Before you start

A passport valid well beyond the intended stay
A job offer, and for many employer-specific permits a Labour Market Impact Assessment obtained by the employer
For permanent residence, language test results and an Educational Credential Assessment
Proof of funds, for most economic immigration routes

Step-by-step

1
Establish which permit you actually hold
An employer-specific work permit ties you to one employer and one role — changing jobs means a new permit. Open permits, including the Post-Graduation Work Permit and most spousal permits, do not. This distinction determines what you can legally do from your first day, and people misread it constantly.
OnlineWho: You
2
Apply for a Social Insurance Number in your first week
Free, from Service Canada, with your passport and permit. Applying in person at a Service Canada centre usually produces the number on the spot; online takes longer. No employer can pay you without it.
In personWho: YouWeek 1
3
Enter the Express Entry pool if permanent residence is the goal
Express Entry ranks candidates by a Comprehensive Ranking System score covering age, education, language, and Canadian work experience. You can be in the pool while on a work permit, and Canadian experience raises the score substantially — so time on a permit is not time wasted.
OnlineWho: You
4
Look seriously at the BC Provincial Nominee Program
A provincial nomination adds a decisive number of points to an Express Entry profile and has its own streams for tech occupations, health, and entry-level roles. For many people whose federal score is short, the provincial route is the actual path rather than a backup.
OnlineWho: You
5
Keep every record of physical presence in Canada
Permanent residents must meet a residency obligation to keep status, and citizenship requires a set number of days physically present. Border crossings, flights and employment records are what you will be asked for years later. Keep a running log from day one — reconstructing it afterwards is genuinely difficult.
OnlineWho: You
6
Renew the PR card before it expires and before you travel
The permanent resident card is not your status, but it is what airlines require to board a flight back to Canada. Processing takes months. A permanent resident stuck abroad with an expired card needs a travel document from a Canadian visa office, which is slow and avoidable.
OnlineWho: You

Documents you’ll need

Passport
Work permit or Confirmation of Permanent Residence
Job offer letter and LMIA, where applicable
Language test results and Educational Credential Assessment, for permanent residence
Proof of funds
A record of every entry to and exit from Canada

Things most newcomers don’t know

An employer-specific work permit means you cannot change jobs without a new permit.

This is the single most consequential thing to understand about Canadian work permits and it is regularly misread. If your permit names an employer, working for anyone else — including freelancing on the side — is unauthorised, and it can affect a later permanent residence application. Open permits are genuinely open. Read the conditions printed on the permit itself rather than relying on what a recruiter said.

Source: Immigration, Refugees and Citizenship Canada

A provincial nomination is worth more than almost anything else you can change about your profile.

Express Entry scores are dominated by factors you cannot alter quickly — age, education, language. A provincial nomination adds a large block of points that effectively guarantees an invitation. For candidates whose federal score sits below the recent cut-offs, the BC Provincial Nominee Program is not a fallback but the primary route, and its tech-occupation stream in particular has been the way a great many Vancouver arrivals actually landed status.

Source: Government of British Columbia

Time on a work permit builds the Canadian experience that raises your score.

Canadian work experience is one of the few Express Entry factors you can actively improve, and it feeds both the federal score and the Canadian Experience Class stream. People arriving on a permit sometimes treat permanent residence as a separate future project; in practice the permit years are the application. Keep the pay stubs, reference letters and T4 slips as you go.

Source: Immigration, Refugees and Citizenship Canada

Keep a day-by-day travel log from the moment you land.

Both the permanent resident residency obligation and the citizenship physical-presence requirement are counted in days, and you will be asked to account for several years retrospectively. Passport stamps are incomplete, land crossings often unstamped, and airlines do not keep records that long. A simple spreadsheet updated after each trip takes minutes and saves an application that otherwise stalls for months.

Source: Immigration, Refugees and Citizenship Canada

Common mistakes to avoid

Working for anyone other than the employer named on an employer-specific permit.
Starting a job before the Social Insurance Number is issued and delaying your own pay.
Treating the provincial nominee route as a backup rather than the main path.
Letting a PR card expire while abroad and being unable to board a flight home.
Failing to log physical presence and struggling to prove it at citizenship.

Some of this may be out of date. Spotted something inaccurate? Help us keep it right for the next newcomer.