What the permit actually binds you to
An employer specific work permit is often called a closed permit, which makes it sound like a category. It is better understood as a list of conditions with your name on it. Three of them do the real work, being the employer, the occupation and the location, and all three sit on the face of the document.
- The permit has three sections, and they are not decorative. IRCC sets them out. Additional Information carries the employer, the location and the occupation. Conditions is a numbered list of requirements you must meet. Remarks may carry further clarifications or conditions. The department's instruction is that you must comply with all the information listed on your work permit.
- The conditions have a statutory source. Section 185 of the Regulations lets an officer impose, vary or cancel specific conditions on a temporary resident, and on work it names the type of work, the employer, the duration of work for any one employer, the location of the work, and the times and periods of the work.
- Everything else needs its own authorisation. Section 196 of the Regulations says a foreign national must not work in Canada unless authorised by a work permit or by the Regulations. There is no general allowance for a bit of extra work alongside.
- The employer had to clear their own hurdle before you got it. Either a positive labour market impact assessment, in which case you filed with the assessment letter and Annex A, or an offer of employment submitted through the Employer Portal with a two hundred and thirty dollar employer compliance fee, in which case you filed with the offer of employment number.
- The employer must not be on the non compliant list. IRCC states it as an application requirement, that you need a job offer from an employer who is not on the list of non compliant employers. Paragraph 200(3)(h) of the Regulations backs it, and paragraph 200(3)(g.1) separately bars a permit where you intend to work for an employer who on a regular basis offers striptease, erotic dance, escort services or erotic massages.
- It expires, and it carries a must leave by date. Those are two different things and the second one is the one people have never noticed until they need it.
Why a single shift elsewhere is not a small thing
Working outside the conditions is working without authorisation
This is the bluntest thing on the page and it is worth being blunt about, because clients regularly treat a shift for a friend's business, a few hours of cash work, or starting the new job a fortnight early as an employment question. It is not. Your authorisation to work is the permit, the permit names one employer, and section 196 of the Regulations says a foreign national must not work in Canada unless authorised by a work permit or by the Regulations.
Three separate consequences follow, and they do not cancel each other out. Under section 41 of the Act, a foreign national is inadmissible for failing to comply with the Act through an act or omission that contravenes a provision of it, directly or indirectly. Under section 124 of the Act, it is an offence to contravene a provision for which no penalty is specifically provided, or to fail to comply with a condition or obligation imposed under the Act. And under paragraph 200(3)(e) of the Regulations, an officer shall not issue a work permit to a foreign national who has engaged in unauthorised work in Canada, or has failed to comply with a condition of a previous permit or authorisation.
The last of those is the one that ends careers here quietly, because it does not bite today. It bites the next time you need a permit, which for most people is within a year or two.
- The bar in paragraph 200(3)(e) runs six months by default. The first exception is that six months have elapsed since the unauthorised work or study ceased, or since the failure to comply with a condition. The others are that section 206 applies to the person, and that they were subsequently issued a temporary resident permit under subsection 24(1) of the Act.
- There is a fourth exception and we will not pretend it is clear. Subparagraph 200(3)(e)(ii) disapplies the bar where the study or work was unauthorised by reason only that the person did not comply with conditions imposed under paragraph 185(a), any of subparagraphs 185(b)(i) to (iii), or paragraph 185(c). Those cover the period of stay, the type of work, the employer, the location of the work, and studies. On one reading that answers the ordinary case of working for the wrong employer. But paragraph (e) opens with two limbs, unauthorised work and a failure to comply with a condition of a previous permit, and the carve out is drafted against the first only. We could not source departmental guidance resolving that, so we record the provision and the ambiguity rather than telling you which way it goes.
- If you are experiencing or at risk of abuse in your employment, the bar does not apply to you at all. This sits outside the four exceptions and it is easy to miss. Subsection 200(3.1) of the Regulations, under the marginal note non application of paragraph (3)(e), provides that paragraph (3)(e) does not apply to a foreign national referred to in subsection 207.1(1) who engaged in unauthorised work in Canada or failed to comply with a condition of a previous permit or authorisation. Subsection 207.1(1) is the vulnerable worker provision, being a worker in Canada on an employer specific permit who is experiencing or at risk of abuse in the context of their employment. So the whole six month bar is disapplied, not shortened. If you left an abusive employer and worked without authorisation in the gap, do not read the four exceptions above and conclude you are barred. The open work permit for vulnerable workers is exemption code A72 and we set the route out on the page about working without an assessment. There is no fee either. Paragraph 299(2)(l) of the Regulations exempts a person described in section 207.1 from the $155 work permit processing fee, so the permit that gets you out of an abusive job does not have to be paid for.
