Employer-Specific Work Permit: The Closed Permit Guide

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An employer-specific work permit, commonly called a closed permit, authorizes you to work in Canada only for the employer, the position and the work location printed on the document. It rests on a two-step process: your employer acts first, either by obtaining a Labour Market Impact Assessment (LMIA) or by submitting an LMIA-exempt job offer through the International Mobility Program, and then you file your own application with IRCC, paying a non-refundable processing fee of CAD 155. Switching employers requires a brand new application. Your rights as a worker remain fully intact despite being tied to a single employer, and this permit can become a stepping stone toward permanent residence. Always confirm the current rules on Canada.ca before acting.

What an employer-specific work permit actually is

If you have already read my guide to the work permit in Canada, you know that the Canadian system splits work authorizations into two broad families: open permits and permits tied to an employer. This article is devoted entirely to the second family, the one people usually call the closed permit, or the employer-specific permit in the government's official vocabulary.

Before we dive in, let me repeat a disclaimer I include in every article because it genuinely matters: I am an independent writer, not a lawyer and not a regulated immigration consultant. What I offer here is a map to help you find your bearings, built from years of research and from the stories readers have shared with me. For your specific situation, Canada.ca remains the authority, along with a licensed professional if you need one.

Employer, position and location, printed in black and white

What defines this permit is its level of precision. The document you receive will show the name of your employer, usually your position or occupational category, and often your work location. These entries are not decorative: they are the legal conditions of your authorization to work. Working for another company, taking on a substantially different role, or moving your duties to another city without authorization all amount to working without a valid permit.

That logic is completely different from the open work permit, which leaves you free to choose your employer. With a closed permit, your right to work in Canada and your relationship with one specific employer are inseparable. That reality shapes your daily life, your bargaining power and your future plans, and it is exactly what we are going to unpack together in this guide.

Why this permit exists

You can find the system rigid, and in some respects it is. But it follows a logic the government stands behind: making sure that hiring a foreign worker answers a genuine need in the Canadian labour market, and that the hiring happens neither at the expense of local workers nor at the expense of the foreign worker. Every closed permit is anchored to a job offer that has been verified through one mechanism or another.

It is also, quite honestly, the most common entry route for people who do not fit into any open permit category. If you are not an eligible spouse, not a recent graduate of a Canadian institution and not a participant in International Experience Canada, the employer-specific work permit is very likely your doorway into the Canadian labour market. All the more reason to understand it properly.

Closed permit or open permit: keep the distinction in mind

I encourage you to hold on to this distinction throughout your reading. The open permit offers freedom but remains reserved for narrow categories of people. The closed permit is accessible to a much wider range of profiles, provided you have convinced an employer, but it binds you to that employer. Neither one is better in absolute terms: everything depends on your situation. For a complete overview of the options, my article on the types of work permits in Canada compares both families in detail.

The two-step process: the employer first, then you

Here is the point I want to engrave in your mind, because everything else flows from it: you cannot apply for an employer-specific work permit on your own. The process always starts with the employer. Until your employer has completed their part, your own application simply cannot succeed.

Step 1: your employer obtains an LMIA or submits an exempt offer

Two paths are open to the Canadian employer who wants to hire you. The first, and the best known, runs through the Labour Market Impact Assessment, the LMIA, issued by Employment and Social Development Canada (ESDC). The employer must show they tried to recruit locally and that no qualified Canadian or permanent resident was available for the role. We will come back to this at length, because this step concerns you more than you might think.

The second path runs through the International Mobility Program: certain situations exempt the employer from the LMIA, because the hire is presumed beneficial to Canada or covered by an international agreement. In that case, the employer submits an official job offer through a dedicated government portal and pays a compliance fee. Here too, be patient, I devote a full section to it further down.

Step 2: you file your permit application

Once the employer holds a positive LMIA or has submitted an exempt offer, the ball moves into your court. You file your work permit application with Immigration, Refugees and Citizenship Canada, usually online, attaching the documents that prove your identity, your qualifications for the job and the basis of the application: the LMIA number and your contract, or the offer of employment number if an exemption applies.

The processing fee is CAD 155 per person, and it is non-refundable, even if your application is refused. The same amount applies when you extend your permit or apply for a new one to change employers. Depending on your country of citizenship and your history, you will probably need to give biometrics: budget CAD 85 for the fingerprints and photo. The good news is that biometrics remain valid for 10 years, so if you provided them recently for another application, you most likely will not have to do it again.

Biometrics, review and decision

If biometrics are required, you will receive an instruction letter after submitting your application, and you will have 30 days to visit a designated collection point. Do not drag your feet: as long as your biometrics have not been collected, your file sits in limbo. Depending on your profile, a medical exam or a police certificate may also be requested.

