What the compliance regime is, and where it attaches
Immigration and Refugee Protection Regulations ss. 209.2 to 209.997 and Schedule 2, consolidation dated 6 August 2026. Enforcement figures from the Employment and Social Development Canada news release of 9 July 2026.
If you have ever submitted an offer of employment for a foreign worker, a set of conditions in the Regulations binds you personally, for the whole of the person's employment and for six years after it starts. Those conditions are enforceable by inspection, without a warrant, and the published consequences run to a $1 million ceiling in a year and to your name and address on a Government of Canada web page. Most employers we meet have read the eligibility rules carefully and have never read this part.
- The conditions attach to the offer, not to the permit. Section 209.2 binds an employer who made an offer to a worker in the labour market impact assessment exempt stream, being the International Mobility Program. Section 209.3 binds an employer whose offer was supported by an assessment. Section 209.4 adds a further set that binds every employer caught by either. There is no exemption for a small business, for a first hire, or for a transfer inside a corporate group, and it makes no difference that a representative filed the offer for you.
- Two departments, one regime. Immigration, Refugees and Citizenship Canada inspects against section 209.2. Employment and Social Development Canada inspects against section 209.3. They apply the same Schedule 2 tables, and a ban imposed by either closes both programs to you. An employer who is ineligible under one is automatically ineligible under the other.
- The purpose in the Regulations is compliance rather than punishment. Section 209.94 states that the purpose of the penalty division is to encourage compliance with the Act and the Regulations and not to punish. That is worth knowing, because it is the frame in which remediation and disclosure are read, and because two of the seven severity criteria are about what you did after the problem was found.
- One problem is very often several violations. A failure that affects more than one worker is a separate violation for each worker affected. A failure on the occupation, on the wages and on the working conditions is three violations rather than one. A failure on the workplace free of abuse condition counts separately for each of the five kinds of abuse. This is the arithmetic that takes a single payroll practice applied across a crew into six figures.
- The exposure survives the worker. The record keeping condition runs for six years from the first day of the period of employment, whether or not the person is still with you, and whether or not they ever started. Employment and Social Development Canada states that it can inspect the treatment of a worker up to six years after they started working.
- It is not theoretical, and the numbers are rising. In the year to 31 March 2026 the Temporary Foreign Worker Program finalised 1,488 compliance inspections, found 12 per cent of the employers inspected non-compliant, issued over $10.2 million in monetary penalties against a total of $4.5 million the year before, and banned 30 employers.
The conditions you are actually held to
Schedule 2 lists thirty conditions, each classified Type A, Type B or Type C. The classification is not a label. It decides the money and it decides the ban, so it is the first thing to look at when a notice arrives. What follows is the set that reaches an ordinary employer. The remainder apply to live-in caregivers, to seasonal agricultural workers, and to the quarantine and public health conditions.
| Item | The condition, in short | Provision | Type |
|---|---|---|---|
| 1 | Be able to demonstrate that any information you gave in support of the work permit application was accurate, for six years beginning on the first day of the period of employment | 209.2(1)(b)(i) | A |
| 2 | Retain any document that relates to compliance with the conditions, for six years beginning on the first day of the period of employment | 209.2(1)(b)(ii), 209.3(1)(c)(ii) | A |
| 4 | Be able to demonstrate that any information you gave for the labour market impact assessment was accurate, on the same six year footing | 209.3(1)(c)(i) | A |
| 8 | Comply with the federal or provincial laws that regulate the employment or recruitment of employees, including foreign nationals, in the province where the person works | 209.2(1)(a)(ii), 209.3(1)(a)(ii) | B |
| 9 | Provide employment in the same occupation, and with wages and working conditions that are substantially the same as, but not less favourable than, those in the offer | 209.2(1)(a)(iii), 209.3(1)(a)(iv) | B |
| 11 to 14 | Deliver the job creation, the skills transfer, the hiring or training of Canadians, or the reasonable efforts to do so, where any of those was a factor that led to the permit | 209.3(1)(b)(i) to (iv) | B |
| 25 | Give the person, on or before their first day of work, a copy in their chosen official language of the current Government of Canada information about their rights in Canada | 209.2(1)(a.1), 209.3(1)(a.1) | B |
