Before you start

A passport valid well beyond the intended stay
A job offer, and for many employer-specific permits a Labour Market Impact Assessment obtained by the employer
For permanent residence, language test results and an Educational Credential Assessment
Proof of funds, for most economic immigration routes

Step-by-step

1
Establish which permit you actually hold
An employer-specific work permit ties you to one employer and one role — changing jobs means a new permit. Open permits, including the Post-Graduation Work Permit and most spousal permits, do not. Read the conditions printed on the permit itself.
OnlineWho: You
2
Apply for a Social Insurance Number in your first week
Free, from Service Canada, with your passport and permit. In person it is usually issued on the spot; online takes longer. No employer can pay you without it.
In personWho: YouWeek 1
3
Enter the Express Entry pool if permanent residence is the goal
Express Entry ranks candidates on age, education, language and Canadian work experience. You can be in the pool while on a work permit, and Canadian experience raises the score — so permit years are not wasted years.
OnlineWho: You
4
Check the Alberta Advantage Immigration Program streams
Alberta runs streams for workers already in the province, for accelerated tech occupations, for rural employers and for entrepreneurs. A provincial nomination adds a decisive block of points to an Express Entry profile. For many people it is the actual route rather than a backup.
OnlineWho: You
5
Keep every record of physical presence in Canada
The permanent resident residency obligation and the citizenship physical-presence requirement are both counted in days across several years. Start a log on arrival — reconstructing it later is genuinely difficult.
OnlineWho: You
6
Renew the PR card before it expires and before you travel
The PR card is not your status, but it is what airlines require to board a flight back to Canada, and processing takes months. A permanent resident abroad with an expired card needs a travel document from a visa office, which is slow and avoidable.
OnlineWho: You

Documents you’ll need

Passport
Work permit or Confirmation of Permanent Residence
Job offer letter and LMIA, where applicable
Language test results and Educational Credential Assessment
Proof of funds
A record of every entry to and exit from Canada

Things most newcomers don’t know

An employer-specific work permit means you cannot change jobs without a new permit.

This is the most consequential thing to understand about Canadian work permits and it is regularly misread. If your permit names an employer, working for anyone else — including freelancing on the side — is unauthorised and can affect a later permanent residence application. Open permits are genuinely open. Read the conditions on the permit rather than relying on what a recruiter said.

Source: Immigration, Refugees and Citizenship Canada

Alberta's nominee streams target the occupations the province is actually short of.

The Alberta Advantage Immigration Program is not a general-purpose backup — its streams are built around workers already in the province, accelerated tech occupations, rural employers and entrepreneurs. Candidates whose federal score sits below recent cut-offs frequently qualify comfortably here. Checking the current stream criteria before optimising a federal profile saves months of the wrong effort.

Source: Government of Alberta

Time on a work permit builds the Canadian experience that raises your score.

Canadian work experience is one of the few Express Entry factors you can actively improve, and it feeds both the federal score and the Canadian Experience Class. People arriving on a permit sometimes treat permanent residence as a separate future project; in practice the permit years are the application. Keep pay stubs, reference letters and T4 slips as you go.

Source: Immigration, Refugees and Citizenship Canada

Keep a day-by-day travel log from the moment you land.

Both the PR residency obligation and the citizenship physical-presence requirement are counted in days and assessed retrospectively across years. Passport stamps are incomplete, land crossings often unstamped, and airlines do not keep records that long. A spreadsheet updated after each trip takes minutes and saves an application that otherwise stalls for months.

Source: Immigration, Refugees and Citizenship Canada

Common mistakes to avoid

Working for anyone other than the employer named on an employer-specific permit.
Starting a job before the Social Insurance Number is issued and delaying your own pay.
Optimising a federal profile without checking whether an Alberta stream fits you better.
Letting a PR card expire while abroad and being unable to board a flight home.
Failing to log physical presence and struggling to prove it at citizenship.

Some of this may be out of date. Spotted something inaccurate? Help us keep it right for the next newcomer.