Canada · North America
Moving to Montreal
Montreal quick facts
Canada at a glance
North America
Economy
World Bank · 2025Religion
% of populationCIA World Factbook / national censuses
Cost of living in Montreal
Can you move to Canada?
Pick your passport to see whether you can enter Canada — and what it takes to stay.
Entry rules come from github.com/imorte/passport-index-data, updated 17 February 2026. They change without notice — confirm with the official immigration service before booking.
Getting set up in Canada
The CSQ, the federal step after it, and the SIN you need before payday
Quebec is the one province that chooses its own economic immigrants. For most routes you need a Certificat de sélection du Québec before Ottawa will process permanent residence, and the provincial grid weights French heavily. Whatever route brought you, get a Social Insurance Number in your first week — no employer can put you on payroll without it.
Read the full step-by-step guideExchanging with the SAAQ, winter tyres by law, and snow-removal towing
Quebec exchanges licences directly with a defined list of countries and with the other Canadian provinces, and requires testing from elsewhere. Insurance is split: bodily injury is covered by a public no-fault scheme through the SAAQ regardless of who caused the crash, while damage to vehicles is insured privately. Winter tyres are mandatory by law for part of the year, and in winter the city tows cars off streets it is clearing.
Read the full step-by-step guideOpening an account, credit from zero, and the caisses populaires
Opening a chequing account is straightforward — the major banks run newcomer packages that waive fees and require no Canadian credit history. The hard part is that your credit record does not cross the border and gates renting, phone plans and borrowing. In Quebec you also have Desjardins, a member-owned network that is the largest financial institution in the province and works differently from the Big Five.
Read the full step-by-step guideRAMQ, the three-month wait, and the agreements that waive it
The Régie de l'assurance maladie du Québec covers physician and hospital care. Coverage normally begins about three months after registration, but Quebec's social security agreements with a number of countries — France and Belgium among them — waive that wait for their nationals entirely. Quebec also uniquely requires everyone to hold prescription drug insurance, through an employer plan if one is available and through the public plan if not.
Read the full step-by-step guideGetting a phone plan without credit history, and why Quebec pays less
Canadian mobile is expensive, but Quebec is the cheapest province for it because Vidéotron operates as a genuine fourth network and the national carriers price against it. Without Canadian credit history a postpaid plan usually requires a deposit, so most newcomers start prepaid or on a flanker brand. Home internet is competitive, and independent resellers are the standard way to avoid overpaying.
Read the full step-by-step guideTwo tax returns, residency by ties, and Quebec's own credits
Quebec is the only province that administers its own income tax, so you file two returns every year rather than one. Canada taxes residents on worldwide income and residency is determined by residential ties rather than a day count. Quebec's own credits, its compulsory drug plan premium and its distinct treatment of some deductions mean advice written for the rest of Canada is only half right here.
Read the full step-by-step guideEach guide has verified costs, timelines, required documents, and the non-obvious gotchas — sourced from official government pages. Last verified August 2026.
Essential French phrases
Reading a list isn’t learning it. Globe Quest turns these into a trainer — hear each phrase spoken, drill them with spaced repetition, and get scored as you say them out loud.
What to know before you go
Quebec selects its own immigrants, and the federal route alone will not get you here
CriticalFor most economic immigration to Quebec you need a Certificat de sélection du Québec issued by the province before Immigration, Refugees and Citizenship Canada will process permanent residence. Express Entry as most of Canada knows it does not apply the same way — Quebec runs its own streams, its own points grid and its own French-language requirements through the Arrima portal. Planning a move to Montreal using advice written about Toronto or Vancouver is the most common and most costly mistake newcomers make.
RAMQ has a three-month wait, unless your country has an agreement that waives it
CriticalQuebec's public health cover normally begins about three months after you register, and that gap is genuinely uninsured. But Quebec holds social security agreements with a number of countries — France and Belgium among them — that waive the waiting period entirely for their nationals. Whether you need to buy private cover for those months therefore depends on your passport, and it is worth checking rather than assuming.
You file two tax returns here, and only here
CriticalQuebec is the only province that administers its own income tax. You file a federal return with the Canada Revenue Agency and a separate provincial return with Revenu Québec, every year, with different forms and different credits. Most tax software handles both, but budget for the extra complexity and know that advice written for the rest of Canada quietly assumes one return.
