LIST OF APPROVED ORGANIZATIONS FOR START-UP VISA

Before applying for the Start-Up Visa Program, your proposed business idea must get full support from one or more of the assigned organizations listed here:

1. Venture capital funds
2. Angel investor groups
3. Business incubators

Assigned organizations are business groups approved to support or invest in potential start-ups through the Canada Start-Up Program.

These organizations select the business applications to review. Process for proposal submissions and criteria vary from one organization to the other. For example, a certain organization may prefer the individual to come in person to present the business concept or send a detailed business plan to review.

An organization would decide to scrutinize your business idea and see whether it would be favorable to the country or not. Then, when a business idea is accepted, it will get a Letter of Support from that particular organization.

1. Assigned Organizations For Venture Capital Funds

Applicants must get at least one of these organizations to agree to invest a minimum of $200,000:

• 7 Gate Ventures
• Arete Pacific Tech Ventures (VCC) Corp
• BCF Ventures
• BDC Venture Capital
• Celtic House Venture Partners
• Extreme Venture Partners LLP
• First Fund
• Golden Venture Partners Fund, LP
• iNovia Capital Inc.
• Intrinsic Venture Capital
• Lumira Ventures
• Nova Scotia Innovation Corporation (o/a Innovacorp)
• PRIVEQ Capital Funds
• Real Ventures
• Red Leaf Capital Corp
• Relay Ventures
• ScaleUp Venture Partners, Inc.
• Top Renergy Inc.
• Vanedge Capital Limited Partnership
• Version One Ventures
• Whitehaven
• Westcap Management Ltd.
• Yaletown Venture Partners Inc.
• York Entrepreneurship Development Institute (YEDI) VC Fund

2. Assigned Organizations For Angel Investor Groups

Applicants must get at least one or more investors linked to these organizations to agree to invest a minimum of $75,000:

• Canadian International Angel Investors
• Ekagrata Inc.
• Golden Triangle Angel Network
• Keiretsu Forum Canada
• Oak Mason Investments Inc.
• Southeastern Ontario Angel Network
• TenX Angel Investors Inc.
• VANTEC Angel Network Inc.
• York Angel Investors Inc.

3.Assigned Organizations For Business incubators

Applicants must at least get acceptance into any of these programs:

• Alacrity Foundation
• Alberta Agriculture and Forestry
• Agrivalue Processing Business Incubator
• Food Processing Development Centre
• Biomedical Commercialization Canada Inc. (operating as Manitoba Technology Accelerator)
• Brilliant Catalyst
• Creative Destruction Lab
• DMZ Ventures
• Empowered Startups Ltd.
• Extreme Innovations
• Genesis Centre
• Highline BETA Inc.
• Innovacorp
• Innovation Cluster – Peterborough and the Kawarthas
• Innovation Factory
• Interactive Niagara Media Cluster o/a Innovate Niagara
• Invest Ottawa
• Knowledge Park o/a Planet Hatch
• LatAm Startups
• Launch Academy – Vancouver
• LaunchPad PEI Inc.
• Millworks Centre for Entrepreneurship
• NEXT Canada
• North Forge East Ltd.
• North Forge Technology Exchange
• Pacific Technology Ventures
• Platform Calgary
• Pycap Inc (o/a Pycap Venture Partners)
• Real Investment Fund III LP o/a FounderFuel
• Spark Commercialization and Innovation Centre
• Spring Activator
• The DMZ at Ryerson University
• Toronto Business Development Centre (TBDC)
• TSRV Canada Inc. (operating as Techstars Canada)
• University of Toronto Entrepreneurship Hatchery
• VITEC
• Waterloo Accelerator Centre
• York Entrepreneurship Development Institute

WORK PERMITS FOR START-UP VISA APPLICANTS

1.0 Introduction To Work Permits For Start-Up Visa Applicants

Using this guide, interested individuals can apply for a short-term work permit under the International Mobility Program before tendering an application for permanent residence according to the Start-Up Visa Program.

A short-term work permit may be granted only to foreign immigrants who have received a Commitment Certificate and Letter of Support given by an assigned entity. In addition, this assigned entity must support the request for a work permit.

If you meet the eligibility requirement, you can apply for a work permit before applying for permanent residence.

Note: The Commitment Certificate is valid for 6 months starting from the day it is issued. Application for permanent residence must be submitted before the certificate’s expiration, whether the work permit is applied for or not.

2.0 Eligibility requirements

For an applicant to be eligible for a work permit, the applicant must:

• Arrange to reside in a province or territory other than Quebec
• Settle the employer compliance fee
• Get a Commitment Certificate and a Letter of Support from an assigned entity showing that you are essential and have urgent business reasons for early entry into Canada
• Have enough finance to meet up with low income cut off for the family for 1 year (52 weeks)
• Applicants must submit a ‘self-employed’ offer of employment before applying for a work permit. Also, the $230 employer compliance fee must be paid.

3.0 Submission of offer of employment and payment of the employer compliance fee

Follow the instruction in section 4.0 if your business has registered for a Canada Revenue Agency business number.

