Where this stands
The Self-employed Persons Program is accepting no new applications, and no end date has been given
IRCC's eligibility page, date modified 19 December 2025, shows the status as paused and reads "We stopped accepting applications for this program on April 30, 2024." The program hub shows the same status, and IRCC's landing page for permanent immigration lists it under programs that are paused or closed.
The pause was extended on 19 December 2025, when IRCC said it would "extend the current pause on accepting applications to the Self-Employed Persons Program until further notice." The instrument is Ministerial Instructions 90, in force from 1 January 2026, which provides that "the number of new applications that will be accepted for processing in a calendar year for the Self-Employed Persons Class is set at zero" and remains in effect until further notice. Applications received are "not accepted into processing and fees will be returned".
Nothing has been announced to replace this program. That is a real difference from the Start-up Visa, where a replacement pilot has at least been named.
Until further notice does not mean until the end of 2026
The April 2024 announcement framed the restriction as running "through the end of 2026", and IRCC's own Evaluation of the Self-Employed Persons Program, January 2026 repeats it, describing a full pause on intake "until the end of 2026". Read on its own, that suggests intake resumes on 1 January 2027.
It does not follow from any current instrument. Ministerial Instructions 90 says "until further notice", and IRCC's deputy minister transition binder of 27 July 2026 says intake is "indefinitely paused". We are surfacing the conflict rather than resolving it, because a reader who acts on the earlier wording will make plans around a date that no longer exists.
There is a related trap in IRCC's own material. The link on the eligibility page inviting you to learn more about the pause resolves to the April 2024 news release, which describes the shorter pause and says nothing about the indefinite extension. Following IRCC's link gets you the outdated position.
What this route actually was
Not an entrepreneur route
Before anything else, the misconception. This was never a general business immigration route. It is confined to cultural activities and athletics, with a farm management category that has been under moratorium since 2018.
Regulation 88(1) defines a self-employed person as "a foreign national who has relevant experience and has the intention and ability to be self-employed in Canada and to make a significant contribution to specified economic activities in Canada", and defines specified economic activities, for someone not selected by a province, as "cultural activities, athletics or the purchase and management of a farm". There is no limb for founders, consultants, franchisees, retailers or technology businesses. A general entrepreneur was outside the class as a matter of definition, not as a matter of assessment.
Farm management is suspended, not removed
Regulation 88(1) on laws-lois.justice.gc.ca, on a consolidation that site states is current to 17 June 2026 and last amended on 12 June 2026, still includes "the purchase and management of a farm". IRCC's eligibility page omits it and describes relevant experience only in terms of taking part in cultural activities or athletics at a world class level, or having been self employed in cultural activities or athletics.
IRCC's evaluation reconciles the two. It says the program "is restricted to three groups: artists, athletes, and farmers", and of the last of those, that it "is currently subject to a moratorium". We have split that sentence into two quotations because the original joins them with a dash, which this site does not use, and we would rather break the quotation than alter it silently. The evaluation also says that "in 2018, a moratorium was placed on the farm management stream after applicants were found to no longer align with the program's intent". The suspending instrument is listed on IRCC's index as Ministerial Instructions 26.
So the accurate word is suspended. Anyone telling you the category was removed is contradicting the Regulations as they currently stand. We have not read Ministerial Instructions 26 itself, so we could not source the day in 2018 on which the moratorium took effect or its operative words, and we do not state either.
What the route required
Recorded because applications filed before 30 April 2024 are still assessed against these requirements, and because a reader who was told they qualify deserves to see the actual test.
- Two years of relevant experience, counted in one year periods. Regulation 88(1) required a minimum of two years of experience during the period beginning five years before the date of application and ending on the day a determination is made on it. For cultural activities that meant two one year periods of self employment in cultural activities, or two one year periods of participation at a world class level, or one of each. Athletics has the identical structure. Farm management required two one year periods of managing a farm.
- The limbs do not mix. Regulation 103(3) treats cultural activities, athletics and farm management separately, and the combination it permits is between self employment and world class participation within one of them. A year of cultural self employment plus a year of competitive athletics does not make two years.
- The window runs to the decision, not to the filing. The five year period ends on the day a determination is made, so experience gained while an application sat in the queue could count. Given the processing times this program has run, that is not a technicality.
- Intention and ability is a hard gate, assessed before anything is scored. The definition itself requires the intention and ability to be self-employed in Canada and to make a significant contribution. Regulation 100(2) then provides that if an applicant "is not a self-employed person within the meaning of subsection 88(1), the application shall be refused and no further assessment is required". So a strong points score never rescued an applicant who failed this. IRCC restated it plainly as being willing and able to be self-employed in Canada, and its evaluation identified the difficulty as "the considerable qualitative review and judgment required of officers, particularly in applying the significant contribution test for athletes and artists".
- Substituted evaluation existed both ways. Regulation 109 allowed an officer to substitute their evaluation for the points result where the points were not a sufficient indicator of whether the applicant could become economically established, with the concurrence of a second officer. That cut in both directions.
