If your company or organization wants to bring a foreign national to Canada to work in a position that is exempt from a Labour Market Impact Assessment (LMIA), you must provide us with the employment details and pay the employer compliance fee (if required) before we’ll approve their work permit.
The Employer Portal lets companies and organizations submit an offer of employment and pay their fees. This guide provides instructions on how to
If you don’t pay the fee or submit an offer of employment before the worker submits their application, we’ll refuse the work permit.
Open work permits: If a foreign national is eligible and applying for an open work permit, you don’t need to submit an offer of employment. An open work permit allows foreign nationals to work for any employer.
You need an account in the Employer Portal to submit offers of employment. If you haven’t already created an account, read the Employer Portal enrolment guide.
To sign in to the Employer Portal
If you receive an error message that says “Your account is not authorized to access this IRCC portal. Please ensure you have chosen the correct link to log-in to,” you either
Once you sign in, you’ll see the Employer Portal welcome page.
Important: Don’t use your browser navigation buttons (forward and back buttons) when in the portal. Use the portal’s navigation buttons (previous, next, exit, etc.) to move between sections.s03
Once you sign in to your account, you’ll see your company’s information in the “Business details” and “Business primary contact information” fields. You, as the primary user, provided this information when you enrolled the business in the portal. Until the primary user submits the first offer of employment, the “IRCC employer number” field and all the fields under “View address details” will stay blank.
Note: The primary user can create secondary users or branches within the account, but other users can’t submit any offers until the primary user submits the first one.
After you/the primary user submit a first offer, all the other business details will be listed. You’ll then be able to update the:
To change this information:
You’ll be directed to the “Business details” page.
Make sure that
To create an offer of employment, under “What would you like to do today?”
You’ll see 4 forms you must complete.
The information required in these forms must be typed in fully and accurately.
Do not copy and paste information into any of the fields.
Do not enter messages such as “see attached” in any of the fields, referencing documents that might be attached to the work permit application. Only information in the offer will be assessed in the event of a compliance inspection.
You will have the option to upload one of the following documents before submitting your offer:
If your offer is not complete, we may ask you to re-submit it before issuing the work permit. Otherwise, the work permit application may be refused.
If you make a mistake, and the submitted offer has been linked to the work permit application in the system, you won’t be able to change it. In this case, you’ll have to re-submit the offer.
If the submitted offer is not linked to the work permit application, you can withdraw it and start a new one.
To save time when creating a new offer, you can use the “Create Duplicate”. You can duplicate the offer that you’ve withdrawn or need to re-submit. Then, correct the mistake or add the information that was missing from the first offer.
Find out more about making changes to offers you have submitted.
Important: The information you provide in the offer of employment should be easily verifiable if we do a compliance inspection.
During an inspection, we’ll:
You only need to enter your business information once when you submit your first offer of employment. The information you enter will be saved for all of your future offers.
You can change most of the fields in this form yourself for future offers, except your:
Find out how to make changes to this information.
Enter the telephone number of the company or organization and click “Next.”
Note: The telephone number must be valid, so that in the event a compliance investigation is initiated, we’ll be able to contact you about the employment of your foreign worker and you won’t risk being found non-compliant.
This is the physical address and mailing address (if applicable) of the main business or headquarters. (Indicate work location(s) for the foreign worker in the “Job details” form.)
If you are a branch user, use your branch location and not the address of the business headquarters.
Choose your type of business from the available list.
If the business is a registered franchise:
Enter the following information:
Enter the name, job title and contact information of the person who will:
When you’ve completed the form:
Enter the information for the temporary worker you want to hire. Make sure it is accurate and matches the temporary worker’s passport (or other travel document).
This includes:
If the information you provide doesn’t match what’s in the temporary worker’s passport or travel document:
Enter the temporary worker’s family (last) and given (first) names exactly as they are listed in their passport.
Single name: If the temporary worker goes by only one name, enter it in the “Last name” field and check the box affirming there is no first name.
Use the drop-down menu to choose the information that’s indicated in the passport.
Use the drop-down menu to choose the information that’s indicated in the passport.
