LMIA Work Permit: How Employer-Specific Work Permits Work in Canada

Canada's Temporary Foreign Worker Program (TFWP) lets employers hire foreign workers when they can't find Canadians or permanent residents for a job. The employer first applies to ESDC, through Service Canada, for a Labour Market Impact Assessment. A positive LMIA confirms that hiring a foreign worker will have a neutral or positive effect on the Canadian labor market.

With the positive LMIA, the worker applies to Immigration, Refugees and Citizenship Canada (IRCC) for a work permit. The permit is employer-specific: it names your employer, your job, and usually your work location. To change employers, you normally need a new LMIA and a new permit.

Many other work permits don't need an LMIA. Examples are the intra-company transfer, CUSMA professionals, Francophone Mobility, and the IEC working holiday. See all options on the work in Canada hub.

ESDC sorts LMIAs into streams. The main ones:

ESDC publishes the wage threshold for each province and territory and updates it regularly. The thresholds were updated on July 17, 2026; for example, the threshold is $36.92 an hour in Ontario and $37.50 an hour in Alberta. Check the current figure on the ESDC wage page before you compare it with a job offer.

Since September 26, 2024, low-wage LMIAs face three main limits:

1. Refusal in high-unemployment metro areas. Service Canada refuses to process low-wage LMIA applications for jobs in census metropolitan areas (CMAs) where unemployment is 6% or higher. The list is updated every three months. For applications from July 10 to October 8, 2026, it covers 26 of Canada's 41 CMAs, including large cities such as Toronto, Montreal, Calgary, Edmonton, and Ottawa-Gatineau. The next update is due October 9, 2026. See low-wage LMIA refusal areas for details.
2. A cap on the share of low-wage foreign workers an employer can have at a work location: generally 10%, or 20% in some sectors such as construction, food manufacturing, hospitals, and nursing care facilities.
3. Shorter permits. Low-wage work permits are generally issued for up to 1 year at a time.

Some jobs are exempt from the metro-area refusal, including jobs in agriculture, construction, food manufacturing, hospitals, and nursing care facilities, some in-home caregiver roles, and truly short jobs of about 120 calendar days or less.

Before applying for an LMIA, the employer generally must:

• Advertise the job in Canada within the 3 months before applying, on the Government of Canada's Job Bank plus at least two other methods. High-wage jobs need at least 4 consecutive weeks of advertising. Since April 1, 2026, low-wage jobs need at least 8 consecutive weeks, plus recruitment aimed at youth (ages 15 to 30) and other underrepresented groups. At least one recruitment method must continue until the LMIA decision
• Offer the prevailing wage for the job and region, and the same wage it pays Canadians in the same job
• Submit a transition plan for high-wage positions, showing how it will reduce reliance on foreign workers
• Pay the LMIA processing fee of CAD $1,000 per position, unless exempt
• Meet housing, transportation, and health insurance rules that apply to some streams

Employers who break program rules can face fines and bans. For the full employer process, see our employer guide to the LMIA.

Warning: It is illegal for employers or recruiters to charge you, the worker, for an LMIA or a job offer. Buying an LMIA is a common scam. Read our scam protection guide.

To get an LMIA work permit, you must:

• Have a job offer and a copy of the positive LMIA (or its number)
• Show you meet the job's requirements, such as education, experience, and any license
• Prove you will leave Canada when your permit ends (you can still plan to apply for permanent residence later)
• Meet health, security, and criminal checks, and give biometrics if needed
• Apply before the LMIA expires

Your spouse or partner can get an open work permit only if your job is in TEER 0 or 1, or in a selected TEER 2 or 3 occupation, and your permit has at least 16 months left. See spousal open work permits. TEER stands for Training, Education, Experience and Responsibilities, the job levels used in Canada's National Occupational Classification (NOC).

The process has two waits, one for the employer and one for you.

• LMIA processing by Service Canada depends on the stream and the region. High-wage and low-wage LMIAs usually take longer than the Global Talent Stream, which has a 2-week service standard for most applications. ESDC publishes current LMIA processing times on its website.
• Work permit processing by IRCC depends on the country you apply from. Check the current estimate with our processing times tool.

Recruitment adds time before the LMIA application can even start, because the employer must advertise for at least 4 weeks for a high-wage job, or 8 weeks for a low-wage job. In total, many workers wait several months between a job offer and arriving in Canada. Don't resign from your current job or book travel until your work permit is approved.

An LMIA job no longer adds points in Express Entry. On March 25, 2025, IRCC removed Comprehensive Ranking System (CRS) points for job offers. Canadian work experience still counts, and many provincial nominee programs still value job offers.

As a temporary foreign worker, you have the same basic workplace rights as Canadian workers, including minimum wage, safe working conditions, and overtime rules. If your employer abuses you or you are at risk of abuse, you may qualify for a vulnerable worker open work permit, which lets you leave that employer.

You cannot get an LMIA-based work permit at the border by flagpoling; that practice ended December 23, 2024, with limited exceptions such as US citizens and US permanent residents.