The selection grid
| Factor | Maximum points | Regulation |
|---|---|---|
| Education | 25 | 102.2 |
| Experience | 35 | 103 |
| Age | 10 | 102.1 |
| Proficiency in the official languages | 24 | 102.3 |
| Adaptability | 6 | 105 |
| Total | 100 | 102(1) |
| Pass mark as published by IRCC | 35 | 108(4) |
We publish the maximums and the pass mark. We do not reproduce the point scales within the education, age, language and adaptability factors, and the reason is editorial rather than evidential. They are published. IRCC sets them out on the same selection factors page we cite for the pass mark, and regulations 102.1, 102.2, 102.3 and 105 set them out in full, 102.1 for example awarding "10 points for a foreign national 21 years of age or older but less than 50 years of age". We leave them off because intake is set at zero, and a scoring grid invites a reader to spend an evening scoring themselves against a route they cannot apply to. If your application is already in the queue and the score matters, we will work through the grid with you against the Regulations. IRCC's own wording on the mark is that it "is currently 35 points, but it may change", and regulation 108(4) leaves it to be fixed by the Minister rather than by regulation. We could not source the instrument fixing it.
| Years of relevant experience | Points |
|---|---|
| 2 | 20 |
| 3 | 25 |
| 4 | 30 |
| 5 | 35 |
Regulation 103(3) and IRCC's selection factors page at its date modified of 17 March 2025. Two years was the minimum to qualify at all, so 20 of the 35 point pass mark came from experience alone.
Fees
| Item | Amount in Canadian dollars |
|---|---|
| Your application, including the right of permanent residence fee | 2,495 |
| Your application, without the right of permanent residence fee | 1,895 |
| Include your spouse or partner, including the right of permanent residence fee | 1,590 |
| Include your spouse or partner, without the right of permanent residence fee | 990 |
| Include a dependent child, each | 270 |
| Biometrics, per person | 85 |
| Biometrics, family of two or more | 170 maximum |
| Biometrics, group of three or more performing artists | 255 maximum |
| Work permit, including extensions, per person | 155 |
| Open work permit holder fee | 100 |
| Employer compliance fee | 230 |
The right of permanent residence fee is $600, being the difference between the first two lines and again between the third and fourth. IRCC charges it to the principal applicant and to an accompanying spouse or common-law partner, and not for dependent children, so a couple who pay the 2,495 and the 1,590 lines have paid it twice. That matters on withdrawal, because it is the one substantial refundable item. The open work permit holder fee of 100 is a separate line from the work permit fee of 155 and the two are not interchangeable. IRCC lists medical examinations, police certificates and language testing as third party costs on top of these figures. Fees are set by regulation and change without notice.
We do not print a processing time for either route, and you should be careful of any page that does. IRCC changed its method in the autumn of 2025, moving from a historical measure, being the time in which 80 percent of applications were finalised, to a forward looking estimate built from the number of applications on hand divided by the space available under the annual levels plan. Figures published before and after that change are not comparable. Check IRCC's processing times tool for the number that is live today.
What IRCC's own evaluation found
IRCC evaluated this program and published the result in January 2026. It is the most useful document in existence about the route, and it is widely misquoted, including in material this firm has published. The source is Evaluation of the Self-Employed Persons Program, January 2026, catalogue Ci4-292/2026E-PDF, prepared by the Evaluation Division of the Audit and Evaluation Branch.
- The date is January 2026. IRCC's evaluations index lists it under 2026 as "Evaluation of the Self-Employed Persons Program January 2026", and the report cover carries the same date. Any citation giving it as July 2026 is wrong by five months.
- Scope. "It covered all active program streams (artists, athletes, and farm management) between 2014 and 2024, with an emphasis placed on the later years of the scope period."
- Scale. The program accounted for "less than one percent of all economic admissions between 2014 and 2024", producing 7,785 permanent residents across the period, being 2,954 principal applicants, 2,151 spouses or partners and 2,680 dependants. "Over one quarter (26%) of SE admissions were in 2024 alone."
- Refusal rates, with the figure that is usually left out. "Between 2014 and 2024, the program had an average refusal rate of 69%, with a high of 81% in 2015." That is an eleven year average, not a ten year one. The year by year series ends 46 percent in 2022, 64 percent in 2023 and 37 percent in 2024. Quoting 69 percent on its own overstates the refusal risk that applied at the end of the period, and the evaluation attributes the historic rate to "selection criteria that lacks sufficient clarity for applicants, and the absence of a consistent and clearly defined target population" rather than to applicant quality.
- Measured processing times. "Processing Times (in Years), 2014-2024" gives 5.2 years in 2014, 8.9 in 2015, 5.5 in 2016, 2 in 2017, 2.1 in 2018, 1.9 in 2019, 1.8 in 2020, 3.2 in 2021, 3.4 in 2022, 4.5 in 2023 and 4 in 2024. The method note is that these are the times in which 80 percent of applications were finalised. The evaluation adds that this program and the Start-up Visa run "among the longest of all economic programs".
