International Mobility Program: Find Your Exemption Code

The International Mobility Program is the set of rules that lets a Canadian employer hire a foreign worker without a Labour Market Impact Assessment. It is not one program with one application. It is roughly one hundred numbered exemption codes, and the code on your file decides your eligibility, your maximum stay, and your renewal odds.

Getting that code wrong is not a paperwork problem. In the refusals Ansari Immigration reviews, the exemption code is the single thing applicants most often cannot name about their own work permit, and it is usually the thing the officer refused on. In Famugbode v. Canada, 2026 FC 348, a worker lost both his work permit and his restoration application because the exemption number his employer had already used on an earlier, refused application could not be reused on the new one. The Federal Court dismissed the judicial review and confirmed the officer had no duty to warn him first. The full code list is published on IRCC’s LMIA exemption codes page.

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What the International Mobility Program actually is

The International Mobility Program is a grouping of work permit categories that Parliament and the Minister have decided do not need a labour market test. The authority sits in the Immigration and Refugee Protection Regulations, and each code hangs off one of six provisions, plus a small public policy category under section 25.2 of the Act.

Reading the structure is the fastest way to find yourself in it, because the codes are grouped by the reason Canada is waiving the LMIA, not by job title.

Regulation	The reason for the exemption	Example codes
R204	An international, provincial or youth mobility agreement applies	T34 to T38 (CUSMA), T41 to T48 (CETA), T50 to T55 (CPTPP), T13 (provincial nomination), C21 (International Experience Canada)
R205(a)	The work creates a significant benefit to Canada	C10, C11, C61, C62, C63, A75 (bridging open work permits)
R205(b)	Reciprocal employment of Canadians abroad	C20, C22, C23, C24, C26
R205(c)	Research, co-op study, or competitiveness and public policy	C31, C32, C33, C16 (Francophone mobility), C41 to C49, C88
R205(d)	Religious or charitable work	C50, C51
R206, R207, R207.1, R208	No other means of support, in-Canada PR applicants, vulnerable workers, humanitarian reasons	S61, S62, A70, A72, H81, H82

Source: LMIA exemption codes, IRCC. Verified October 2026 (page modified September 23, 2026).

Section 205 itself is short. It authorises a permit where the work would “create or maintain significant social, cultural or economic benefits or opportunities for Canadian citizens or permanent residents,” among three other grounds, and you can read it on the justice.gc.ca text of the Regulations. Everything beneath that sentence is administrative policy, which is exactly why the codes move and the statute does not.

The exemption code is a decision, not a label

Your code is chosen when the employer files the offer of employment, and it fixes the test the officer will apply to you. Pick the wrong one and the officer does not translate it into the right one.

Here is the short path most workers travel. Work down it and stop at the first line that fits.

You are being moved into Canada by a company that owns, is owned by, or is commonly controlled with your current employer: this is an intra-company transfer, codes C61, C62 or C63.
Your employer is in a country with a Canadian free trade agreement and your job is on that agreement’s list: this is an R204(a) code such as T34 to T38 (CUSMA), T41 to T48 (CETA), or T50 to T55 (CPTPP). Our guide to the CUSMA work permit covers the North American set.
You are a business owner coming temporarily to run your own Canadian business: C11.
Your spouse or partner holds a qualifying work or study permit: C41, C42 or C47, which produce an open work permit rather than an employer-specific one.
Your permanent residence application is already in process: A75, the bridging open work permit. We cover eligibility in the bridging open work permit guide.
You have a provincial nomination for permanent residence: T13.
You work in French and intend to work outside Quebec: C16, Francophone Mobility.

If none of those lines fits, the answer is usually that you are not in the International Mobility Program at all and your employer needs an LMIA. That is a different road, and our LMIA exempt work permit guide sets the two side by side.

Intra-company transfers, and why C12 became C61, C62 and C63

Intra-company transferees now fall under three codes, C61, C62 and C63. Until December 15, 2022 all three sat under a single code, C12, and IRCC’s exemption code list still shows the mapping in its own columns: the old C12 row for executives and senior managers now reads C62, specialized knowledge now reads C63, and employees starting a branch or affiliate now read C61. If a blog, a template or an old retainer tells you to file under C12, it is working from pre-2022 coding.

