On April 29, 2024, Marc Miller, the Minister of Immigration, Refugees, and Citizenship, announced new changes to federal business programs in Canada.
These changes are designed to reduce application backlogs and processing times. These changes will come into effect on April 30, 2024.
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Changes to the Start-up Visa Program
To make the Start-up Visa Program better, IRCC wants special groups like venture capital firms, angel investors, and business incubators to pay attention to the best ideas. They’re doing this by:
- capping the numbers of permanent residence application they’ll look at each year from one group to at most 10 start-ups.
- Giving faster processing to entrepreneurs whose start-ups get money from Canadian capital or a Tech Network-affiliated business incubator. This applies to both old and new applications.
Pause on Self-Employed Persons Program Applications
Minister Miller announced that starting April 30, 2024, no new applications will be accepted for the Self-Employed Persons Program. This decision is made to focus on handling the current applications already in the system.
The Self-Employed Persons Program is for people with a lot of experience in sports, recreation, art, or culture who will help enrich Canadian culture.
Because of the high number of applications, it’s taking more than four years to process them all.
Even though they’re not accepting new applications right now, IRCC will still work on processing old ones. They’ll also look into making changes to the program and making sure it stays fair and honest.
To help Canada’s economy grow steadily, IRCC can reduce delays and make it faster for skilled, creative, and business-minded newcomers to come to Canada. They can do this by:
- Not accepting new applications until the end of 2026.
- Adding more spots for business immigrants in line with the plan for 2024–2026.
Requirements For Start-up Visa Program
Foreign entrepreneurs who want to join the Start-up Visa Program need to get support from one of these:
- A certain venture capital fund (they have to invest at least $200,000)
- An angel investor group (they have to invest at least $75,000)
- A business incubator (they have to be accepted into their program)
Since 2013, this program has helped more than 300 start-ups and allowed around 900 entrepreneurs to become permanent residents.
IRCC will focus on processing applications from venture capital and angel investors, along with those from business incubators that invest at least $75,000. A report from the Organization for Economic Co-operation and Development in 2023 named Canada the best place for start-up entrepreneurs.
The rankings looked at things like how easy it is to get money for a business, how much companies have to pay in taxes, how skilled the workers are, how good the universities are, how nice it is to live there, and the rules about moving to the country for business owners and their families.
Processing Times For Canada Business Programs
Canada’s business programs have some new updates. Here’s the latest on processing times:
- Start-up Visa Program: Right now, it takes about 37 months to process applications.
- Federal Self-Employed Program: For this one, it’s taking around 52 months to process applications.
