The pause was announced to clear an inventory that had pushed processing beyond four years, and the department said it would hold through the end of 2026. It is still marked paused, and the processing time printed beside that status now reads more than 10 years. Anyone being sold this route today is being sold a place in a queue that is not moving.
The owner-operator route went earlier
The dedicated owner-operator treatment, where a majority owner obtained a labour market impact assessment for a job at their own company, no longer appears in the programme requirements. What remains is an ordinary assessment, which asks whether the job offer is genuine and whether there is a real labour market need. Both questions are harder to answer when the person making the offer and the person accepting it are the same.
What that leaves is temporary, and it is not nothing
Intra-company transfers, significant benefit permits and the provincial entrepreneur streams are all open. None of them is a direct grant of residence. Each is a work permit or a nomination that has to be turned into residence separately, and planning that second step before the first one is filed is most of the work.
Side by side
Which routes are actually open?
7 routes, each with its own clock
Status as at 8 September 2026, taken from the department's own pages rather than from any summary of them. This changes, and a route that reopens is worth more than any argument about the ones that closed, so the date above matters as much as the table.
| Status today | What it gives you | Decided by | |
|---|---|---|---|
| Start-up Visa | Paused, closed to new applicants | Permanent residence | Immigration, Refugees and Citizenship Canada |
| Self-Employed Persons | Paused, processing over 10 years | Permanent residence | Immigration, Refugees and Citizenship Canada |
| Owner-operator assessment | The dedicated treatment is gone | A work permit, formerly | Service Canada |
| Intra-company transfer | Open | A work permit, one to seven years by category | IRCC, with no labour market assessment |
| Significant benefit, code C11 | Open, and decided on discretion | A work permit | IRCC, with no labour market assessment |
| Provincial entrepreneur streams | Open, and different in every province | A nomination, then residence separately | The province, then IRCC |
| An ordinary labour market assessment | Open | A work permit | Service Canada |
The route
How does the process run?
4 stages, each with its own clock
Four routes, each with its own conditions and its own page. Which one fits is decided by what you already have rather than by which you would prefer, and the wrong one is usually obvious once the conditions are set out.
01
You already work for a foreign company that will operate here
Intra-company transfersAn intra-company transfer, exempt from any labour market assessment. It needs a qualifying corporate relationship and a year of full time employment abroad inside the previous three years, and the category sets a ceiling of one, five or seven years.
02
You will own and run a business here yourself
Entrepreneur work permitsAn entrepreneur work permit under code C11, which asks what the business does for Canada. It requires control of at least 51 per cent of the business, and the first permit normally runs no more than 18 months.
03
You are buying an existing business or a franchise
Buying a businessThe purchase supports a route rather than being one. The shareholding you end up with decides which permit is available, which is why the deal structure and the immigration analysis belong in the same conversation.
04
You were planning on the Start-up Visa
Start-up VisaIt is closed to new applications. Files already in the queue are still being processed and the open work permit attached to them is still available, so the advice splits sharply depending on whether you filed.
Before the meeting
What to bring to the first meeting
6 things to bring
Bring what you have and say what is missing. A meeting with the papers in front of it settles in one sitting what two telephone calls will not.
- ✓The corporate documents for the foreign company, including its ownership
- ✓The same for the Canadian company, if one exists yet
- ✓Proof of your employment abroad: dates, title, and what you actually did
- ✓Financial statements for both companies, and the source of the funds
- ✓Any commitment certificate, performance agreement or provincial correspondence
- ✓Every refusal letter, and the officer's notes if you have ordered them
Our approach
A clear path forward
The same four steps on every matter, whether it is a refusal at the Federal Court or a ticket at the Provincial Offences court.
Book a consultation01
Understand
We take the full history and read the documents before offering an opinion. Most bad advice comes from acting on half the facts.
02
Assess
You get a candid read on strength, timeline and cost, including when the honest answer is that you do not need to hire anyone.
03
Act
We prepare the application, the defence or the appeal properly the first time, because fixing a weak record later is harder and dearer.
04
Report
You hear from us at each stage, and you hear what a wait actually means rather than a date chosen to sound better.
Reported decisions
What has this work produced?
7 allowed of 22 reported since 2023
Public judgments of the Federal Court with Kapil Rathod as counsel of record, each checkable by citation on the court's own site. The rest were dismissed and are listed with these ones.