Enter the temporary worker’s passport number exactly as it is listed in their passport.
Validate, save and exit when you’ve completed the form.
These fields will already be filled in with the information the employer or branch primary user entered when they enrolled in the portal.
These fields can’t be edited in the form.
Find out how to make changes to this information if needed.
Choose the exemption title that applies to the job position from the drop-down menu. The LMIA exemption code will automatically appear in the field below.
To avoid delays in processing, make sure the LMIA exemption you choose matches the
Review the LMIA exemption codes table if you aren’t sure which one applies to the job position.
Note: If there is no LMIA exemption that applies to the job position, the International Mobility Program is probably not for you. The Employer Portal is used only if the job position is exempt from an LMIA.
In that case, you may need to get a labour market impact assessment from Service Canada. Find out how to get an LMIA. If an LMIA is required, the worker attaches it to their work permit application.
Don’t use code C88 - Innovation when submitting your job offer. If you do, the work permit might be refused.
Help is available: If you’re hiring a visa-exempt worker who is still outside Canada and you want an opinion on whether an LMIA or work permit exemption applies to your situation, you can contact the International Mobility Workers Unit.
Explain how the job being offered meets the LMIA exemption you chose.
Your explanation must include a description of:
Make sure the information you provide is truthful and complete. We’ll use it to decide if the exemption eligibility requirements are met.
Note that you will also have the option to upload a document to provide the explanation of how the job meets the requirements of the LMIA exemption, or add to an explanation already submitted under the “Job details” section, before submitting the offer.
Job title
Enter the temporary worker’s job title. The job title must align with the National Occupational Classification.
Choose the NOC code that describes the occupation and lists the main duties of your temporary worker. If you aren’t sure which code to use, review all the available codes and find the one that applies to your situation.
Enter the location where the temporary worker will be working. If there are 2 locations, answer “Yes” to “Will the worker perform duties at more than 1 job location?” and complete the second job location section.
If there are more than 2 locations, you can complete the first job location section and list all other locations in the “Main duties of the job” field. This information, if provided, will be considered during a compliance inspection—even if the work permit document failed to indicate the multiple job locations.
Please provide:
Select the year, month and day of the date the foreign worker will start to work for you.
If you put your foreign worker’s expected date of arrival to Canada in the “Expected start date” area of the form, put the date you expect the foreign worker to start work in the “Alternate compensation scheme” (Wage and benefits section) box. This will clarify when the worker’s wages will begin.
Note: The date of issuance of the work permit may not reflect the actual start date of employment; therefore, employers must retain all supporting documents surrounding the employment of the foreign worker in the event they are requested during a compliance inspection.
Indicate in days, months or years the total duration of employment.
Note: Permanent resident programs and temporary work permits
Under certain permanent resident programs, candidates may be eligible to apply for a temporary work permit. In such cases, even though the job may actually be “permanent,” “indeterminate” or have no end date, employers submitting an offer of employment should still indicate the duration relative to the temporary work permit. For example, under the Atlantic Immigration Pilot, candidates may be eligible to apply for a temporary work permit valid for 2 years. As the work permit will only be issued for a duration of 2 years, this duration should be reflected in the offer of employment submitted for the temporary work permit.
Select the education requirements of the job from the drop-down list provided.
Indicate any “Other training required” or additional certifications necessary for the job in the text box provided. Examples of other certifications needed would be First aid certificates/Workplace safety certificates, Specialty training.
Use the text box provided to indicate the experience (i.e., years and type) and skills required to do the job.
If there are provincial or federal certifications, licences or registration requirements for the job (i.e., B.C. Air Brake Endorsement or Ontario Nursing licence), you can enter this information in the text box provided when you answer “Yes” to that question.
Generally, an employer compliance fee of $230 is required. Certain employers are exempt from paying the compliance fee if the foreign worker is exempt from paying the work permit processing fee.
Answer either:
This will trigger the system to either expect the fee payment (after all the forms have been completed), or to provide a text box for you to upload any documents to support the compliance fee exemption.
Find out if you need to pay the employer compliance fee before you answer this question.
