Several of these programs are closed or paused.
What is still a real option
- Atlantic Immigration Program — open as a federal pathway, but only with a designated Atlantic employer and a provincial endorsement. A province can pause designations even when the federal page is open.
- Rural Community Immigration Pilot and Francophone Community Immigration Pilot — the current rural routes. The old Rural and Northern Pilot is closed to new recommendations.
What is not taking new files
- Home Care Worker Immigration Pilots — no new applications. Instructions from 31 March 2026 run until 30 March 2030 unless repealed.
- Agri-Food Pilot — ended 14 May 2025.
- Rural and Northern Immigration Pilot — closed to new community recommendations.
- Start-up Visa — paused. Same status as on the Entrepreneurs page.
- Federal Self-Employed Persons — paused since 30 April 2024, extended 19 December 2025. Same status as on the Self-Employed page.
- Recognized Employer Pilot — not permanent residence. New employers cannot join. The pilot is scheduled to end 31 December 2026.
How we can help
- Start with the list above, so a closed pilot is not prepared as if it were open.
- For an Atlantic or rural file, confirm the employer is designated in a community or province that is actually participating.
- For a file already accepted under a closed pilot, keep that file moving. The closure is on new intake.
Atlantic Immigration Program
A permanent federal pathway for skilled workers and international graduates with a job offer from a designated employer in New Brunswick, Nova Scotia, Prince Edward Island, or Newfoundland and Labrador. It replaced the Atlantic Immigration Pilot, which closed at the end of 2021. IRCC stopped pilot applications in March 2022.
The order
- The employer is designated by the province.
- The province endorses the job.
- Only then does permanent residence go to IRCC.
- A temporary work permit, with a referral letter from the province, can let the person start work while the permanent file is processed.
What has to be true
- Language, work experience, education, and settlement funds are part of the federal test.
- Recent graduates of a recognized Atlantic institution have a different experience requirement from skilled workers hired from abroad.
- A province can pause new employer designations or limit occupations while IRCC’s own intake looks open. “The federal page says open” does not mean a particular employer can be designated this month.
- This is not that province’s nominee program. A person can fit one and not the other.
How we can help
- Confirm designation and endorsement before the IRCC forms are started.
- Choose the graduate test or the skilled-worker test from the person’s real history.
- Prepare the work-permit referral and the permanent-residence application as two steps, not one form.
Caregivers
- The old Live-in Caregiver Program is a legacy file, not a program a new applicant joins.
- The Home Care Worker Immigration Pilots (child care, and home support) are not accepting new applications. Ministerial instructions effective 31 March 2026 run until 30 March 2030 unless repealed sooner.
- Applications already accepted continue.
- A caregiver in Canada on a work permit is not, by that fact, inside a permanent-residence pilot. The permit is temporary. It may have needed an LMIA.
- Families who need a caregiver still hire under temporary foreign worker rules. That hire does not promise permanent residence.
- If a future caregiver intake opens, the occupation, language, education, and experience rules will be the ones published at that opening.
How we can help
- If a home-care application was already accepted, we continue that file.
- If it was not, we look at a temporary work permit for the caregiver, and we do not describe it as a path to permanent residence.
Agri-Food Immigration Pilot
- It ended on 14 May 2025. IRCC is not accepting new applications.
- Files accepted before that date continue.
- Seasonal farm work, including the Seasonal Agricultural Worker Program, is not this pilot unless an application was already accepted.
- The 2026 Express Entry list dropped the 2025 agriculture category. There is no hidden agriculture round behind this closed pilot.
- A new permanent pathway would have to be announced as its own program.
How we can help
- Check whether a file was accepted before 14 May 2025. If it was, we continue it.
- If it was not, we separate seasonal farm work from permanent residence and look at whatever program is actually open.
Rural and Northern Pilot
- The Rural and Northern Immigration Pilot is closed to new community recommendations. Only files already submitted still move.
- Rural Community Immigration Pilot — designated rural communities.
- Francophone Community Immigration Pilot — francophone minority communities outside Quebec.
- A participating community designates employers. You need a job offer from one of those employers, relevant experience, education, language, funds, and a community recommendation, then you apply to IRCC.
- A community that was in the old pilot is not automatically in the new one. There is no general “move to a small town” application that skips the community.
How we can help
- Check that the community and the employer are designated for RCIP or FCIP, not only remembered from the old rural pilot.
- Prepare the recommendation and the IRCC application in that order.
Start-Up Visa Program
Same program as under Entrepreneurs. Listed here because the menu carries it in both places.
- New applications are paused. Ordinary intake stopped at the end of 2025, with a narrow exception for an unused valid 2025 commitment from a designated organization.
- The program page shows the program paused from 30 June 2026. Accepted files continue.
- The optional work permit is stopped for new applicants, except extensions for people already in Canada on that permit.
- A new targeted entrepreneur pilot has been announced. As of October 2026 it is not an open application.
How we can help
- Same as on the Entrepreneurs page: test the 2025-commitment exception, continue an accepted file, and do not open a new one.
Self-Employed Persons Program
Same federal program as under Self-Employed. Culture and athletics only, not general freelancers.
- Intake stopped 30 April 2024. The pause was extended until further notice on 19 December 2025.
- Existing applications continue, with limited capacity.
- The Quebec self-employed program is a different program and is not covered by this pause.
How we can help
- We do not file a new federal self-employed application while the pause lasts.
- We continue a file already in process, or look at a route that is open, including Quebec’s own self-employed program if that is the real plan.
Recognized Employer Pilot
- Not a permanent-residence program. The worker does not apply. The employer does.
- It let employers with a strong compliance history get LMIAs valid for up to 36 months, then use a simpler assessment for later hires in listed occupations.
- New applications to join have not been accepted since 16 September 2024. Employers already recognized can still use the simplified assessment.
- The pilot is scheduled to end on 31 December 2026.
- A job offer from a recognized employer is still an LMIA job. It does not skip the work permit, and it does not nominate the worker.
How we can help
- Tell an employer whether they are already recognized, and that a new employer cannot join.
- Prepare the worker’s work permit as a normal LMIA-based permit. We do not describe the pilot as permanent residence.