Then comes the waiting. Processing times vary enormously depending on the country you apply from, the volume of files and the program involved, so be wary of the averages quoted on forums. IRCC's official processing times tool is the only reliable source.  If the decision is positive, you receive either the permit itself (if you are already in Canada) or a letter of introduction to present at the port of entry, where the permit will be printed.

The LMIA seen from the worker's side

The LMIA is the employer's procedure, true. But I have noticed that workers who understand it negotiate better, spot scams faster and build stronger files. So let us take the time to look at it from your point of view.

What the LMIA proves, and what it does not

A positive LMIA is a document in which ESDC confirms that hiring a foreign worker for that specific position will have a neutral or positive effect on the Canadian labour market. To obtain it, the employer generally had to advertise the job, review local applications, justify why they were not retained, and show that the offered wage matches the prevailing rates for the occupation in the region.

Keep firmly in mind what the LMIA is not: it is neither a work permit nor a promise of one. It is one piece of the file, indispensable in its own lane, but your individual application will then be assessed on its own merits: genuineness of the offer, your ability to perform the job, your admissibility to Canada, and your intention to respect the terms of your stay.

Who pays for the LMIA: the employer, always

Here is the single most important point in this entire article, and I am choosing my words carefully. The LMIA processing fee is CAD 1,000 per position requested, and it is the employer's responsibility, exclusively. Canadian regulations, specifically section 209.4 of the Immigration and Refugee Protection Regulations, prohibit the employer from recovering that fee from you, directly or indirectly.

In concrete terms, an employer who asks you to pay for the LMIA, deducts it from your wages, has you reimburse it in cash or disguises it as a recruitment fee is committing an offence. This is not a grey area, it is illegal. If it happens to you, or has happened, you can report it to ESDC, including confidentially. Reporting does not put your status at risk: the compliance system targets the offending employer, not the worker who speaks up.

I insist on this because the practice exists, especially in certain overseas recruitment channels where intermediaries charge candidates enormous sums while claiming to cover government fees. Knowing the rule is already half the protection. And if a recruiter demands money from you for an LMIA, walk away: it is the most reliable alarm bell there is.

The documents the LMIA gives you

Once the positive LMIA is issued, your employer must pass along the elements you will need for your permit application: the LMIA number, in most cases a copy of the decision letter, and your contract or job offer detailing the position, the wage and the working conditions. Check that what the contract says matches what you were promised verbally. The wage and duties recorded in the LMIA file are binding on the employer: that is the baseline against which their compliance can later be inspected.

Closed permits without an LMIA: the International Mobility Program

Far from all employer-specific permits go through an LMIA. The International Mobility Program, or IMP, gathers the situations where Canada considers that hiring a foreign worker serves its interests without any need to test the labour market. The permit issued is still a closed permit, attached to the employer who submitted the offer, but the LMIA step disappears. Here are the main families of exemptions, in broad strokes.

International agreements

Canada has signed trade and mobility agreements with many countries and regions, and several of those agreements provide for categories of workers who can obtain a permit without an LMIA: professionals on specific occupation lists, traders, investors, and people transferred between affiliated companies. If you are a citizen of a country linked to Canada by such an agreement and your occupation falls within the covered categories, this route can dramatically simplify your hiring. The exact conditions depend on each agreement, and I refer you to the official page to check what applies to your nationality and your occupation.

Intra-company transfers

The second big family: people transferred within the same corporate group. If you work for a company that has a subsidiary, a branch or a parent company in Canada, and you are transferred there into an executive, managerial or specialized-knowledge role, a closed permit can be issued to you without an LMIA. Multinationals use this route heavily. It generally assumes minimum seniority within the group and a role of sufficient level, with criteria that have tightened in recent years: your human resources department and the official page will give you the current state of the requirements.

Canadian interests and Francophone Mobility

The third family is more varied: exemptions based on Canada's interests. It covers situations as diverse as significant benefits to the country, certain reciprocal employment exchanges, researchers and academics, and participants in specific programs. The exemption I want to spotlight here, because it concerns so many of my readers, is Francophone Mobility: it allows qualified French-speaking workers headed for a job outside Quebec to obtain a closed permit without an LMIA, on the basis of a job offer and demonstrated French ability.

If you speak French and are aiming for Ontario, Manitoba or New Brunswick for example, this exemption deserves your full attention: it spares your future employer the cost and uncertainty of the LMIA, which makes your candidacy noticeably more attractive. The precise criteria (language level, eligible types of positions) evolve, so verify the official page before turning it into a hiring argument.