That matters because the current instruction is far more restrictive than the general advice around it. IRCC’s intra-company transferee instructions open by warning that these categories “are not intended as a means to transfer an enterprise’s general work force to affiliated entities in Canada.”

Code	Who it is for	Initial permit	Lifetime cap
C61	Transferring in to establish a new Canadian enterprise	Maximum 1 year. No extensions under this code, except in rare circumstances to complete the final set up of the enterprise	Counts toward the caps below
C62	Executive or senior managerial capacity	Maximum 3 years, 2 year renewals	7 years total
C63	Specialized knowledge worker	Maximum 3 years, 2 year renewals	5 years total

Source: Intra-company transferees, IRCC. Verified October 2026 (page modified January 6, 2025).

Four details decide most of these files, and none of them are on the overview pages:

The cap is cumulative and crosses categories. Time spent under one intra-company code counts against the other, and time spent under a free trade agreement transfer counts too. A specialized knowledge worker who spent two years in Canada on a CUSMA transfer has three years left, not five.
The clock only resets outside Canada. Once the 5 or 7 years are used, the worker must complete a further year of full-time employment with the foreign enterprise before re-applying as a transferee.
The qualifying year cannot be assembled. You need one year of full-time employment with the foreign enterprise in the three years immediately preceding the application, and the instruction is explicit: “That employment may not have been accumulated by part-time work equivalent to 1 year.”
Specialized knowledge carries a wage floor. A C63 worker must be paid at least the prevailing wage for the occupation and region, which IRCC points to Job Bank to establish. A transfer that looks cheap is a transfer that gets refused.

One more branch worth naming: documented time not spent working for the Canadian enterprise can be recaptured, so the cap measures actual work in Canada rather than elapsed permit validity. IRCC’s worked example is a manager on a one year permit who takes six months of parental leave, which costs only six months against the cap. But recapture “will not be considered for any time periods of less than 30 consecutive days,” so a run of short trips home buys back nothing.

C11 for entrepreneurs: the 51 percent rule and the 18 month ceiling

C11 is the code for a foreign national who owns a business and is coming to Canada temporarily to run it, and IRCC’s instruction sets a hard ownership threshold: work permits for business owners “should be considered only when the applicant controls at least 51% of the business.”

A business owner working on financial documents and statements with a laptop and paperwork spread out on a desk, with a view of a Canadian cityscape through the window.

Two conditions trip people up. The first is that C11 is for temporary residence only. IRCC’s C11 instructions direct officers to assess an applicant who intends to seek permanent residence under a different code instead, usually C60 or A77. The second is duration: the initial permit runs to a maximum of 18 months, which is a short runway for a business plan that has to prove significant benefit by the time you ask for more.

That second condition is where C11 files fail, and the Federal Court has shown exactly how. In Nguyen v. Canada, 2025 FC 143, a business owner was granted a two year permit under the International Mobility Program, entered Canada with his family in October 2021, and applied to extend in October 2023. The extension was refused. The officer found no viable plan, financial records that did not support the stated intent to hire Canadians, and no evidence the business provided a unique service or a significant benefit. The Court dismissed the review and made the governing point plainly: “Nor was the Officer bound by the prior decision to grant the initial visa under the IMP.” His spouse’s open work permit was refused solely because his was.

That is the practical lesson for anyone on a benefit-based code. The first approval buys you time, not a finding. The extension is assessed from scratch, on the evidence you file that day.

What goes wrong: three failure modes that show up in refusals

Most International Mobility Program refusals are not close calls on the merits. They are administrative, and all three of the common ones are avoidable.

The exemption number is single use. In Famugbode, the employer had properly paid the compliance fee and supplied exemption number A0924728 for an earlier extension application under code C51, charitable work, which was refused. The trap is not specific to any one code. When a fresh application went in, nothing new was filed. The officer’s notes in the Global Case Management System read: the applicant “has failed to produce a valid A# and employer compliance fee as per R200(3)(f.1)”, and the number provided “is already linked to another application that has been refused.” Work permit refused, restoration refused. A new application needs a new offer of employment and a new fee, every time.

The extension is a fresh assessment. Nguyen is the authority. Officers are not bound by a colleague’s earlier approval, and on a benefit-based code the burden to show significant benefit is re-run on current evidence.

