Not every Canadian work permit needs a Labour Market Impact Assessment. Spouses, graduates, transferees, francophone workers and people already applying for permanent residence often qualify under the International Mobility Program — faster, cheaper, and with no employer LMIA at all. The question is which exemption fits.
The family open work permit rules changed materially on January 21, 2025 and catch people out constantly. Spouses of workers now qualify only where the principal works in a TEER 0 or 1 occupation or a selected TEER 2 or 3 occupation, and dependent children are no longer eligible at all. Spouses of students qualify only where the student is in a master's program of 16 months or longer, a doctoral program, or a listed professional degree program. Older guidance still circulating online describes the previous, far broader rules.
The term is widely misunderstood, and the misunderstanding is expensive.
An exemption means the employer does not need a Labour Market Impact Assessment. In almost every case you still need a work permit. A separate and much narrower set of business activities can be performed without any permit at all, and those are a different question entirely — do not assume that finding an exemption code means you can simply fly to Canada and start.
You need a qualifying job and a qualifying exemption category. The permit names the employer and sets conditions on occupation and location, exactly like an LMIA-supported permit — the difference is only that no LMIA was required.
The employer normally submits the offer of employment through the Employer Portal and pays the $230 compliance fee, unless a listed exemption applies.
You must qualify for a specific open permit category — there is no general one. A job offer is not required, no employer files a portal offer, and no compliance fee is paid for that employment.
Applicants generally pay the $100 open work permit holder fee alongside the processing fee, unless exempt. An open permit can still carry medical, occupational or provincial restrictions.
Eligibility rests on an international agreement, a Canadian interest, or a specific policy or situation.
| Pathway | Who it may suit | What is actually assessed |
|---|---|---|
| Francophone Mobility | French-speaking workers with a job offer anywhere outside Quebec. | French speaking and listening at NCLC 5 or higher. Any TEER category qualifies, except primary agriculture occupations at TEER 4 and 5. |
| Intra-company transfers | Executives, senior or functional managers and specialised knowledge workers moving within an international corporate group; also those opening a Canadian branch or affiliate. | The corporate relationship, qualifying employment abroad with the related entity, and the proposed role against the specific category. Three separate categories with different tests. |
| Free trade agreements | Professionals, transferees, investors and traders under agreements such as CUSMA, CETA and CPTPP. | Nationality, the precise occupation and the exact agreement category. These routes are nationality-restricted — most are unavailable to citizens of countries outside the agreement. |
| Provincial or territorial support | Workers supported under a federal–provincial or territorial agreement, including some provincial nominees. | The qualifying provincial support letter, the employer and the applicable instructions. A nomination by itself does not authorise work. |
| Atlantic Immigration Program | Applicants with a job offer from a designated employer in one of the four Atlantic provinces. | A designated-employer job offer and a provincial endorsement or referral letter. The permit is employer-specific, not open, and is issued for up to two years. |
| Significant benefit | Cases where the work will bring important social, cultural or economic benefit to Canada. | Detailed, specific evidence of the benefit. This is a discretionary category, assessed on its own facts, and it is not a fallback for a weak file. |
| Entrepreneurs and self-employed | Owners coming temporarily to operate their own Canadian business; separately, provincial business candidates and Quebec self-employed certificate holders. | Control of the business, the benefit it will bring and the temporary nature of the stay. Registering or buying a company does not by itself establish eligibility. |
| Reciprocal, academic, charitable and religious work | Exchange workers, researchers and academics, and people performing genuine charitable or religious work. | The actual duties and the organisation against the specific criteria. Some of this work falls under a work-permit exemption rather than an LMIA exemption — a different and better outcome where it applies. |
Exemption categories carry codes, and those codes are revised. The code long used for intra-company transferees, for instance, was retired in December 2022 and replaced by three separate codes — yet it still appears on consultant websites and in template letters today. Citing the wrong code on a submission is an avoidable own goal. IRCC publishes the current list, and it is the only list worth relying on.
There is no general open work permit. You qualify under one of these defined categories or you do not qualify at all.
For graduates of eligible Canadian programs. Two current requirements catch people out: a language requirement — CLB or NCLC 7 in all four abilities for bachelor's-level and above, CLB or NCLC 5 for college and other non-university programs — and a field-of-study requirement.
The field-of-study rule does not apply to bachelor's, master's or doctoral graduates. It applies to all other programs where the study permit application was submitted on or after November 1, 2024.
Lets eligible permanent residence applicants keep working while their PR application is processed. Qualifying programs include Express Entry, both Express Entry and base provincial nominee streams, the Quebec skilled worker class, the Agri-Food Pilot and several caregiver classes.
You need a PR application that has passed the completeness check, plus valid status, maintained status, or eligibility to restore. An Express Entry profile or an invitation is not a PR application. Applicants under the 2025 Home Care Worker pilots are not eligible.
Available where the principal worker holds a qualifying occupation and enough remaining validity — see the detailed rules in the next section. Separate and more generous measures apply to workers on certain permanent residence pathways and under some free trade agreements.
Available only where the student holds a valid study permit and is enrolled in a master's program of 16 months or longer, a doctoral program, or an eligible professional degree program from IRCC's published list. Attending a designated learning institution is not enough on its own.
A specific open work permit route applies to eligible applicants being sponsored from within Canada. Living arrangements, the stage the sponsorship has reached and the applicant's temporary status all have to be assessed. See our family sponsorship guide.
Only one of the three IEC categories produces an open permit. Working Holiday is open; Young Professionals and International Co-op (Internship) are employer-specific and require a job or internship related to your field of study.
Citizenship, age, category and the number of places available in the season all matter — Bangladesh is not among the countries with a youth mobility agreement with Canada.