The employer portal: job offer and compliance fee

An LMIA exemption does not mean zero formalities for the employer. Under the IMP, your future employer must submit your job offer through IRCC's employer portal before you file your permit application, and pay the employer compliance fee.  That submission generates an offer of employment number that you will need to enter in your own application.

The principle is the same as for the LMIA: those fees and formalities belong to the employer, not to you. The submitted offer commits the company on wage, duties and working conditions, and the government can run inspections to check that reality matches what was declared. An employer who balks at using the portal, or who asks you to front their fees, should immediately raise your suspicions.

The conditions printed on your permit, and what they forbid

The day your permit is handed to you, read it line by line. On an employer-specific permit, the printed conditions are your day-to-day legal framework, and ignoring them can cost you dearly.

What the entries on the permit mean

You will find your employer's name: you may work only for them. Your position or occupational category: you cannot be quietly reassigned to a fundamentally different job, even with the same employer, unless the permit is amended. Often, your work location: a transfer to another province may require an update. And of course the expiry date, which bounds your right to work, plus possible notations about incidental studies or medical restrictions.

What that forbids in practice

Concretely, a closed permit forbids you from taking a second job with another employer, even for a few hours, even occasionally, unless you obtain an additional permit. It forbids you from staying on with the same business if it changes legal entity in a substantial way without the file being updated, a scenario more common than people think during mergers and buyouts. And it obviously forbids you from continuing to work after the permit expires, even if your employer encourages you to, promising that "the paperwork will follow."

Let me say it plainly: it is always the worker who pays the heaviest price for a breach of conditions, through loss of status, a future refusal or a finding of inadmissibility. If you are unsure what your permit allows, ask the question before acting, not after. The general rules that apply to all permits, such as the ban on working for an employer on the non-compliant employers list, come on top of the conditions specific to your document.

Changing employers on a closed permit: a new application, not a formality

This is the question I get asked most often on this topic, and the answer fits in one sentence: with an employer-specific work permit, changing employers requires a new work permit application, based on a new LMIA or a new exempt offer submitted by the future employer. Your current permit does not "transfer," and it cannot be amended with a simple email: you have to run the circuit again, with a new CAD 155 processing fee.

That does not mean you are a prisoner. You have the right to resign, the right to look for another job, the right to accept an offer elsewhere. You simply cannot start working for the new employer until the new authorization is in place, subject to certain measures that, under precise conditions, allow you to start earlier once the new application has been submitted. The timing of the steps then becomes strategic: who does what, in what order, and how to avoid a gap in your right to work.

I wrote an entire article on this delicate manoeuvre, with the steps in order and the traps to avoid: changing employers in Canada. If a change is on your horizon, read it before you hand in your resignation, not after.

Your rights remain fully intact, even on a closed permit

I care about this section more than any other, because a tragic confusion keeps circulating: no, a closed permit does not give your employer rights over you. It ties your work authorization to their business, but it suspends none of the protections that Canadian law grants to every person working on its territory.

You are entitled to the agreed wage, paid in full and on time. You are entitled to your province's employment standards: overtime, days of rest, leave, health and safety conditions. Your employer cannot confiscate your passport or your documents, cannot threaten you with deportation to make you accept degraded conditions, cannot bill you for fees they are legally required to bear, the LMIA first among them as we saw. Nor can they retaliate against you for asking questions or filing a complaint.

And if the situation turns abusive, the system provides an exit door: the open work permit for vulnerable workers, which lets you leave an abusive employer without losing the right to work in Canada. Remember this: asking for help does not destroy your immigration project. I detailed all of these protections, the concrete remedies and the organizations you can turn to in my article on the rights of foreign workers, which I truly encourage you to read if you work, or will soon work, on a closed permit.

From closed permit to permanent residence

Many people see the employer-specific permit as an end in itself. In reality, it is very often the first chapter of a journey toward permanent residence, and a precious one.

Canadian experience, your strongest asset

Skilled work experience gained in Canada ranks among the most valued elements in the economic immigration programs, starting with Express Entry and its Canadian Experience Class. Every month worked legally on your closed permit builds your file. Hence the importance of keeping your evidence methodically: contracts, pay stubs, employer letters describing your duties. The day you submit a profile, those documents will be worth gold.

The provincial route and its 600 points

Provincial nominee programs love people who already work on their territory for a local employer: you have proven your integration into the labour market, your employer can support your candidacy, and your occupation often matches an identified regional need. And the stakes are enormous: a provincial nomination aligned with Express Entry adds 600 points to your Comprehensive Ranking System score, which virtually guarantees an invitation to apply for permanent residence in an upcoming draw.