- An employer commits their own offence. Section 124(1)(c) of the Act makes it an offence to employ a foreign national in a capacity in which they are not authorised to be employed, and subsection 124(2) deems a person who fails to exercise due diligence to determine whether the employment is authorised to know that it is not. So the employer who offers you the extra shift is not doing you a favour without risk to themselves.
- Restoration does not cure work done without authorisation. Losing status and working without authorisation are two different breaches with two different answers. Restoring status deals with the first. It does not erase the second, and the questions on later application forms about whether you have ever worked without authorisation still have to be answered accurately.
- Non disclosure is the worse problem. A period of unauthorised work is survivable far more often than a false answer about it. Misrepresentation is a separate ground with far longer consequences than a six month bar.
Changing employer, and the mechanism that lets you start sooner
The rule and the workaround are both published, and people who know about the first and not the second lose months of income for no reason. People who know about the second and not its conditions start working too early and create a permanent problem. Both halves matter.
| Position | |
|---|---|
| The default rule | You must apply for a new work permit if you are eligible, and you cannot start working at a different job or for a new employer until you get your permit with the new conditions |
| What triggers it | Working for a new employer, being offered a different job, a change in your pay, new responsibilities, or your job being extended |
| What you need from an employer who needs an assessment | A new job offer letter, a new assessment number, and a new contract signed by you and the employer, plus a new Québec Acceptance Certificate if you work in Quebec |
| What you need from an employer who does not | The offer of employment number they received when they submitted the offer of employment through the Employer Portal. Some employers are exempt from the offer of employment process altogether |
| The mechanism to start sooner | A request for authorisation to work while the application is processed, made through the IRCC web form after you have applied, quoting the priority code PPCHANGEWORK2020 with the attestation text the department publishes |
| Who can use it | Someone who has applied for a new employer specific work permit in Canada and who either holds an employer specific work permit or can work without one, not including business visitors or short term workers under the Global Skills Strategy |
| How long the authorisation takes | The department says it should respond in about 10 to 15 days, and longer if you applied on paper. It does not say whether those are calendar or business days, and we could not source a page that does, so plan on the shorter reading |
| What the email is not | The department says expressly that the email is not your work permit. It tells you whether you are authorised to work while the application is processed |
| If you lost the job | Get a new job offer and apply to renew while remaining in Canada, and stop working for that or any other employer until the new permit is approved. If you cannot get an offer, leave by the must leave by date on the permit |
| Moving province with the same employer | A new assessment from Employment and Social Development Canada and a new work permit before you work in the new location |
| International Experience Canada participants | Check first whether you can change employers on that permit at all, because the department directs them to a separate check before any of this |
The page carrying the change of employer mechanism was last modified on 20 November 2025 and the page carrying the extension and change of conditions rules on 20 July 2026. Verified 21 August 2026.
Apply before the permit expires, not after you have found the job. Where you apply to extend before expiry and the conditions are staying the same, you are authorised to keep working under the original conditions while a decision is made, which on an employer specific permit means the same job, the same employer and the same work location. That protection has nothing to spare in it. It does not extend to a new employer, and it does not survive your permit expiring first.
The number your employer has to give you, and which one it is
- If the job needed an assessment, you use the assessment. Your employer notifies you that it was approved, sends you the positive decision letter, and gives you the assessment number. IRCC also lists Annex A from the positive assessment among the documents to include with the permit application.
- If the job was exempt, you use an offer of employment number. The employer submits an offer of employment through the Employer Portal and pays an employer compliance fee of two hundred and thirty dollars, unless exempt. There is no letter. The department tells employers they will not receive an email or approval letter to hand over and must give the worker the number, which the worker needs to submit the permit application.
- Two government pages describe that number differently, and we say so. The Employer Portal user guide says the offer of employment number consists of the letter A followed by a seven digit number. The page on hiring under the International Mobility Program calls it a seven digit number and does not mention the letter. We read those as the same number described with different precision, and we mention it because a worker told the number is seven digits, then handed something beginning with A, tends to think they have been given the wrong thing.
- An open permit needs neither. If you hold an open work permit, the employer does not submit an offer of employment or pay the compliance fee at all.
- The compliance fee is not yours either. It is an employer obligation in the Employer Portal process. Where the worker is exempt from the work permit processing fee, certain employers are exempt from the compliance fee, and they upload proof of the exemption instead of paying. Nor is it money gone. Section 303.1(6) of the Regulations remits the $230 fee and requires the Minister to repay it to whoever paid it if the work permit is refused, or if the employer withdraws the offer of employment and requests a remission before the permit is issued.
- Employers who are exempt from the whole process still owe you the offer. Where an employer is exempt from the employer compliance process, the department tells them simply to send the worker the job offer, which the worker uses to apply.
Are you inside your conditions
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.
Your situation
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