| 26 | Make that same rights information available to them in both official languages | 209.2(1)(a)(ii.1), 209.3(1)(a)(ii.1) | B |
| 5 | Report at any specified time and place to answer questions and provide documents | 209.4(1)(a) | C |
| 6 | Provide the documents required of you | 209.4(1)(b) | C |
| 7 | Attend any inspection you were notified of, give all reasonable assistance, and provide any document or information required | 209.4(1)(c) | C |
| 15 | Be actively engaged in the business in respect of which the offer was made | 209.2(1)(a)(i), 209.3(1)(a)(i) | C |
| 17 | Make reasonable efforts to provide a workplace free of abuse | 209.2(1)(a)(iv), 209.3(1)(a)(v) | C |
| 27 | Not charge or recover from the worker, directly or indirectly, the fees indicated, with the named exceptions. The fees indicated are not the same in the two streams. Under 209.2(1)(a)(ix), which binds an employer whose worker is exempt from an assessment, they are the $230 compliance fee under 303.1(1) and any fees related to recruitment. Under 209.3(1)(a)(xv), which binds an assessment supported employer, they are the private health insurance for emergency medical care required by 209.3(1)(a)(xiii), the $1,000 assessment fee under 315.2(1), and any fees related to recruitment. An assessment supported employer never pays the $230 fee, so it is the insurance and the $1,000 that are the exposure | 209.2(1)(a)(ix), 209.3(1)(a)(xv) | C |
| 28 | Ensure that any person who recruited the worker for you does not charge or recover those same fees either, stream by stream as in item 27 | 209.2(1)(a)(x), 209.3(1)(a)(xvi) | C |
| 30 | Make reasonable efforts to provide access to health care services when the worker is injured or becomes ill at the workplace | 209.2(1)(a)(viii), 209.3(1)(a)(xiv) | C |
Where the short form description in the Schedule and the provision it refers to differ, the provision prevails. Note what is in Type C, which is the most expensive band. Not attending an inspection, not producing documents, not being actively engaged in the business, abuse, and recruitment fees charged by you or by a recruiter you used. Three of those five are failures of process rather than failures of treatment.
The recruiter condition is the one most often missed. You are responsible for ensuring that any person who recruited the worker for you did not charge or recover recruitment fees from them, directly or indirectly. It is a Type C condition, it is a separate violation from your own conduct, and an agency's fee agreement in another country is still your problem. Ask for the agreement in writing before you engage anyone.
Six years of records, and the date the clock starts
The record keeping condition is the one an inspection tests first, because it is the one that can be answered from a filing cabinet. Failing it is itself a Type A violation, and it also removes your ability to answer any of the others.
- What has to be kept. Any document that relates to compliance with the conditions. In practice that is the offer of employment as submitted, the signed employment agreement, the job description and the duties actually performed, payroll records and pay statements, time sheets and hours logs, the T4 summary, proof of workplace safety insurance and of private health insurance where you provide it, your business licence and lease, and your anti-abuse and anti-harassment policies. Employment and Social Development Canada adds documents relating to the assessment and its decision letter and annexes, and any change in housing conditions where you provide accommodation.
- Keep the record even where nothing happened. Immigration, Refugees and Citizenship Canada states that you may need to show documentation about the employment of a foreign worker if they never end up working for you, or if they do not stay for the whole of the permit. A file that closes without a start is still a file you have to be able to produce.
- Two government pages give a different start date. The Regulations, and the Employment and Social Development Canada page, both run the six years from the first day of the period of employment for which the work permit is issued. The Immigration, Refugees and Citizenship Canada employer responsibilities page says six years from the date the work permit was issued. We could not reconcile the two. We work from whichever of the two dates falls later, which costs nothing and takes the question away.
- The period of employment is longer than you think. For the purposes of the conditions it includes any period during which the worker may keep working under paragraph 186(u) after their permit expires while an extension is pending, and any period of required isolation or quarantine on entry.
- Redact before you send. You must remove social insurance numbers and any other personal information not related to the inspection before you send documents to an officer.
Inspections, how they start and how far they reach
There are five published circumstances in which the inspection powers may be exercised, and one of them is that your name came up at random. A clean history is not a reason to expect never to be inspected.