French is the official language of work and commerce, and the law has teeth
CriticalUnder the Charter of the French Language, as strengthened in 2022, businesses must serve customers in French, most workplaces above a size threshold must operate in French, and public services deal with newcomers in French after an initial period. Montreal is genuinely bilingual in daily life and you can get by in English socially — but employment contracts, government correspondence and your children's schooling operate in French by default. Start learning before you arrive rather than after.
Almost every lease starts on 1 July, and the whole city moves at once
ImportantQuebec leases conventionally run from 1 July to 30 June, so the rental market clears on a single day. Removal companies are booked out months ahead and charge accordingly, and the best units are gone by April. If you are arriving off-cycle you will have fewer choices; if you are arriving on-cycle, book the truck in March.
You do not break a lease in Quebec — you assign it
Good to knowA tenant has the right to assign the lease (cession de bail) or sublet, and the landlord may only refuse for a serious reason. Assignment transfers the lease entirely and releases you from it. This is why Quebec has no culture of lease-breaking fees and why 'cession de bail' groups are how a lot of good apartments actually change hands. It is one of the strongest tenant rights in North America and most newcomers never hear about it.
Top industries & employers
Artificial intelligence & research
Mila, Google DeepMind Montreal, Meta AI, Samsung AI, ServiceNow Research
Montreal became a global deep learning centre around Yoshua Bengio's Mila institute, and the major labs opened offices here specifically to be near it.
Video games
Ubisoft, Eidos-Montréal, Warner Bros Games, Behaviour Interactive, Gameloft
Ubisoft's 1997 arrival, backed by generous provincial tax credits, seeded what is now one of the largest video game production clusters in the world.
Visual effects & animation
Framestore, Rodeo FX, Cinesite, Folks VFX, MPC
The same tax credit structure that built the games sector supports a large VFX industry, and the two share a workforce.
Aerospace
Bombardier, Airbus Canada, Pratt & Whitney Canada, CAE, Bell Textron
Greater Montreal is one of the world's three main aerospace hubs alongside Seattle and Toulouse, with an unusually complete supply chain inside the region.
Life sciences & pharmaceuticals
Merck Canada, Pfizer Canada, Bausch Health, AbCellera Montreal
A long-established pharmaceutical corridor supported by the research hospitals attached to McGill and Université de Montréal.
Higher education
McGill University, Université de Montréal, Concordia, UQAM, HEC Montréal
Four universities in one city, two English and two French, give Montreal one of the highest student populations per capita in North America — which is a large part of why rents stayed low for so long.
Where to go in Montreal
Mont Royal
Nature · Centre of the city
The hill the city is named after, laid out by Frederick Law Olmsted, with a lookout over downtown and the river beyond.
Local tip: Sunday afternoons in summer bring the tam-tams — an unstructured drum circle at the George-Étienne Cartier monument that has run for decades. In winter the same slope is used for tobogganing and cross-country skiing, and the mountain is genuinely busiest in January.
Mile End
Neighborhood · North of the Plateau
The old Jewish and Greek quarter turned creative district — bagel bakeries, Ubisoft, and triplexes with outdoor staircases.
Local tip: The bagel argument between St-Viateur and Fairmount is genuine and unresolvable; both are open around the clock and both are wood-fired and sweeter than a New York bagel. Buy them hot and do not refrigerate them.
Jean-Talon Market
Food · Little Italy
One of North America's largest open-air public markets, running year-round and supplied heavily by Quebec growers.
Local tip: Go in September when the Quebec harvest is at its peak and the whole market is local rather than imported. The surrounding streets — Little Italy proper and the Maghrebi shops on Jean-Talon — are as good as the market itself.
Old Montreal & the Old Port
Landmark · Southeast, on the river
Cobbled streets and eighteenth-century stone buildings around Notre-Dame Basilica, on the waterfront where the city began.
Local tip: It is the tourist quarter and residents mostly avoid it in summer. Come in winter instead, when the stone and the snow do something the postcards never show, and the crowds are gone entirely.
The Lachine Canal
Nature · Southwest
A disused canal turned linear park with a cycling path running from the Old Port out to Lac Saint-Louis.
Local tip: Fourteen kilometres of flat, separated, genuinely pleasant cycling — and the Atwater Market sits directly on it about a third of the way along, which is the correct place to stop.
Parc-nature de l'Île-de-la-Visitation
Hidden gemNature · Ahuntsic, north end
A river island park at the northern edge of the island, with rapids, a restored mill and almost no visitors.
Local tip: Reachable by metro and a short bus, and virtually unknown outside the surrounding neighbourhood. In winter the trails are groomed for cross-country skiing and it is the easiest genuine ski outing inside city limits.
Emergency numbers in Montreal
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