In other words, your closed permit, constraints and all, may be the most direct launch pad toward permanent status. If that is your goal, think about it from the moment you are hired: favour a position whose skill level counts in the immigration programs, keep your language skills sharp, and look early into the provincial streams open in the province where you work. The full landscape of options is laid out in my guide to the work permit in Canada and in my provincial articles.

The common mistakes I see far too often

Some mistakes come back with discouraging regularity in the stories readers send me. Here they are, so that you can avoid them.

The first: paying for an LMIA or for a "guaranteed job offer." As we saw, the LMIA costs the employer CAD 1,000 and they are forbidden from billing it back to you. Any intermediary selling you a Canadian job offer for several thousand dollars is selling you, at best, an offence, at worst, hot air. Nobody can guarantee a decision by IRCC or ESDC.

The second: starting to work before you have the permit in hand, or for an employer other than the one printed on it. The pressure sometimes comes from the employer, eager to see you start. Resist: it is your status on the line, not theirs.

The third: letting your permit expire without having filed an extension application. Filed on time, an application generally lets you keep working under the same conditions while it is processed. Filed late, it drops you into a restoration procedure that is more expensive and more uncertain, during which you cannot work.

The fourth: signing a contract without comparing it to the offer submitted to the government. A lower wage, different duties, inflated hours: those gaps are non-compliance signals, and you are entitled to demand that the declared conditions be respected. The fifth: staying in an abusive situation out of fear of losing your status, when protections and a permit for vulnerable workers exist precisely for that. And the sixth: believing that changing employers is a simple administrative formality, when in fact a complete new application is required, as explained in my article on changing employers.

Frequently asked questions

Can I work for a second employer with an employer-specific work permit?

No, not on that permit alone. Your work authorization is limited to the employer named on the document, and a second job, even a few hours a week, would require an additional authorization based on its own LMIA or its own exempt offer. Working elsewhere without that authorization is a breach of your conditions, with possible consequences for your current status and for every future application. If your plans involve several employers, raise it early and explore the options described on Canada.ca.

My employer is asking me to reimburse the LMIA fee. Is that legal?

No, it is illegal. The LMIA fee, CAD 1,000 per position, is the employer's exclusive responsibility, and section 209.4 of the Immigration and Refugee Protection Regulations prohibits them from recovering it from you, directly or through disguised deductions. If it happens to you, keep the evidence (messages, pay records, receipts) and report the situation to Employment and Social Development Canada, which can be done confidentially. The report targets the employer, not you, and does not compromise your immigration file.

What happens if I lose my job while on a closed permit?

Losing your job does not instantly make you illegal: your temporary resident status remains valid until the date printed on your permit. What you cannot do is work for another employer until a new permit based on a new offer has been obtained. The right reflex is to act quickly: look for a new employer willing to start the process, consider applying to extend or change your status before expiry, and check Canada.ca for the options that fit your situation. My article on changing employers walks through the steps.

Is an LMIA always required for a closed permit?

No. The LMIA is the default route of the Temporary Foreign Worker Program, but the International Mobility Program gathers many exemptions: international agreements covering certain occupations, transfers between entities of the same corporate group, situations serving Canadian interests, and Francophone Mobility for qualified French-speaking workers outside Quebec. In all of those cases, the employer submits the job offer through the employer portal and pays a compliance fee, and the permit issued is still tied to that employer. The list of exemptions and their criteria is on Canada.ca.

Can a closed permit lead to permanent residence?

Yes, and it is actually a very common scenario. Skilled work experience gained in Canada considerably strengthens an Express Entry profile, notably through the Canadian Experience Class, and opens access to many streams of the provincial nominee programs. A provincial nomination aligned with Express Entry adds 600 points to your score, which makes an invitation nearly certain. The closed permit is therefore not a dead end: used well, it is a springboard. If you can, choose a skilled position and keep every piece of work evidence from day one.

Are my rights reduced because my permit is tied to one employer?

No. The tie to an employer limits who you may work for, but it does not reduce your rights as a worker in any way: provincial employment standards, the agreed wage, health and safety, protection against reprisals, and a ban on the employer confiscating your documents or billing you for their recruitment and LMIA costs. In case of abuse, an open permit for vulnerable workers can allow you to leave the employer without losing the right to work. I explain all the remedies in my dedicated article on the rights of foreign workers.

Official sources

The Government of Canada's reference page on work permits, which presents both streams (open permit and employer-specific permit) and links out to the LMIA and the International Mobility Program, is here: https://www.canada.ca/en/immigration-refugees-citizenship/services/work-canada/work-permit.html. Rules, fees and exemption categories change regularly, sometimes several times a year: before any decision or application, verify the up-to-date information on Canada.ca, which is the only source that counts.

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