- The five triggers, from section 209.5. An officer or the Minister of Employment and Social Development has reason to suspect that you are not complying or have not complied. You have failed to comply in the past. You are chosen as part of a random verification. There has been notification of the introduction or spread of a communicable disease at a place where a foreign national works. Or you employ a foreign national who is or was subject to an order or regulation under the Emergencies Act or the Quarantine Act.
- Tips feed the first trigger. Employment and Social Development Canada runs a confidential tip line and an online reporting tool, and publishes that allegations are reviewed and, where the health and safety of a worker is at immediate risk, acted on within forty eight hours. A complaint from a former employee is the ordinary way an inspection begins in practice.
- On site, announced or unannounced, and without a warrant. Employment and Social Development Canada publishes that inspections may be on site or virtual, announced or unannounced, and without a warrant, excluding private dwellings. In the case of an in-home caregiver an inspector may enter a private household with consent or with a warrant.
- What an officer may do once inside. Ask you and anyone you employ or have employed any relevant question. Require and copy any document found on site, including electronic documents on a computer or any other device. Take photographs and make video or audio recordings. Examine anything on the premises. Require you to use a computer or other device so that a relevant document can be examined. And be accompanied or assisted by anyone the officer chooses.
- Third parties can be required to produce your records. Since the 2022 amendments an officer or the Minister may require any individual or entity to provide a document in their possession relating to your compliance. Your bank, your payroll provider and your recruiter can be asked directly, and your consent is not part of the test.
- Where more than one employer is involved, one of you carries it. The employer who submitted the offer of employment is the one who is contacted, who must give the officer all requested documents including documents from the other employers involved, and who will be held accountable for any non-compliance. All employers must still meet their own conditions and all may be inspected.
- Interviews with workers are private. Inspectors may interview workers, and those interviews are conducted privately so that the worker can speak freely about the workplace without fear of reprisal. Do not attempt to sit in on them, and do not brief people on what to say. Retaliation against a person who speaks to an inspector is itself abuse under the workplace free of abuse condition.
Not answering is the most expensive response available. Reporting when required, producing documents, and attending an inspection are three separate Type C conditions under section 209.4. Ignoring an inspection therefore converts a file you might have justified into three violations in the highest penalty band, before anyone has looked at how you treat anybody.
The published penalty scale, and how the number is arrived at
There is no discretion to invent an amount. A violation is classified by type, points are assessed for your compliance history and for severity, the points are added, and the figure is read off a published table. Knowing which cell you are in tells you what is worth arguing.
| Criterion | Points |
|---|---|
| Type A or Type B violation, first violation | 1 |
| Type A violation, second or subsequent violation | 2 |
| Type B violation, second violation | 2 |
| Type C violation, first violation | 2 |
| Type B violation, third or subsequent violation | 3 |
| Type C violation, second violation | 3 |
| Type C violation, third or subsequent violation | 4 |
| Criterion | Points |
|---|---|
| You derived competitive or economic benefit from the violation | 0 to 6 |
| The violation involved abuse of a foreign national, being physical, psychological, sexual or financial | 0 to 10 |
| The violation negatively affected the Canadian labour market or the Canadian economy | 0 to 6 |
| You did not make reasonable efforts to minimise or remediate the effects of the violation | 0 to 3 |
| You did not make reasonable efforts to prevent recurrence of the violation | 0 to 3 |
| The violation put the worker's health or safety at risk in relation to a communicable disease | 0 to 10 |
| The violation put the public's health or safety at risk in relation to a communicable disease | 0 to 10 |
Two of these seven are about what you did after the problem came to light. That is why remediating quickly, and documenting that you did, is not merely good behaviour. It is worth up to six points, and six points moves you several rows down the tables below.