Your employer, not you, answers the genuineness question. Under R200(5) an officer must be satisfied the offer is genuine, and IRCC’s genuineness instructions, updated September 17, 2026, tell officers to send a procedural fairness letter naming which of the four genuineness factors concerns them and to require that the employer supply evidence directly to IRCC within 15 days. The consequence is stated without hedging: “If an employer does not respond to the request for information, the officer should review the application with the information at their disposal, and if they are not satisfied that the offer is genuine, they should refuse the work permit application because not all of the requirements of R200 have been met.” A silent employer is a refused worker. If you are reading this while waiting on a file, it is worth asking your employer today whether anything arrived from IRCC.

Does a 15 day window on the employer’s desk seem fair to the worker whose permit depends on it? Tell us what you think in the comments.

LMIA exempt does not mean paperwork exempt

An LMIA exemption removes the labour market test. It does not remove the employer from the process, and this is the most common misunderstanding we see.

Before you apply, the Canadian employer must create and submit the offer of employment in the Employer Portal and pay a $230 employer compliance fee. They then receive a seven digit offer of employment number that they must give you, and you enter it on your application. IRCC’s guidance for employers hiring under the IMP sets out both steps, and it was last updated April 23, 2026.

Two exceptions are worth knowing. Employers hiring someone who already holds an open work permit do not submit an offer or pay the fee at all, which is why spousal and bridging permits feel so much lighter. And some employer categories are separately exempt from the portal or the fee.

There is a timing trap inside this. The genuineness instructions confirm that for International Mobility Program files “the offer is not reviewed until the work permit application has been submitted.” An offer sitting in the portal has not been approved by anyone. It has simply been filed.

If one of the lines above made you unsure which code your employer actually filed under, that is a thirty minute question rather than a research project: ask Ansari Immigration’s licensed RCIC directly.

Book a consultation ($80, 30 min)

What changed in 2026

Three September 2026 updates matter to anyone filing under these codes now.

On September 21, 2026, IRCC rewrote the contractual service supplier and independent professional instructions for CETA, the Canada-UK agreement and the Canada-Korea agreement. IRCC describes the work as updates to improve readability and provide additional clarity, including improved language under the eligibility criteria, rather than a change of rule. What the clarified CETA page now says plainly is worth quoting, because it closes a workaround many applicants still believe in: a person who has reached the “12-month cumulative cap within a 24-month period is not entitled to an additional period of authorized stay under the category until the 24-month period has elapsed, even if the second contract involves a different Canadian entity. The cumulative limit applies to the individual, not the number of contracts or Canadian enterprises.” Signing with a different Canadian client does not restart the clock. The same page confirms that only time physically worked inside Canada counts toward the cap, and that the category “does not allow self-employment in Canada.”

On September 17, 2026, the genuineness instructions were updated with the procedural fairness machinery described above.

On September 23, 2026, the exemption code list itself was refreshed. IRCC’s program delivery update log also records a September 25, 2026 change to the guidance on Quebec Selection Certificate holders in Quebec under the International Mobility Program, which is code A73, and a September 18, 2026 update to the employer-specific work permit and employer compliance inspection instructions. If you are filing under any of those, read the instruction rather than a summary of it.

Where the official sources are silent, or disagree

Two gaps are worth naming honestly, because neither is addressed on the pages most people land on.

The first is C12. It is still everywhere in circulation, including on law firm and consultant pages, even though IRCC replaced it on December 15, 2022. The exemption code list does set out the mapping, in a column headed “LMIA exemption code (December 14 and before),” and the page carries a note that several codes changed on that date. What IRCC did not publish is a separate bulletin announcing the retirement, which is probably why the old code has outlived it by four years. If you hold an older permit issued under C12, that does not invalidate it. It does mean a new application should be filed under C61, C62 or C63.

The second is that the exemption code instructions are not law. Every one of those pages carries the same line: it “contains policy, procedures and guidance used by IRCC staff” and is posted “as a courtesy to stakeholders.” The caps, the 51 percent threshold and the wage floors are administrative policy, which is why they can be rewritten in a September change log without a regulatory amendment. The Regulations themselves, R204 and R205, say nothing about any of it.

A successful entrepreneur standing confidently in front of their established business in Canada, with a small Canadian flag displayed prominently.

There is also a local note worth making. Francophone Mobility, code C16, is one of the fastest moving categories in this set, and British Columbia is a significant destination for it despite having a much smaller francophone population than Ontario. For Vancouver employers who have been told the only route to a foreign hire is an LMIA, that is often untrue.

