IRCC extends policy allowing International Experience Canada participants to get subsequent permits from within Canada

Foreign nationals working in Canada on International Experience Canada (IEC) work permits will continue to be able to receive permits for subsequent participations from within the country, under a recently-extended policy.

Canada’s immigration department, Immigration, Refugees and Citizenship Canada (IRCC), has extended a policy that allows qualifying IEC applicants to have their work permits mailed to Canadian addresses.

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To qualify under this policy, an applicant must be physically present in Canada, must hold an existing IEC work permit, and must have received a letter of introduction (LOI) for their subsequent IEC work permit application.

They must also request examination and document issuance using IRCC’s web form prior to the expiry of their LOI, by including the mandatory texts required by IRCC:

Text 1 – Mandatory for all applicants

“A112025: I am requesting an A11 examination and the issuance of my work permit from within Canada. My application number is [W#########]. I submitted my IEC application on [date]. I have received my IEC POE letter of introduction, which is valid until [date].

My current contact information in Canada is:

Telephone: [phone number]
Mailing address: [address]
Residential address: [address]”

They must also include text 2, using the version appropriate to their situation:

Young Professionals and International co-op participants:

“Employer-specific work permit: My employer, [name], located at [address], may be contacted at [contact telephone or email] to confirm my continued employment offer. I intend to begin work for this employer as soon as my work permit is received.”

Working Holiday participants:

“Open work permit: I attest that my circumstances remain the same and I still meet the requirements of the open work permit program I was approved for.”
Prior to this policy, IEC participants within Canada applying for subsequent IEC work permits would have to leave Canada, for example by flying back to their country of origin, simply to receive their new work permit.

Since the ban on flagpoling initiated on December 23, 2024, IEC applicants within Canada have not been allowed to activate their subsequent work permits by e-entering Canada from the United States or from St Pierre and Miquelon.

This policy was extended on February 10, 2026, and has been set to remain in place until further notice.

The policy was first implemented in the spring of 2024 and had initially been set to expire on December 1, 2025.

Under the International Experience Canada program, work permits are available to youth from 36 countries with bilateral youth mobility agreements with Canada.

To qualify, a foreign national must be a citizen of a participating country and must be aged 18–35 or 18–30 (depending on their country), in addition to meeting other program requirements depending on their IEC permit, along with Canada’ general admissibility requirements.

Some countries allow only a single lifetime participation under the IEC, while others allow for a second or even a third participation.

In many cases, demand from foreign nationals may exceed their country’s annual quota. For this reason, IRCC manages applications for IEC work permits using a lottery system, conducting rounds of invitations in which it issues invitations to apply for work permits at random to eligible profiles in the IEC pool.

Citizens of participating countries can look up their chances of success based on the current composition of their country’s pool on the government’s website.

Each year’s IEC pool typically opens in December of the previous year and begins issuing invitations in January.

Schedule a Free IEC Work Permit Consultation with Cohen Immigration Law

As of the time of writing, the following countries are participating in IEC:

Schedule a Free IEC Work Permit Consultation with Cohen Immigration Law