| Total points | Type A, individual or small business | Type A, large business | Type B, individual or small business | Type B, large business | Type C, individual or small business | Type C, large business |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| 0 or 1 | None | None | None | None | None | None |
| 2 | $500 | $750 | $750 | $1,000 | $1,000 | $2,000 |
| 3 | $750 | $1,000 | $1,250 | $2,000 | $5,000 | $10,000 |
| 4 | $1,000 | $2,000 | $3,000 | $7,000 | $10,000 | $20,000 |
| 5 | $4,000 | $6,000 | $7,000 | $12,000 | $15,000 | $30,000 |
| 6 | $8,000 | $10,000 | $12,000 | $20,000 | $20,000 | $40,000 |
| 7 | $12,000 | $20,000 | $20,000 | $30,000 | $35,000 | $50,000 |
| 8 | $20,000 | $30,000 | $35,000 | $45,000 | $45,000 | $60,000 |
| 9 or 10 | $30,000 | $45,000 | $50,000 | $60,000 | $60,000 | $70,000 |
| 11 or 12 | $40,000 | $60,000 | $60,000 | $70,000 | $70,000 | $80,000 |
| 13 or 14 | $50,000 | $70,000 | $70,000 | $80,000 | $80,000 | $90,000 |
| 15 or more | $100,000 | $100,000 | $100,000 | $100,000 | $100,000 | $100,000 |
A small business, including its affiliates, is one with fewer than 100 employees or less than $5 million in annual gross revenues, measured when the assessment request is received or, where there is none, when the offer of employment is provided. Everything else is a large business. Where a notice lists more than one violation the amounts are cumulative, subject to a total of $1 million, and a penalty is reduced to the extent that it would take you past $1 million across all final determinations issued to you in the preceding twelve months.
| Total points | Type A violation | Type B violation | Type C violation |
|---|---|---|---|
| 0 to 5 | None | None | None |
| 6 | None | None | 1 year |
| 7 | None | 1 year | 2 years |
| 8 | 1 year | 2 years | 5 years |
| 9 or 10 | 2 years | 5 years | 10 years |
| 11 or 12 | 5 years | 10 years | 10 years |
| 13 or 14 | 10 years | 10 years | 10 years |
| 15 or more | Permanent | Permanent | Permanent |
Where a notice includes more than one period of ineligibility, the longest one applies. The period begins on the day the final determination is made, not on the day you are told. A ban closes both the Temporary Foreign Worker Program and the International Mobility Program.
Read the two tables together and the shape becomes clear. At the same eight points, a Type A violation by a small business is $20,000 and a one year ban, and a Type C violation by a large business is $60,000 and a five year ban. The classification of the condition, which is fixed by the Schedule and not by the officer, is doing more work than anything about your business. The published range across everything is $500 to $100,000 per violation.
The justification provisions, which are the actual defence
A failure that is justified is not a violation at all. That is the practical point of the whole regime, and it is why a notice of preliminary finding is a document to answer rather than an invoice to pay. The grounds are set out in the Regulations and they are narrower than they sound, but they are real, and the department reports finding employers compliant with justification in large numbers.
- For most of the conditions, seven grounds. A change in federal or provincial law. A change to the provisions of a collective agreement. Measures you took in response to a dramatic change in economic conditions that directly affected your business, provided the measures were not directed disproportionately at foreign nationals. An error in interpretation made in good faith about your obligations. An accounting or administrative error. Circumstances similar to any of those. Or superior force.
- Two of them come with a price attached. The good faith error and the accounting or administrative error are only justifications if you afterwards compensated every foreign national who suffered a disadvantage, or made sufficient efforts to do so where compensation was not possible. Fix the pay first. The justification follows the remediation and not the other way round.
- The recruitment fee conditions have their own test. A failure on the fee conditions is justified only if you made all reasonable efforts to comply and afterwards provided full compensation to the worker for the fees incorrectly charged or recovered.
- The inspection conditions have a softer test. A failure to report, to produce documents or to attend an inspection is justified if you made all reasonable efforts to comply, or if it resulted from something done or omitted in good faith. So is a failure on record retention, where the test is all reasonable efforts.
- The outcome is a finding, not a discount. Where an officer accepts a justification the result is a finding of compliant, or compliant with justification, rather than non-compliant. That means no penalty, no ban and no publication.