If the business is yet to register for a Canada Revenue Agency business number, follow the instructions in section 5.0.

4.0 Submit an offer of employment and make payment through the Employer Portal

Suppose your business is registered for a Canadian Revenue Agency business number. In that case, the online Employer portal must be used to submit the offer of employment and settle the employer compliance fee.

The individual must register in the Employer Portal to do this action. Check the Employer Portal Enrolment Guide for instructions on how to go about the registration.

After successful registration in the Employer Portal, you can log in with your Sign-In Partner or GCKey. Then, read through the Employment Portal to know more about using the Employer Portal.

4.1 Develop an offer of employment

After logging into your account, you will see the Employer Portal welcome page. Then select “Submit an offer of employment” under “What would you like to do today?” You will then be redirected to the offer of the employment application page.

There are four forms you must complete:

• Business information
• Foreign worker
• Job details
• Wage and benefits

When the first offer of employment has been developed, the business information form can be filled out. An exception is when the information changes.

By each form name, you will see a symbol that indicates if the form is “not started,” “in progress,” or “complete.”

4.1.1 Business information form

Business:

The first three fields would be filled automatically with the information you entered when you registered on the Employer Portal. These fields can not be changed.

Put the business telephone number in the required space and hit the “NEXT” button.

Business Address:

Here the business physical address and mailing address should be inputted.

Business Type:

Select No

Business Details

Fill these fields as best as you can. For instance, select less than 100 employees and gross income as less than $30,000.

Business primary contact information:

Put in the contact detail of the person who is proposed to be the main contact of the business. After this, validate the details, save and leave the page.

4.1.2 Foreign worker form

Input your details as it is on your passport. Enter spellings accordingly, hyphens, accents, capitalizations, and spaces. After you are done with this, validate the detail, save and leave the page.

4.1.3 Job details form

The first three fields would be filled automatically with the information you entered when you registered on the Employer Portal.

LMIA exemption title: Choose “Significant benefit” R205(a).

LMIA exemption code: This field will be filled automatically.

Description of how the job meets the criteria for the exemption being requested:

Clearly explain that you are a business person seeking to create a business in Canada. You are also essential to the start-up of your business, according to section 8.0 of the Commitment Certificate.

Job title: Indicate “Start-Up Visa Entrepreneur.”

NOC Code: NOC 8888

Physical job location: Here, you put in the physical address of the place you would be working

Core duties of the job: explain briefly the work you will be performing. Here are some instances:

• Setting up the business,
• Enrolling for all permits,
• Obtaining approvals as requested.

Fee payment question: choose “Yes, I will be paying the employer compliance fee for this offer.”

Put in the remaining information for the job and hit “Next.”

Employer primary contact information: Input the contact of the person who will give the information about the offer of employment. It could be the same person or different from the business’s main contact detail.

When you are through with filling out the form, validate the detail, save and leave the page.

4.1.4 Wage and benefits form

To complete this form, choose the ‘Type of wage’ as hourly from the drop-down list and enter ‘0’ in the following five boxes.

The box “Alternate compensation scheme” shows that you are a self-employed business person and proof that you have the minimum amount of funds to support yourself and any dependent (if applicable) for 52 weeks. Indicate the number of funds available and the documents you can provide as a form of evidence.

Benefits: Leave this section blank.

After completing the form, validate the details, save and exit.

4.2 Submit the offer of employment

The offer of employment can be submitted when the status of all four forms shows “complete”:

• Right on the LMIA-exempt Offer of employment page, choose “Continue.” You will be directed to “Your document checklist.” You will not be asked to upload any documents since you selected “Yes, I will be paying the employer compliance fee for this offer,” you will not be asked to upload any documents.
• Select “Next.”
• On the screen ‘Your Declaration and Electronic Signature’:
• Go through the employer declaration
• Choose ‘I agree.’
• Enter your name in the signature panel and answer the Security Question
• Then click ‘Sign.’

4.3 Make Payment for the employer compliance fee

You are to pay the $230 employer compliance fee. After signing the offer of employment:

• Select “Transmit and Pay.”
• Go through the fees summary page and select “Transmit and pay.” You will be directed to the Receiver General’s online payment website.
• Fill out the payment form online. Then, hit “Process Transaction.”
• Go through once again and print the transaction receipt. A copy of this receipt with the work permit application would be requested if you will be applying by paper.
• Choose “Return.” You will be redirected back to the Employer Portal.
• Then select “Exit questionnaire” to go back to the Welcome portal page.
• Go through the “Employment queue” to obtain the offer of employment number.

5.0 Submit the offer of employment and make the fee payment outside of the Employer Portal

If your business is not registered for a Canada Revenue Agency business number, you will not be able to access the Employer Portal. So, you would need to mail the Employer Portal and show that you are an entrepreneur.

These detail should be included in your email:

• Full name
• Date of birth
• Citizenship
• Country of birth and
• Gender

If your email request is acknowledged, you will get a response mail with the following:

• The Offer of Employment to a Foreign National Exempt from a Labour Market Impact Assessment (IMM 5802) form
• Details on where to return the completed form and
• Details on how to make payment for the employer compliance fee online

Note: The Fee must be paid before completing the form. Then enter the fee payment receipt number in Box 3 on the form.