Further open permit categories and temporary public policies exist for particular circumstances — among them refugee claimants who need to work, protected persons, holders of a temporary resident permit for victims of family violence, and vulnerable workers. Several of these also carry fee exemptions from the processing fee, the open work permit holder fee, or both. Temporary measures open and close, so the question is always whether the measure is currently in force and whether you meet its precise conditions today.
This is the single most common source of wrong advice we see, so it is worth setting out properly.
Neither test existed before January 21, 2025, which is why so much online guidance is wrong.
Under the family open work permit measure for family members of workers, dependent children are no longer eligible. Families who moved to Canada expecting a working-age child to be able to work on a family open permit need to plan differently — that child needs their own basis for a permit, whether a study permit with work rights, a post-graduation work permit, or a permit in their own right.
Assess every family member individually. Relationship evidence is necessary but it never substitutes for the principal applicant's occupation, program or status meeting the test.
Match your work, qualifications, family circumstances or immigration history to a category that is currently in force, and establish whether the resulting permit is employer-specific or open. This determines everything downstream, including who pays what.
For most employer-specific IMP permits the employer submits the offer through the Employer Portal and pays the $230 compliance fee, then gives you the offer of employment number. No portal offer or compliance fee is needed to employ someone who already holds an open work permit.
Document every element the exemption requires, and satisfy the general work permit requirements as well. Naming a category or a code without evidence behind it is the most common reason an exemption application fails.
Outside Canada, inside Canada, or at a port of entry where eligible — these are not interchangeable. A visitor in Canada cannot assume they may apply from inside, and arriving at a port of entry to request a permit you are not eligible to request there rarely ends well.
Then confirm when you may lawfully begin working, and read the conditions printed on the permit that is issued. If you applied from abroad, the letter of introduction is not the permit — an officer issues that on arrival.
A qualifying extension filed before expiry may let you keep working under your existing conditions while you remain in Canada and IRCC processes it. An exemption assessment, an employer's offer or a pending permanent residence file does not by itself extend your authorisation to work.
The final checklist depends on the category and on where you apply.
| Application basis | Typical evidence |
|---|---|
| Employer-specific exemption | Employment offer and contract, the portal offer of employment number where required, employer evidence, and the documents establishing the specific exemption. |
| Corporate transfer or business case | Corporate ownership and structure, evidence the entities are genuinely related and operating, qualifying employment history with the foreign entity, and detailed role descriptions. |
| Spouse or partner | Marriage or common-law evidence, plus the principal applicant's status, occupation and permit validity — including evidence the occupation meets the TEER test where it applies. |
| Post-graduation work permit | Completion letter and transcripts, plus language test results and field-of-study evidence where the current rules require them. |
| Bridging open work permit | Acknowledgement of receipt for the permanent residence application, approval in principle where the stream requires it, and current status evidence. |
| Provincial support | The nomination or support letter, the employer documents, and evidence meeting the applicable work permit instructions. |
Passport, current permits or status documents, travel history, and full details of any previous refusal — from any country. Undisclosed refusals are found, and they damage credibility far more than the original refusal ever did.
Employment reference letters setting out actual duties and dates, education and training documents, and any licence or certification the offered job requires. Documents not in English or French need translations meeting IRCC's requirements.
| Cost | Paid by | Amount and notes |
|---|---|---|
| Employer compliance fee | Employer | $230 for most employer-specific IMP permits. Not payable when employing an existing open work permit holder, and exempt for foreign governments, international organisations and several specific categories. |
| Open work permit holder fee | Worker | $100, in addition to the processing fee, for most open permit applicants. A number of categories are exempt, including refugee claimants who need to work, protected persons and their family members, and holders of a temporary resident permit for victims of family violence. |
| Work permit processing fee | Worker | Payable to IRCC. Check the current fee list on the day you apply. |
| Biometrics and medicals | Worker | Where required, depending on the category, the length of stay and your country of residence. |
| LMIA processing fee | — | Not applicable. This is the entire point of the exemption — the employer's $1,000 LMIA fee and the recruitment obligations behind it do not arise. |
An employer-specific exemption still produces a permit tied to that employer, that occupation and that location, and working outside those conditions breaches your status just as it would on an LMIA-supported permit. Open permits are broader, but they can still carry medical restrictions — barring work in child care, health services or agriculture where a medical examination has not been done — and occupational or provincial limits.
Read the conditions printed on the permit itself. They govern, not what anyone told you the category allows.
Most of the value is here. We work through your work history, family situation, studies, nationality and immigration history against the categories currently in force, and tell you which are realistic — including when the honest answer is that an LMIA is the only route.
Whether a portal offer and compliance fee are required, what the employer must retain, and what the offer of employment has to say for the category relied on.
Spousal open work permits under the current rules, post-graduation work permits with the field-of-study and language requirements, and bridging permits timed against a permanent residence application.
Your file is handled by Mehrul Rajib, RCIC, licence R708721, regulated by the College of Immigration and Citizenship Consultants, with service in English, Bangla, Hindi or Urdu from our Edmonton and Dhaka offices.
Then the route is an employer-supported application: a Labour Market Impact Assessment from Service Canada, followed by a work permit from IRCC. It is slower and it costs the employer more, but for many workers with a genuine Canadian job offer it is the right answer.
Mehrul Rajib, RCIC, reviews your work history, family situation, studies and immigration status against the exemption categories in force today — before an employer spends money on an LMIA that may not have been necessary.
This page is general information, not legal advice. LMIA exemption categories, codes, open work permit rules, fees and eligibility criteria change without notice, and no approval is guaranteed. Every figure and rule here was checked against the relevant IRCC source in September 2026 and each links to that source; confirm the current position there, and take advice on your own circumstances, before applying.