- What the wage tolerance actually is. Employment and Social Development Canada publishes that wages must be mainly the same as, but not less favourable than, the offer, and that a pay raise may be acceptable up to the current rate of inflation for the year, though the reason for the raise will be reviewed. We could not source a dollar figure or a percentage tolerance beyond that, so we do not give one.
| Stage | What it is | Your window |
|---|---|---|
| Initial finding of non-compliance | You are told what appears to be wrong and asked to justify it. Say why, what you did to correct it, and what you did to stop it happening again | As specified in the letter. If it is accepted, the inspection is complete and nothing further follows |
| Notice of preliminary finding | Issued if you do not respond or your justification is not accepted. It sets out the violations, the possible penalty amount and the possible period of ineligibility | 30 days after the day it is received, to make written submissions or to request an extension. An officer may extend where there is a reasonable explanation. The Regulations do not describe these as business days, so we read them as calendar days |
| Deemed receipt | The notice is treated as received 10 days after the day it is sent, whatever happens at your end | Your real window is therefore shorter than 30 days from the day it lands on the right desk. Where the notice is solely about the Emergencies Act, Quarantine Act or public health accommodation conditions, both periods drop to 5 days |
| Correction or cancellation | An officer may correct any information in a preliminary notice, or cancel it, at any time before the final determination | Which is a reason to point out an error in the notice itself rather than only arguing the merits |
| Notice of final determination | Issued by a senior decision maker after the submission period lapses. It sets out the conditions breached, how, the reasons, the severity, the penalty and the next steps | 30 days after receipt to pay or to reach a payment agreement. Deemed received 10 days after it is sent |
We could not source a published appeal route from a notice of final determination, so we do not tell you there is one. The published opportunity to be heard is the submission window before the determination is made. Treat the preliminary notice as the important document rather than the last one.
Disclosing first is worth four points. An acceptable voluntary disclosure made before the inspection powers are being exercised against you subtracts four points from the total, or takes a total under four to zero. Look at the amount tables and see what four points is worth. A disclosure must be complete, you must fix the problem, and an officer may still treat it as unacceptable after weighing the impact on the worker, the impact on the labour market or the economy, how timely it was, how many times you have used disclosure before, and which condition was breached. Under the International Mobility Program you file form IMM 5964. Under the Temporary Foreign Worker Program you contact the Employer Contact Centre.
The public list, and what it does to a business
The financial exposure is quantifiable and, for most employers, survivable. The publication is neither. It is mandatory, it is indexed, and there is no published mechanism for removing an entry once the determination is made.
What is published, and when
Where an officer or the Minister makes a final determination, the department must add your information to a list posted on one or more Government of Canada websites. The only published exception is where the outcome is a warning. Employment and Social Development Canada puts the same point the other way round, that business names are not published when the sanction is a warning, and Immigration, Refugees and Citizenship Canada states that your business will be added to the list if you receive a monetary penalty of any amount or a ban of any length.
The list carries your business operating name and legal name, your address, the conditions you failed to comply with, the date of the final decision, the penalty and, where applicable, the length of your ineligibility and your current status. It is a public web page on canada.ca, which means it is reachable by anyone who searches your company name, including your customers, your lenders and the candidates you are trying to recruit.
- Ineligibility is enforced upstream. Where you are banned, or where a penalty is unpaid, Employment and Social Development Canada states that a positive labour market impact assessment will not be issued on an application you already have outstanding, and that the processing fee is not refunded. Immigration, Refugees and Citizenship Canada states that it may refuse work permit applications pending against your business and revoke active permits tied to it. Your existing workers are exposed, not only your future ones.
- The two programs are locked together. A ban under either program makes you ineligible for both. Non-payment of a penalty does the same thing on its own, without any further finding.
- Designation and endorsement fall with it. Provincial designation guidelines under the Atlantic Immigration Program provide for revocation where an employer is in violation of the immigration legislation, and the community pilots exclude an employer who owes an administrative monetary penalty. A compliance finding therefore closes the permanent residence routes as well as the temporary ones. That is set out at becoming a designated employer.
- Debts are collected, not written off. The penalty regime is administered with a collection arrangement through the Canada Revenue Agency. An unpaid penalty does not lapse quietly, and while it is unpaid you remain ineligible.
A compliance self test before someone else runs one
A structured way to see where you stand against the published criteria. It returns an indication only, not an eligibility decision, not legal advice, and not a prediction that you will be invited.
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