Your employer applies for it, and one wage figure decides the rest.

The wage threshold, which decides the entire process

Everything about which rules apply turns on one comparison. The employer takes the wage being offered for the position and compares it to the published hourly threshold for the province or territory where the work is. At or above it, the application goes into the high wage stream. Below it, the low wage stream. The threshold is the provincial or territorial median hourly wage plus twenty per cent, drawn from the Statistics Canada Labour Force Survey.

Source given on the page is the Statistics Canada Labour Force Survey for 2024 to 2025. The date that governs is the date the assessment is received, not the date the job starts. The Northwest Territories figure did not move. Verified 21 August 2026 against the page as last modified on 10 July 2026.

The duration figures are what the employer may request. What you actually get on the permit is decided by IRCC later, and the department keeps those three dates deliberately separate. Where this table says we could not source a requirement, that means the published stream page does not carry one, not that the opposite is guaranteed.

The recruitment the employer has to do first

• Advertising comes before the application, not with it. The minimum advertising has to be completed for at least four consecutive weeks in the high wage stream, or eight in the low wage stream, within the three months before the assessment application goes in. None of that time is inside the published processing figures.
• The Job Bank is the anchor, with alternatives allowed on a written rationale. Both streams require advertising on the Government of Canada Job Bank. If another method is used instead, the employer must submit a written rationale and explanation.
• The other methods differ by stream, and the reason is mobility. In the high wage stream at least two further methods are needed, consistent with the occupation, and one of them must be national in scope and easily accessed from any province or territory, because the department takes the view that people in high wage positions are mobile. In the low wage stream the additional methods must each target a different underrepresented group.
• The low wage stream has three mandatory activities, and the middle one is the one employers miss. The published requirement is the Job Bank, then targeted youth recruitment, then at least two further methods. Targeted youth recruitment is separate and mandatory. The employer must demonstrate efforts to reach and encourage youth aged 15 to 30 to apply for the job, so that they were provided with every opportunity to obtain employment, and the department gives posting on the Job Bank youth section and youth job boards, working with schools or colleges, participating in youth employment programs, and using other platforms popular with youth as examples. The two further methods must be consistent with the occupation and must each target a different underrepresented group, and the department names vulnerable youth, Indigenous peoples, newcomers to Canada, persons with disabilities, and asylum claimants with valid work permits. A provincial or territorial counterpart to the Job Bank counts as a method but does not meet the underrepresented group requirement.
• One of the three has to still be running when the decision is made. The low wage requirements page states that at least one of the three recruitment activities to seek qualified Canadians and permanent residents must be ongoing until the date a positive or negative assessment has been issued.
• Advertising does not stop when the application is filed. The low wage requirements page states that if a Job Bank posting remains active after the assessment is submitted, all advertising requirements including the Job Match and Direct Apply features must still be met, and that Service Canada will review recruitment activities up until a decision is made.
• Records run for six years. Both stream pages require the employer to keep records of the recruitment and advertising for a minimum of six years, and to provide the results of the efforts rather than just evidence that they were made.
• A transition plan is a high wage requirement. It is mandatory, valid for the duration of your employment, and describes the activities the employer agrees to undertake to recruit, retain and train Canadians and permanent residents and to reduce reliance on the program. An employer who has never completed one submits it in the relevant section of the high wage application form.
• There is a published list of variations, and it is the first thing to check. Before working out how to satisfy the advertising rules, check whether they apply. The department publishes a variations list covering named occupations, sectors and provinces. Six categories on it require no advertisement or recruitment at all, being the entertainment sector where a worker is hired for a very limited number of days on short notice; hiring by an international organisation or the mission of a foreign government; a position of short duration, meaning thirty days or less, where the job will not exist afterwards and the work needs specialised or proprietary knowledge; specialised service technicians and providers with proprietary knowledge where there is no opportunity to train a Canadian; warranty work where the terms of the warranty require the work to be done by workers the manufacturer designates; and a coasting trade position on a foreign vessel where the work is thirty days or less and no assessment has already issued for that position on that vessel in the same calendar year. Other entries reduce rather than remove the requirement, and the academic, Quebec selection certificate, seasonal agricultural and agricultural stream entries remove it only conditionally. The list changes, so read it rather than relying on this summary.
• Primary agriculture in the general streams needs fourteen calendar days, not four or eight weeks. An employer hiring in primary agriculture through the high wage or low wage stream follows that stream's requirements, but the advertisement need only be posted for a minimum of fourteen calendar days within the three months before applying. The employer advertises on the national Job Bank or its provincial or territorial counterpart and picks one additional method consistent with normal practice for the occupation, which must be national in scope for a high wage position or must target an underrepresented group for a low wage one. That is one additional method, not two.
• Four provinces add a step before any of this. An employer hiring in British Columbia, Manitoba, Saskatchewan or Nova Scotia must first obtain a provincial employer registration certificate and include it, or proof of exemption, with the assessment application. Without it the application is treated as incomplete. Quebec is different again, with simultaneous filing to Service Canada and to the provincial ministry for employment of more than thirty consecutive days.

Where the assessment is currently closed, and to whom

These measures do not produce a negative assessment. They stop the application being processed. Each has its own status wording and its own date, so we set them out separately rather than as one rule.

