Work Permit Extension Canada and Maintained Status

Your work permit has an expiry date, and your employer says the labour market impact assessment (LMIA) is still in progress. Those are two separate facts, and one does not settle the other. Immigration, Refugees and Citizenship Canada (IRCC) states that if you apply to extend or change the conditions of your work permit before it expires, you are legally allowed to stay in Canada while it processes the application, and you may keep working under the conditions of your current permit. IRCC calls this maintained status, and it begins with the worker’s own application. A pending employer process does not establish permission to keep working. If the expiry date passes with nothing filed, IRCC’s instruction is that you stop working, and restoration of status within 90 days becomes the fallback.

This article sets out the sequence in order for workers and employers across Alberta. It cannot confirm what any particular person is authorized to do today.

Two processes, two dates

An employer’s LMIA process and a worker’s permit application are separate processes, filed by different parties. IRCC’s guidance for employers describes the employer’s part: where an LMIA is needed, apply as soon as possible so the worker gets it on time, and give the worker a valid job offer and proof of the LMIA application. The worker’s part is a separate application to IRCC.

The protection attaches to the worker’s application, not the employer’s. IRCC’s employer page states that a worker maintains status and may work under the conditions of the original work permit once the worker has submitted an extension application before the permit expires. An LMIA still sitting with Employment and Social Development Canada does not do that. So when an employer says the paperwork is in progress, the questions are which application, submitted by whom, and on what date.

The date that decides everything

Everything turns on one comparison: the date IRCC receives the worker’s application against the expiry date printed on the permit. IRCC recommends on its extension page that you apply at least 30 calendar days before the expiry date of your current work permit. That is IRCC’s recommendation, not a processing figure.

In most cases the application goes in online, using the Application to Change Conditions, Extend my Stay or Remain in Canada as a Worker (IMM 5710). One limit catches people out: IRCC states that you cannot extend your work permit beyond the expiry date of your passport, so a passport that runs out first will cap what can be issued. For current timing, use IRCC’s Check our current processing times tool; we do not reproduce those figures, because they move.

Filing before the LMIA arrives: a narrow route with conditions

IRCC’s extension application page does allow an employer-specific applicant to submit the extension while the employer’s LMIA or Quebec Acceptance Certificate (CAQ) application is still being processed. The conditions are printed on the page: your work permit expires in two weeks or less, your employer submitted a complete application for an LMIA or CAQ, and you submit all required documents within 90 days of when you submit your application.

In place of the LMIA itself, IRCC asks for proof of a valid job offer, plus the LMIA receipt confirmation number where the employer applied online, or a copy of the application sent to Service Canada, or to the Quebec ministry for a CAQ, where it was filed on paper. IRCC states that if you do not submit the LMIA or CAQ within 90 days of the date you submit your extension application, the application may be refused for being incomplete. Its employer guidance says the same.

Read the two week condition carefully, because it is the part most summaries drop. If a permit expires in three months and the LMIA is not back, this route is not open yet, and waiting quietly is not the answer. Have the file reviewed while there is still room to plan a filing date.

What maintained status allows, and its three limits

Maintained status is real permission, and narrower than people assume. Older guidance called it implied status; IRCC’s current pages use maintained status.

What IRCC says it allows. Where the extension was applied for before expiry, IRCC states you have maintained your status and authorization to work without a permit until it makes a decision, as long as you stay in Canada and keep working under the same conditions as your current permit. On an employer-specific permit, that means the same employer and the same job. After an online application, IRCC sends a letter to your account that you can use as proof you are authorized to keep working; it states you will not get this letter on paper.

What it does not allow. Three limits matter most.

• A different employer or a different job. The authorization is tied to the conditions of the permit that expired. IRCC does describe a separate route for a worker who has applied for a new employer-specific permit from inside Canada, requested through an IRCC web form, and states that the email it sends back is not your work permit. Those conditions sit on its changing jobs page and need checking against the actual permit and offer.
• Leaving Canada. IRCC states that a work permit is not a travel document and does not authorize re-entry. If the application is still being processed when you return, you may be allowed back only as a visitor and cannot work until the renewal is approved. If it was approved while you were away, IRCC states you may re-enter as a worker and can work on entry.
• A different type of application. Maintained status attaches to what was applied for. IRCC states that if you applied for a study permit or a visitor record instead of another work permit, you can keep working only until the work permit expires, and that temporary resident permit applicants cannot maintain status at all while the application is processed.

Put the dates and the records in one place

For each application, identify whether it belongs to the employer or the worker, and record its submission confirmation separately.

The table organizes a review. It does not establish maintained status. If an employer has only said that paperwork is being prepared, do not write down that it was submitted, and do not treat a saved draft as a submitted application. Those are different stages, and the difference is the whole question.

If someone has told you that maintained status applies to your situation, ask which submitted application and which conditions support that, then bring the records to a regulated immigration consultant. What matters is what has happened in your own file, not what a headline says about queues.

If the expiry date passes with nothing filed

If the permit expires and IRCC has received nothing, IRCC’s Help Centre states you must leave Canada right away, and that if you stay you could be deported.

The fallback is restoration of status, and its edges are hard. IRCC states that it must receive an application to restore your status no more than 90 days after your status expired, and that normally you are not allowed to work until your status has been restored and your new work permit issued. If the application is refused, IRCC states you will have to leave Canada. The counting is precise: online, IRCC states you must submit before midnight UTC, no more than 90 days after your status and permit expired, so the cutoff falls earlier in the day in Alberta than local midnight.

Restoration and maintained status are not the same thing. If work was performed after the permit expired, include that in the account you give your representative; an accurate history makes the review useful. Our guide to restoration of status after an expired permit covers that application in detail. The difference is large: filing before expiry, on IRCC’s account, keeps a worker working; nothing filed means stopping work for the whole restoration period.

Edmonton, Calgary and Alberta

Imprint Immigration Services works from an office at 300-9006 132 Ave NW in Edmonton. Shirani Jenita Daniel, RCIC-IRB, is a regulated immigration consultant licensed by the College of Immigration and Citizenship Consultants (CICC) and authorized to represent clients before the Immigration and Refugee Board of Canada (IRB). She meets clients in person in Edmonton or by video, and workers and employers in Calgary, Red Deer, Fort McMurray and elsewhere in Alberta are served by video consultation; there is no Calgary office. Employer-specific permits are common across the province, so this question lands here often, and on both sides of the table at once. A video consultation lets us look at the permit, the passport, the offer and the employer’s records together and set a filing date.

Our work permits page sets out the streams we handle, our comparison of open and employer-specific work permits explains which type carries which conditions, and our help inside Canada page covers the other in-Canada routes.

If your permit expires soon, the useful question is not how long the LMIA will take. It is whether an extension can be filed before the expiry date with the proof IRCC asks for. If the date is close, call (825) 435-1101. Otherwise, book a consultation ($50 plus 5% GST, 30 minutes, video or in person) or email info@imprintimmigration.com.

Frequently asked questions