Enter the contact information for the person who submitted the offer of employment if different from the user contact you provided earlier. The employer contact should be someone who is familiar with the day-to-day employment activities of the foreign worker and who can answer questions or provide information about this worker’s wages, occupation and working conditions.
To ensure smooth processing of the foreign worker’s work permit application, this contact person should be available on a 24/7 basis in case the work permit processing officer has any questions about the offer of employment before finalizing the work permit.
Validate, save and exit when you’ve completed the form.
In this section, disclose all the information related to:
This information will be used during the work permit application assessment to:
This information will also be assessed if we do a compliance inspection. We’ll use it to verify the information you provided in your offer and confirm that you are compliant with the conditions required for hiring a temporary worker.
The information you enter in this form will show that you’re complying with federal and provincial labour laws.
Important: For the purposes of this form, employer-sponsored benefits do not include:
If you’re paying the worker directly, select “Yes” and enter the details about their wage and working hours.
Use the “Additional information” text box to:
Currently, when “Yes” is selected for “Wage and benefits,” the question “Is this employment seasonal?” doesn’t display. “Is this employment seasonal” only displays when “No” is selected in response to “Wage and benefits.” If you are paying the worker directly, and the employment is seasonal, you can indicate this in the “Additional information” text box.
Use this field if:
Provide the actual range of hours that the foreign worker will be working in Canada instead of stating “Variable.” For example, the foreign national will work between 40 and 100 hours per week, depending on the harvest season/weather.
If you can’t get this information from the organization paying the wages, let us know in this field as well.
If you don’t have enough space, you may use the “Additional information” text box.
Currently, the form does not allow you to indicate “N/A” or “Not applicable” with regard to benefits provided to the temporary worker. Even if you’re not providing benefits to the worker, you should select one of the benefits and then provide information, in the “Additional information” text box, about the actual benefits arrangement that is in effect for this worker.
Enter the details about the temporary worker’s benefits, if they’ll have any.
Select whether the vacation will be given in days, or whether the worker will be paid a percentage for vacation pay.
If you select “Days,” you must be sure to distinguish between weeks and days. For example, if the worker will be given 2 weeks’ vacation, indicate exactly how many working days will be given, i.e., 10.
Any employer-sponsored benefits the worker receives must be for the entire time period listed on the work permit. If the benefits won’t start on the first day of the work permit—or if no benefits will be provided in the job offer—include this information in either the
Validate, save and exit when you’ve completed the form.
When you’ve completed and validated all 4 forms, you can submit the offer of employment.
Read the “Statement of privacy” and the “Declaration of employer” on the “Your declaration and electronic signature” page.
Starting September 26th, 2022, 3 new attestations are part of the employer declaration:
Before providing us with your offer of employment in the Portal, you’ll need to attest that you’ve already provided the foreign worker with a signed copy of the employment agreement. You can prove this with a document that:
The agreement needs to be signed and completed before you enter the information in the Employer Portal. This is to ensure that the employer, foreign worker and Government of Canada have the same understanding of the wages, occupation and working conditions for the job.
Workers are expected to pay these fees.
Attention: You should print the payment confirmation on the Moneris page.
You may need to use the Interdepartmental Settlement procedures to pay the employer compliance fee instead of a credit card. In this case, the hiring division or appropriate financial/contracting officer in the department must send us an email instead.
The email must include the:
You’ll receive a receipt number once the settlement is processed. Choose “No, I am exempt from paying employer compliance fees” and upload a copy of the receipt in the “Proof of fee exemption” field at the end of the offer.
Select “Exit questionnaire” to return to the portal welcome page.
The employment queue status now says “matched” after your offer of employment is matched with a work permit application. If you submitted an offer before December 3, 2019, it will say “submitted” even if it’s been matched with an application.
Once you submit an offer of employment, it will be listed in your “Employment queue.”
There’s a processing delay of a few minutes in the Employer Portal.
The “Details” column shows you the status of each offer of employment. Right after you submit an offer, you may see “Processing submission” in this column. The status will be updated to “Submitted” and you will see an offer of employment number once the offer has been successfully submitted.