- Outcomes after admission. Employment rates reached "78% one year after admission, 80% after five years, and 83% after eight years", with social assistance use of "just 2-3% between one and five years since admission". The evaluation also found that principal applicants "most report low employment earnings and are primarily active in the labour markets of just two cities: Toronto and Vancouver".
- The admissions space this program draws on, and it does not widen. The evaluation records "the major reductions in Business admissions space in 2025 and 2026, dropping to 2,000 and 500 admissions, respectively". the 2026 to 2028 Immigration Levels Plan supplementary tables publish the same 500 as the federal business target for 2026, with a low of 250 and a high of 1,000, and then publish 500, 250 and 1,000 again for 2027 and again for 2028. That line covers this program and the Start-up Visa together, so an inventory of roughly 8,500 self-employed applications is competing with the Start-up Visa queue for the same 500 places, and the plan does not ease the constraint later.
- Why an expression of interest fix was doubted. "Several interviewees identified an Expression of Interest (EOI) model as a possible solution", but "the qualitative and subjective nature of the eligibility criteria limits the feasibility of such an approach."
The evaluation did not find that processing times run beyond a decade
The figure of more than ten years is real, but it is not a measured processing time and it is not a finding about past performance. The evaluation reports it as follows. "In fall 2025, IRCC began publishing forward-looking processing time estimates for the SE Program on their website, resulting in substantially longer projected wait times. These estimates are now based on the volume of applications in the program's inventory (≈ 8,500 as of November 2025) and the number IRCC excepts [sic] to process within the approved targets in the annual Immigration Levels Plan. According to the processing time tool on IRCC's website, clients who applied after July 2022 can expect to wait more than 10 years for a decision."
Two notes on that quotation, because this page is about quotation discipline. The mark before 8,500 is the approximation symbol the evaluation itself uses rather than the word approximately. The word excepts is the evaluation's own, where the sense is expects, and we have marked it rather than silently corrected a government document inside quotation marks.
So it is a projection, attributed to IRCC's website tool, applying to one cohort, being people who applied after July 2022. Measured times over the eleven year scope peaked at 8.9 years in 2015 and stood at 4 years in 2024. A page saying the evaluation found processing times beyond a decade misstates a government document, and this firm's earlier pages said exactly that.
Describing the method as an inventory divided by the space available under the levels plan is our characterisation of what the quoted passage describes, and not language the evaluation uses. We separate it out so that it is not read as part of the quotation.
For what the queue looks like today, check IRCC's processing times tool rather than any figure on any law firm page, including this one.
What it recommended
The fifth finding is that "there is an ongoing need for a permanent residence pathway for exceptional talent, but the current program design is misaligned with that purpose". The recommendation is worth quoting in full rather than paraphrasing, because the paraphrases in circulation, including redesign rather than closure, are not the report's words.
"Recommendation 1. The Self-Employed Persons Program, as currently designed, while bringing certain cultural and social benefits, is no longer fit for purpose within Canada's economic immigration class. As such, IRCC should explore options for maintaining pathways to permanent residence for top global talent, ensuring they are: Well-aligned with the objectives of economic immigration, including those set out in the Immigration and Refugee Protection Act. Designed with clear objectives and specific, measurable outcomes."
Note what that does not say. It does not recommend closing the program, it does not recommend keeping it, and it does not commit IRCC to any replacement. Exploring options is not a program.
What is actually open instead
Two routes we can source, and a warning about what an artist or athlete should not assume.
- Provincial nomination, where a province runs a stream that fits. IRCC describes the Provincial Nominee Program as letting provinces and territories nominate people who "have the skills, education and work experience to help their economy (like business people and skilled workers)". Provinces publish and run their own streams and IRCC does not list them, so the province is where the criteria live. Our provincial entrepreneur hub sets out which provinces we cover. Note that provincial self employment concessions, where they exist at all, are narrow and specific, so this needs checking against the actual stream rather than assumed.
- Express Entry, and do not assume self employment shuts it. Express Entry is not business immigration, and it is the one live federal alternative here, so be precise about what it excludes. It manages applications under the Federal Skilled Worker Program, the Federal Skilled Trades Program, the Canadian Experience Class and part of the Provincial Nominee Program. The rule that self employment does not count belongs to the Canadian Experience Class. IRCC's Canadian Experience Class page says that self-employment and work experience gained while you were a full-time student "doesn't count toward the minimum requirements for this program". IRCC's Federal Skilled Worker Program page says the opposite for its own selection factor points, that "your work experience will count if it was: in Canada or abroad; while you were studying; while being self-employed". So an artist or athlete whose record is years of self employment is not automatically outside Express Entry, and the Federal Skilled Worker Program is the part of it to test first. Employed years as well, whether from a company, an orchestra, a club, a studio or a teaching post, are worth finding and documenting. How the federal pool works. IRCC has stated its intention to focus 2026 invitations on candidates with Canadian work experience.
- What will not help. The In-Canada Workers Initiative announced in April 2026 lists the programs it accelerates, and this one is not among them. Nor is there any published transitional route for people who would have applied here.
We are not listing anything else. We could not source another federal alternative, and inventing one for a route that closed in 2024 would only cost someone money.