These permits do not need a Labour Market Impact Assessment, and they are not tied to one employer. A few sections below are “no permit at all” when the person never enters the labour market. Those are not open work permits.
Post-Graduation Work Permits (PGWP)
An open permit after an eligible program at a designated school. It is the usual bridge from study to Canadian skilled work. Issued once. There is no second permit for a second diploma chosen only to extend the first.
- Length follows the program, up to three years. A master’s can qualify for three years even if the program was shorter than two years, if the rest of the rules are met.
- A program under eight months does not qualify.
- Language: bachelor’s, master’s, and doctoral graduates need benchmark or NCLC 7 in all four abilities. College and other non-university graduates need level 5.
- Bachelor’s, master’s, and doctoral graduates have no field-of-study test. Other university programs, and college programs, do, if the study permit was filed on or after 1 November 2024. The field must be on IRCC’s list. For 2026 that list is frozen.
- A study permit filed before 1 November 2024 is under the earlier field rule.
- Apply within the deadline after written confirmation of completion. You must have studied full-time in Canada, with limited exceptions.
How we can help
- Check language, field, and program length before graduation, not after the deadline.
- File the one permit the graduate is entitled to, inside the window.
Spousal Open Work Permit
Not every spouse of every student or every worker.
- Spouses of international students generally qualify when the student is in a master’s or doctoral program, or in certain professional programs. An ordinary college diploma usually does not qualify the spouse.
- Spouses of foreign workers generally qualify when the worker is in a higher-skilled occupation. Some TEER 2 occupations are still included. Many others are excluded.
- The principal applicant’s permit has to be valid for long enough, and the relationship has to be genuine.
- The open permit ends with the relationship or with the principal applicant’s status, in the way the conditions describe.
- It does not give the spouse their own route to permanent residence. A later permanent file still has to stand on Canadian experience, a nomination, sponsorship, or another category.
- A marriage entered to obtain this permit, without a genuine relationship, is the same bad-faith problem described under sponsorship.
How we can help
- Check the student’s level or the worker’s occupation against the narrowed list before the spouse quits a job abroad.
- Prepare the open permit with proof of the relationship, and say what permanent route, if any, the spouse can build later.
Bridging Open Work Permit
- You are already in Canada, you have filed permanent residence under an eligible category, and your current work permit will expire before that application is decided.
- Eligible categories have included Express Entry, certain provincial-nominee applications, and other economic classes IRCC lists.
- A visitor who has not filed for permanent residence cannot use it. A permanent application outside the listed classes cannot use it.
- The current permit has to be expiring within the stated window, and you have to be in status.
- It is a bridge between two applications you already have. It is not a first work permit.
How we can help
- Confirm the permanent file is in a listed class and still in process, then file the bridge before the work permit expires.
Vulnerable Workers
- For a worker in Canada who is experiencing abuse, or is at risk of abuse, in the job. Abuse includes physical, sexual, financial, and psychological abuse, and reprisal for asserting a right.
- The permit is meant to let the person leave the employer without losing the right to work. The worker does not need the employer’s permission.
- It is temporary. It is not permanent residence. A later stay still needs its own program.
- Using this category without the facts of abuse is misrepresentation.
How we can help
- Help gather evidence of the abuse and file the open permit so the person can leave the employer.
- After that, look separately at whether any permanent program fits. We do not treat this permit as one.
Guest Speakers in Canada
- A short talk, a paper, or an event, with no Canadian pay beyond expenses, and no entry into the labour market, can be a business visitor or work without a permit. A conference badge is not a work permit.
- A speaker hired by a Canadian organizer, paid a fee, and present for a longer engagement is working and needs a permit.
- When a permit is required and no LMIA is required, it is usually an International Mobility Program category: sometimes significant benefit, sometimes a public-speaker category.
- The difference is the Canadian pay and the Canadian job, not the prestige of the invitation.
How we can help
- Read the contract and the payer, and say whether this is a visit or a permit.
- If it is a permit, pick the LMIA-exempt category that matches the engagement.
Charitable or Religious Work
- LMIA-exempt when the work is genuinely charitable or religious and the organization and the duties fit. Missionaries, religious instructors, and workers for a registered charity doing the charity’s purpose are the usual picture.
- Ordinary commercial work for a faith-based employer is not. A cook in a restaurant owned by a religious organization is a cook.
- Many of these permits are employer-specific even though they are LMIA-exempt. They are not open permits.
- A true volunteer who is not paid and does not fill a job a Canadian would be paid to do may not need a permit. The moment the role is a paid job, the permit question returns.
How we can help
- Separate charity or religious duty from a paid job, and file the employer-specific exempt permit when the role is paid.
Athletes and Staff
- Athletes coming for a specific event or a limited season, and the coaches and staff who travel with them, can work without an LMIA, and sometimes without a work permit, when the stay matches the event.
- A player joining a Canadian league for a season under contract is different from a player flying in for a tournament.
- Staff are covered when they are part of the team’s participation, not when they do unrelated work.
- The permit, when required, is tied to the team or the event. It is not a general athletic open permit.
- It is not the paused federal Self-Employed Persons Program, which was a permanent-residence category.
How we can help
- Match the contract to an event entry or to a season permit tied to the team.
Entertainment Business Visitors
- A performer on a limited foreign contract, not put on a Canadian payroll in the way the rules describe, may be a business visitor.
- A production that hires them in Canada, or a worker filling a job on a Canadian set for a Canadian company, generally needs a work permit.
- Television and film often use an LMIA-exempt significant-benefit category that is still tied to the production. That category is on the employer-specific page.
- “Business visitor” is a description of the contract, the payer, and the work. It is not a label the traveler chooses.
How we can help
- Read who pays and who employs, and place the person as a visitor or on a production-specific permit.