How to make changes to an offer.
The offer of employment number is a 7-digit number, starting with the letter “A.” It will appear in your “Employment queue” shortly after you submit your offer.
You won’t receive an email or approval letter to give to the temporary worker. Instead, you must give the offer of employment number to the temporary worker. The worker needs this number to submit their work permit application.
Once you provide the worker with the offer of employment number, you have completed your part in the work permit process for your employee.
Make sure any other hiring or employment documentation you give to the worker (such as employment contract, letter of offer, and the details within these documents) matches the terms and conditions of employment stated in the offer.
What to do after you hire a temporary worker.
To view your existing offers of employment:
From your queue, you can:
All users who have access to your employer or branch account will be able to see any offers that are in progress or that have been submitted. They will also be able to edit offers created by another user until the offer is submitted.
Select “Continue application” next to the offer you want to complete.
All users who have access to the same queue can complete offers that have been started. Complete and submit the offer.
Important: Submit the offer within 60 days or it will automatically be deleted from your queue.
Select “Delete application” next to the offer you want to delete.
You’ll be asked to confirm that you want to delete this offer.
Important: If you delete an offer by mistake, you can’t get it back. You’ll need to start a new offer to replace it.
You can withdraw the offer of employment and get a refund of the compliance fee if you no longer want to hire the temporary worker.
You can withdraw an offer at any time before we issue the temporary worker’s work permit. How you withdraw the offer depends on whether:
If you see “Withdraw application” next to your offer, it has not been matched to the worker’s application.
Your offer’s status will change to “Withdraw pending.”
It can take up to 24 hours for the offer to be withdrawn.
Once completed, the status will change to “Withdrawn.”
If you don’t see “Withdraw application” next to your offer, it has most likely been matched to the temporary worker’s work permit application. The work permit application will be in progress or has already been finalized. In this case, you won’t be able to withdraw your offer using the portal.
If you still want to withdraw the offer, email us. Explain that you want to withdraw the offer and include:
Important: Withdrawing an offer that has already been matched will result in the refusal of the work permit application.
If we let you submit your offer using the paper form (IMM5802), email us to withdraw your offer and include:
How you make changes to an offer of employment depends on where we are in the process.
If we’ve approved the temporary worker’s work permit application
If we haven’t approved the temporary worker’s work permit application, but it has been received and linked to the offer, you cannot make changes to that offer. You must
If the temporary worker submitted a work permit application to us
If you submitted the offer, and the work permit application has not yet been received or linked to the offer
To create multiple offers of employment that contain the same details except for the foreign workers’ information, you can duplicate any offer.
The new offer (i.e., duplicate) will copy the “Business information” and “Wage and benefits” web forms from the selected offer.
The “Foreign worker” web form and the “LMIA-exempt offer of employment” information within the “Job details” web form will have to be re-inputted.
To look at offers of employment that you’ve submitted:
Depending on the status of the offer of employment, you may also be able to:
Note: You’ll only be able to see submitted offers of employment that meet your search criteria.
To create a secondary user or branch account:
You can only change the fields “Contact email address” and “Preferred language of notification.” If you need to change your business name, business number or the primary contact, email us with “Business Information Change” in the subject line. In the email, include:
If you want to reset your PIN and you use GCKey, email us to request a new PIN. Include the following information in the body of your email:
We’ll email you a new PIN.
After you receive your new PIN, follow these steps to recover your account.
After you follow these steps, your account will be recovered and will include your previous complete list of offers of employment and users.
If you want to reset your PIN and you use Sign-In Partner, email us to request a new PIN. Include the following information in the body of your email:
We will email you a new PIN.
After you receive your new PIN, follow these steps to recover your account.
After you follow these steps, your account will be recovered and will include your previous complete list of offers of employment and users.
If you need help completing a field in the Employer Portal, click the blue question mark icon, next to the field, to get more information.
If you’re having technical problems, email us. In your email, include the following:
We aim to answer emails within 5 business days. If the problem can’t be fixed in that time, we’ll let you know what to do next.