Super visa, parents and grandparents
Sharifi v Canada (Citizenship and Immigration)
2026 FC 99Docket IMM-23381-24
Application allowedWork permit, Temporary Foreign Worker Program
Sing v Canada (Citizenship and Immigration)
2026 FC 105Docket IMM-18690-24
Application allowedTemporary resident visa
Rehman v Canada (Citizenship and Immigration)
2026 FC 805Docket IMM-20802-24
Application allowedPermanent residence, Express Entry
Goel v Canada (Citizenship and Immigration)
2025 FC 275Docket IMM-1797-24
Application allowedWork permit, job offer
Sharma v Canada (Citizenship and Immigration)
2024 FC 1928Docket IMM-6445-23
Application allowedStudy permit
Tandel v Canada (Citizenship and Immigration)
2024 FC 1487Docket IMM-3700-23
Application allowedTemporary resident visa
Gill v Canada (Citizenship and Immigration)
2024 FC 1453Docket IMM-10337-23
Application allowed
Updates
What has changed for business and corporate immigration?
4 notes
Dated notes on the rule changes that reach this work. Each records what moved and when it took effect; this page carries the position now.
SUV work permit closed, no pilot announced
In force 19 December 2025
IRCC shut the Start-up Visa work permit, then the programme itself, and promised a replacement pilot in 2026. Nine months into 2026 it has not published one.
Ontario replaced its entrepreneur stream
In force 25 June 2026
The province did not pause the entrepreneur route or revise it. It removed it, and put a worker stream in its place.
Saskatchewan closed its entrepreneur pathways
In force 27 March 2025
A closure worth reading carefully, because the programme's own page still sets out the requirements underneath the notice.
Intra-company transfer codes: C61, C62 and C63
The split matters most for the ceiling on how long somebody can stay, which now depends on which code the permit was issued under.
Where to go next
Business immigration to Canada is narrower this year than it has been in a decade, and the two routes most often advertised are the two that are shut.
What is open is a work permit first and residence second, planned in that order.
Common questions
What do people ask about business and corporate immigration?
7 answered here
Written to be read once and acted on rather than to be rung about. Each answer is complete where the law allows a complete answer.
What do the provincial entrepreneur streams require?
Every province runs one, they are not alike, and the terms move. The shape is usually the same. A minimum personal net worth. A minimum investment in a business in that province. A commitment to create jobs for Canadians or permanent residents. Often a requirement to live in a named region rather than in the largest city, and often an exploratory visit before applying.
The order of operations is what surprises people. In most provinces the nomination is not granted up front. The applicant signs a performance agreement, comes on a work permit, runs the business, and is nominated only after the commitments in that agreement have actually been met. The investment is spent before the status is secure, which is the opposite of how it is usually described.
We have deliberately not printed net worth and investment figures here. They differ by province and by stream and several were revised in the last two years, and a stale number on a page like this costs somebody real money. Bring the province you have in mind and we will read that stream's current terms with you.
What is left if the goal is permanent residence?
Express Entry, a provincial nomination, or family. That is the honest list. A business can support the first two and does not substitute for either.
Express Entry scores the applicant: age, education, language, skilled work experience. A year of skilled Canadian work experience on an intra-company transfer or a C11 permit moves that score, and for many business owners it is the most useful thing the permit produces. Language is usually the other lever, and it is the one most people leave untouched.
A provincial nomination is worth 600 points and effectively decides the outcome, which is why the entrepreneur streams matter even though they are slow and conditional. The work is choosing a province whose stream the client can actually satisfy, rather than the province they had already decided to live in.
Is there any federal route straight to permanent residence for a business owner?
Not at the moment. The Start-up Visa is closed to new applications and the Self-Employed Persons Program has been paused since 30 April 2024. What is open is temporary: a work permit first, then a separate residence application through Express Entry or a provincial nomination, assessed on you rather than on the business.
Which of the four routes applies to me?
It is decided by what you already have. An existing foreign employer with a corporate link to a Canadian entity points to an intra-company transfer. Owning and running a business here yourself points to a C11 entrepreneur permit. A purchase in progress makes the shareholding the first question. Each has its own page above.
Is there a minimum amount I have to invest?
Not for the federal work permit routes. Section 205(a) of the Regulations asks about the benefit the work creates or maintains, not about the size of the cheque, and an intra-company transfer asks about the corporate relationship rather than about money. The provincial entrepreneur streams do set net worth and investment figures, and they differ by province.
Why are there no dollar figures for the provincial streams on this page?
Because they differ by province and by stream and several were revised in the last two years, and a stale number on a page like this costs somebody real money. Bring the province you have in mind and we will read that stream's current terms with you.
Can my spouse work while I am here on one of these permits?
Often, but it is checked rather than assumed. The spouse or common law partner of a work permit holder may be eligible for an open work permit, and the rules on those changed in January 2025 so that eligibility now turns on the principal applicant's occupation.
Speak to someone this week
Bring the corporate documents for both companies and your employment history abroad. Business immigration to Canada is decided on those before anything else.
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