Read from the department’s temporary measures page, which carried a page date of 27 July 2026 when we read it on 21 August 2026, and which says it will be updated as more provinces and territories respond. Three jurisdictions have declined and three had not yet decided, so check the page itself before relying on a row. Note that British Columbia and Quebec have taken the retained proportion measure only, which does not give them the fifteen per cent cap.

• An in home caregiver position with a live in requirement is not processed. The measure catches positions classified under private household in the North American Industry Classification System, under one of four occupation codes, and advertised and identified in the application as being sought to fill a position with a live in requirement. There are published exceptions for high medical needs clients, on a physician's note or the department's own medical certificate, and a route for exceptional circumstances on a written rationale that has to explain why live in care is required, how often the situation arises, what else was tried, and how fair working conditions will be ensured despite the live in requirement.
• An employer who had an assessment revoked in the past two years may be refused for any position. The published ground is a revocation in the past two years for having provided false, misleading or inaccurate information.
• Some employers cannot be processed at all, as a matter of authority rather than policy. The department states it has no authority to process applications from employers who regularly offer services in the sex industry, being striptease, erotic dance, escort services or erotic massage, from employers on the IRCC ineligibility list, and from employers in default of payment of an administrative monetary penalty. The ineligibility list covers employers found non compliant on review and employers banned after an inspection.
• There is no fee where the application is not processed. The department states that the processing fee is not charged where it had to refuse to process the application or where the employer is ineligible, and that a letter is sent explaining why.

The published caps are on the proportion of low wage positions at one work location. An application is not processed where that proportion would go above ten per cent. A twenty per cent figure applies instead in construction, food manufacturing, hospitals and nursing and residential care facilities, and for certain in home caregiver positions in a private household. There is also a published list of positions with no cap at all, set out above, and a variation of 18 August 2026 that caps an employer with fewer than ten employees at a work location at one low wage worker, or two in the twenty per cent sectors. Employers in rural areas within participating provinces and territories may be eligible for temporary measures on the proportion, running from 1 April 2026 to 31 March 2027, which let an eligible employer keep a proportion already above its cap and give a fifteen per cent cap in place of ten. Rural means outside a census metropolitan area. Participation is province by province and three provinces have declined, so the participation table above is the thing to check.

How long it is taking, on the department's own figures

These are averages for assessments already processed in a month now past, published in business days rather than calendar days, and the department warns they can vary significantly from month to month with the volume received. They are updated monthly. Read them as a planning figure rather than a commitment, because they are not a service standard. The Global Talent Stream is the exception, where the department does publish a service standard of ten business days starting the business day after receipt, expected to be met eighty per cent of the time.

• The advertising weeks are on top of these numbers. The department says so directly, that depending on the stream the advertisement must be posted for fourteen days to eight weeks in the three months before submission, and that this time is not factored into the processing times.
• The clock starts on a complete application. An application counts as complete when all documents for the stream are provided, the employer has signed everything required, and the fee is paid where one applies. An incomplete application is not processed and no fee is charged. In Quebec, for employment of more than thirty consecutive days, completeness also requires simultaneous submission to Service Canada and to the provincial ministry, in the format the province requires.
• It can be filed six months ahead of the start date. The department encourages applying as soon as possible and up to six months before the expected job start date.
• Changing stream means starting again. If the employer picked the wrong stream they must withdraw and reapply under the correct one. The fee is not refunded and cannot be transferred to the new application.
• We could not source a work permit processing figure here. These are Service Canada figures for the assessment. What IRCC then takes to decide the work permit is published separately and by country of application, so we do not restate it on this page.

What you do with a positive assessment

The letter is the beginning of your part, not the end of the process. From the moment it issues, a six month clock runs, and the thing that has to happen inside it is your work permit application, not your arrival and not your first day of work.

• Six months, for decisions on applications received on or after 1 May 2024. Positive decisions are valid for up to six months. Service Canada can issue one that expires sooner, and gives short employment for emergency or warranty work as its example. The six month rule applies across all streams and all provinces and territories except the Seasonal Agricultural Worker Program.
• The expiry date is your filing deadline. The department's wording is that the expiry date is the date by which you must have applied for a work permit, and that if you have not applied by then the assessment is no longer valid and the employer must apply for a new one.
• The job can start after the assessment expires. Provided the permit application went in before the expiry date. The department addresses this directly for job offers starting more than six months out.
• Three dates, and people collapse them into one. The assessment expiry is your filing deadline. The work duration is Service Canada's recommendation for how long a permit could be issued without harming the labour market. The work permit expiry is set by IRCC when it decides your application, and it is the one that governs how long you may actually work and stay.
• Your employer has to give you the letter. The department lists it as an employer obligation inside the validity period, being to notify you that the assessment was approved and to send you the positive letter. Employers must also provide an Annex A from the positive assessment, which IRCC lists among the documents you include with your permit application.
• Then it is a different department and a different test. The work permit is decided under the Regulations, and a positive assessment satisfies only one of several requirements. An officer must still be satisfied you will leave at the end of your authorised stay, that you can perform the work, and that you are not inadmissible.
• Where the employer did not name you, they still have to before it expires. An unnamed assessment requires the employer to keep advertising until they choose someone and to provide your name and other relevant information before expiry.

Where an assessment usually comes unstuck

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.