Canada extends policy offering safe haven to foreign nationals stranded in Gaza

Foreign nationals who are, or were, in Gaza and who hold an approved Canadian temporary resident visa under previous special measures now have nearly two more years to make the trip

Immigration, Refugees and Citizenship Canada (IRCC) has extended a temporary public policy allowing foreign nationals from Gaza to enter Canada as visitors and exempting them from certain entry requirements.

The new policy comes into effect on April 24, 2026, and will expire on March 31, 2028. It is worth noting that it may be revoked by the Canadian government at any time during this period.

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Who qualifies under the extended policy?

The extended policy applies to foreign nationals who:

Currently holds a temporary resident visa (TRV) that was issued under the facilitation of the previous iteration of the temporary policy for foreign nationals in Gaza; and
Seek to enter Canada as a visitor.

What does the policy do?

The newly announced extension builds on previous iterations of the special policy for foreign nationals in Gaza by extending the period during which eligible foreign nationals can enter Canada while benefiting from special exemptions to entry requirements.

Normally, a foreign national who wants to enter Canada as a visitor must satisfy an officer at the port of entry on two points:

That they will leave Canada at the end of their authorized stay; and
That they are not inadmissible for financial reasons (i.e., unable to meet the financial requirements standard for a visitor visa).

Under this temporary public policy, eligible foreign nationals in Gaza are exempt from needing to meet the above requirements, enabling them to travel to Canada without being refused entry on these specific grounds.

Apart from entry exemptions (detailed above), all other standard eligibility and admissibility criteria for visitors apply.

Background

The Gaza special measures were originally introduced by IRCC in December 2023 and replaced by an updated version in April 2024.

The updated policy was designed to give Palestinian nationals from Gaza with close family members in Canada a temporary route to safety while the war continues.

The updated policy has three parts, and the current extension applies only to the third. Parts 1 and 2 — the application facilitation components — have since expired. The TRV application pathway is no longer open to new applicants, and a cap of 5,000 applications accepted for processing was set when the updated policy was signed.

Part 3, however, has now been extended twice. The first extension was signed in March 2025 and carried Part 3's entry exemptions forward to April 23, 2026. The current extension, signed on April 20, 2026, runs until March 31, 2028 — a significantly longer window than the previous one.

Part 1

Part 1 set up a facilitated TRV application pathway for Palestinian passport holders who were in Gaza at the time of application.

To qualify, applicants needed to identify a Canadian citizen or permanent resident family member — called an "anchor" — who was willing to provide them with a year of settlement support, including help with housing, food, orientation, and enrolment in Canadian programs such as health insurance.

Part 2

Part 2 extended the same facilitation to immediate family members of Part 1 applicants, such as spouses and children travelling with them.

Part 3

Part 3 is the entry component. It allows people who were approved under Part 1 or Part 2 to actually arrive in Canada as visitors, despite the standard entry barriers mentioned above.

The full text of the extended policy is available on the Government of Canada's website.

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