5.1 If you are using IMM 5802, pay the employer compliance fee online.

You can also make a payment by using the Pay your fees tool.

• Indicate the country where you are paying from.
• Choose ‘Employer compliance’ for the fee type.
• Hit on ‘Get payment instructions.’
• Read the instructions under ‘Pay online and apply on paper.’
• Hit on ‘Pay my fees online.

The page will load to a new Online Payment screen.

• Click ‘Continue’.
• Accept Terms and Conditions and click ‘Continue’ once again.
• Select ‘Immigration’.
• Choose ‘Temporary Residence’.
• From the Immigration fees listed, enter 1 under ‘Number of Applications’ next to Compliance fee (Employer) – $230.00
• Then click on ‘Submit.’
• Hit on ‘Login and pay.’

To make payments online, you have to log into your registered account. If you do not have an account, complete the registration process. After completing the three-step registration process, log in with your security details and make your payment.

As soon as the payment is successful, keep the fee receipt number somewhere safe because you will need to include this on the IMM 5802.

5.2 Filling the IMM 5802

When filling the Offer of Employment to Foreign National Exempt from a Labour Market Impact Assessment (IMM 5802), follow the instructions below for certain fields:

Box 2 – Canada Revenue Agency business number (first 9 digits).

Leave blank.

Box 4 and 5 – Business operating name and legal business name. If there is no available business name yet, input ‘New business and name of the entrepreneur.’

Box 17 and 24 – Job title

Enter ‘Start-Up Visa Entrepreneur.’

Box 21 – Title of LMIA exemption being requested.

Select ‘Significant Benefit – R205(a)’ (Box 22 will populate automatically).

Box 23 –  Explanation of how the job meets the requested exemption requirements.

Explain that you are an entrepreneur seeking to establish or operate your business in Canada and that you are essential to the start-up of your business as per section 8.0 of the Commitment Certificate.

Box 25 – National Occupation Classification (NOC) code.

Input NOC 8888.

Box 29 – Main duties of the job.

Core duties of the job: explain briefly the work you will be performing. Here are some instances:

• setting up the business,
• Enrolling for all permits,
• Obtaining approvals as requested.

Box 33 – Wage in Canadian dollars and number of work hours.

Leave blank.

Box 34 – Alternate compensation scheme (you must complete this section).

Proof that you are a self-employed entrepreneur and indicate that you have the funds needed to support yourself and your dependents for a minimum of 52 weeks (1 year).

Put in the number of funds available and the documents you can show as evidence.

Box 36 – Benefits.

Not required.

Declaration of Employer: fill out this section and sign as the Employer.

Note: Do not use the “Submit by Email” button. Save the form as a PDF file and attach it to an email following the instructions received with your authorization email.

6.0 Application for a work permit

Application for a work permit can be made on paper or online.

Mostly, applicants would have to submit their applications from outside Canada. Though, applicants can be eligible to apply from inside Canada. Ensure that you meet the eligibility requirements corresponding with where you plan to apply for your work permit.

NOTE: Do not mistake submitting applications for permanent residence and work permits in the same package. The application should be sent to their different office’s processing.

6.1 Get your documents available

Before applying on paper or online, ensure all your documents are available:

• The Letter of Support from an assigned entity that indicates that you’re “essential” and that you need a work permit
• proof that you have funds to support yourself and your dependents for a 52-week (1 year) period
• The offer of employment number (the number generated after you submit your offer of employment online through the Employer Portal and it can be found in the “Employment queue”) or your completed IMM 5802 and the payment receipt for the employer compliance fee
• medical examination results, if required
• Valid police certificate, if required

Do you need faster processing?

Applying and including all the listed documents above helps your work permit process faster. However, a paper application may be slow at times and cannot be guaranteed.

6.2 Proof of funds

To qualify, enough funds are needed to meet the low-income cut-off (LICO) for dependent size for 52 weeks. Ensure you clearly show that you meet the minimum amount listed in the LICO chart below.

The funds must be readily available, transferable, and not hindered by debts or other obligations.

This is a list of what we accept as proof of funds:

• cash
• documents that show property or capital payable to you, such as stocks, bonds, debentures, and treasury bills

documents that support payment of a set amount of money payable to you, such as banker’s drafts, cheques, travelers’ cheques, and money orders

Size of Dependent Unit	Minimum necessary income
1 person	$25,338
2 persons	$31,544
3 persons	$38,780
4 persons	$47,084
5 persons	$53,402
6 persons	$60,228
7 persons	$67,055
Above 7 persons, for each additional person	$6,827

 

DISCLOSURE OF FUNDS

If an immigrant brings in more than CAN $10,000 into Canada, an immigration officer must be notified. If not, the individual may be penalized or have the fund seized.

6.3 Apply online

Finally, you can apply for your work permit online using a scanner or camera to develop electronic copies of your document. Then upload and have a valid credit card for making payment.