How Do I Change Employers on a Closed Work Permit?

If your permit names an employer, you must apply for a new work permit before you can work for anyone else, and you must be eligible for it. The new permit is an ordinary employer-specific application, so the new employer needs a labour market impact assessment or an exemption from one. Open work permit holders skip all of this and can change employers at any time while the permit is valid.

IRCC runs a temporary public policy that lets you start the new job before the new permit is approved. You qualify if you have applied for a new employer-specific permit from inside Canada and you currently hold an employer-specific permit. Workers allowed to work without a permit qualify too, except business visitors and short-term Global Skills Strategy workers. International Experience Canada participants have to check their own rules first.

Two steps. First, after you file the permit application, send IRCC a web form. Choose See details under Other, then paste the message from IRCC's page into the enquiry box. Fill in your current permit's expiry, the current employer and occupation code, and the new employer and occupation, and confirm the application is submitted. The message must start with the priority code PPCHANGEWORK2020; IRCC says it cannot prioritise the request without it. If you applied on paper, include the courier tracking number so the file can be found.

Second, wait for the email. IRCC says it should respond in about 10 to 15 days, longer for paper applications. The email tells you whether you are authorised to work while the application is processed. It is not a work permit. Do not start the new job on the strength of having sent the form.

IRCC's instructions are strict. Get a new job offer and apply for a new permit while staying in Canada. Stop working for this or any other employer until the new permit is approved. If you apply before your current permit expires, you may be able to keep working through the authorization above. If you cannot get an offer, you need to leave by the must-leave-by date printed on your permit.

Filing the new application before the old permit expires keeps you on maintained status, but for the employer on the old permit only. You cannot start with the new one until the approval or the authorization email arrives. Working while an extension is processing sets out what maintained status covers and what breaks it.

This is a temporary public policy, and IRCC can end it without much notice. We re-read the IRCC page each month. If you are reading this long after the date above, check the page linked below before relying on the code.

Whether the new employer's LMIA or exemption is actually in hand before you resign, the wording of the web form message against the permit, and the expiry date. In our experience, the mistake that costs people is starting the new job the day the offer arrives. Unauthorized work is a bar to restoration and can follow you into later applications.