Canada curbs summary refusal of employer-specific work permits

Canada’s immigration department has barred officers from summarily refusing work permit applications relying on dubious job offers.

Immigration, Refugees and Citizenship Canada (IRCC) published updated instructions on its website on Sept. 17, 2026, which require officers to give applicants the opportunity to address any concerns about the genuineness of a job offer.

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According to the updated version of the instructions, “Assessing the genuineness of the offer of employment on a work permit application,” if an officer has doubts about the job offer supporting the application for an employer-specific work permit, the officer must issue a procedural fairness letter (PFL) and place the file on hold while awaiting a response with further information.

In contrast, the corresponding section of the previous version of the instructions said that the officer “may request further information or documents directly from the employer, or they may refuse the work permit.”

The updated instructions include a new section, “Concerns with the genuineness of the offer,” that directs officers how to issue the PFL to request more information about the applicant’s job offer.

The new section describes what must be included in the PFL to the work permit applicant, including

• The specific concerns the officer has relating to the genuineness of the offer; and
• A notification to the applicant that the employer must respond to the concerns by directly sending the required documentary evidence to IRCC.

The new section says that the employer must respond within 15 days, or within “the applicable office standard.”

The new section further directs the officer to schedule a review of the application after an additional 30 days beyond the employer deadline, “to allow sufficient time for the employer’s webform response to be attached to the application.”

The earlier version of the instructions provided none of the above directions for the issuance of a PFL.

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The updated version of the instructions also diverges from the previous version in several other respects:

• Specifying that while an employment contract is not required for job offers submitted through the employer portal, the officer may review an employment contract if one has been submitted by the applicant.
• Specifying an exception to the requirement that the employer demonstrate “active engagement in the business” in cases where the employee is a live-in caregiver.
• Dropping the requirement, detailed in the previous version, that the employer have a physical location in Canada at which the worker will work.
• Emphasizing a more holistic approach, in which an officer “should broadly consider all relevant elements,” for assessing whether the employer is actively engaged in the business.
• Clarifying that there is no issue, in and of itself, with work permits being issued to foreign nationals hired to work for employers with home-based businesses.
• Clarifying the process for officers to seek more information in cases in which a Canadian employer has contracted services from a foreign company.
• Specifying that a business with no employees which serves simply to facilitate the entry of foreign nationals into Canada does “not qualify as an operating business.”
• Including a reminder of the flagpoling ban affecting many work permit applications since December 2024.
• Removing all directions related to referring applications to the Case Management Branch.

The instructions are applicable to all employer-specific work permits, which includes some LMIA-exempt work permits issued through the International Mobility Program (IMP), and all work permits issued through the Temporary Foreign Worker Program (TFWP), for which Labour Market Impact Assessments (LMIAs) are always required.

The updated version of the instructions clarifies procedural differences for IMP versus TFWP work permits consistently across the document, whereas the earlier version did not.

Procedures differ somewhat for TFWP work permits, as the job offer and employer have already been assessed by Employment and Social Development Canada (ESDC) at the LMIA stage, when ESDC confirms that no qualified Canadian citizen or permanent resident is available to fill the employer’s vacancy.

Across both the previous and the updated versions, the immigration officer remains accountable for ensuring that they are satisfied of the genuineness of the job offer at the time of issuing the work permit, including in TFWP cases which involve reviewing and validating work done by ESDC officers at the LMIA stage.

The job offer requirement which is the focus of these instructions is the requirement in section 200(5) of the Immigration and Refugee Protection Regulations (IRPR).

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