Frequently asked questions about the international mobility program

Who is eligible for the International Mobility Program?

You are eligible for the International Mobility Program if your situation matches one of its roughly one hundred LMIA exemption codes, which cover trade agreement transfers, intra-company transfers, business owners, spouses of skilled workers and students, bridging permits for people already in the permanent residence queue, and several other categories. Eligibility is decided code by code, not by occupation or nationality, so the first step is identifying which code applies to you and then reading that code’s own criteria.

What is the International Mobility Program in Canada?

The International Mobility Program is the group of work permit categories under sections 204 to 208 of the Immigration and Refugee Protection Regulations that let a Canadian employer hire a foreign worker without first obtaining a Labour Market Impact Assessment. It exists because Canada has decided these categories serve a broader interest, such as honouring a trade agreement or attracting a significant economic benefit, that outweighs the usual requirement to test the local labour market first.

How do I qualify for the IMP?

To qualify for the IMP you must meet the criteria of a specific exemption code and your employer must complete their side of the process first. For most employer-specific codes that means the employer submits an offer of employment through the Employer Portal, pays the $230 employer compliance fee, and gives you the seven digit offer of employment number before you apply. Open work permit codes such as C41 and A75 do not require those employer steps.

Is an LMIA exempt work permit easier to get than an LMIA based one?

An LMIA exempt work permit removes the labour market test but not the scrutiny, so it is faster rather than easier. The officer still assesses whether the job offer is genuine under R200(5), whether you meet the code’s own criteria, and whether you will leave Canada at the end of your authorised stay. Refusals under these codes are common and usually turn on evidence or administrative errors rather than on the labour market.

How long can I stay in Canada as an intra-company transferee?

An intra-company transferee in an executive or senior managerial role can stay a maximum of seven years in total, and a specialized knowledge worker a maximum of five years. Those caps are cumulative across the intra-company categories and across both the significant benefit and free trade agreement routes, and the only way to reset them is to complete another full year of full-time employment with the enterprise outside Canada.

Can I use the same LMIA exemption number on a second application?

No, an exemption number that has already been attached to a work permit application cannot be reused on a later one, even if the first application was refused and the employer paid the fee. The Federal Court confirmed this in Famugbode v. Canada, 2026 FC 348, where both the work permit and the restoration application were refused on that ground. Your employer must file a fresh offer of employment and pay the $230 fee again.

Does an approved International Mobility Program permit guarantee my extension?

No, an extension under the International Mobility Program is assessed from scratch and the officer deciding it is not bound by the earlier approval. In Nguyen v. Canada, 2025 FC 143, a business owner’s C11 extension was refused because the current evidence no longer established a significant benefit to Canada, and his spouse’s open work permit was refused as a direct consequence of his refusal.

Does the International Mobility Program lead to permanent residence?

The International Mobility Program does not itself grant permanent residence, but the Canadian work experience it produces is what many permanent residence streams are built on. Work under many of these codes can count toward the Canadian Experience Class, though not automatically: the experience must be paid, in TEER 0, 1, 2 or 3, and gained while authorised to work as a temporary resident. Self-employment does not count, which matters if you are in Canada on C11 running your own business, and neither does work done while studying full-time, including co-op terms.

LMIA Exempt Work Permit in Canada: Who Qualifies and How to Apply (2026): The eligibility side of the same question, covering who can work without a labour market impact assessment.
Types of Work Permits in Canada 2026: Open vs Employer-Specific, LMIA-Exempt, PGWP and BOWP Compared: Where every named Canadian work permit sits in the two legal categories.
Work Permit Refusal Canada: What Zavala 2026 FC 660 Says About Dual Intent and Compliance History: How officers weigh intent and past compliance when a work permit is refused.

Get the code right before you file

Clients regularly come to us after an employer filed the offer of employment under whichever code looked closest, and the refusal arrives months later over a cap or a threshold nobody checked. An Ansari Immigration file review starts where officers start: the code, the criteria behind it, and whether the employer’s side was completed properly. That is the review a licensed RCIC does, and it is cheaper than a second application.

Why work with Ansari Immigration

Flat fees quoted upfront, from $750 for an open work permit, with additional family members quoted separately. Every Ansari Immigration file is handled personally by the firm’s licensed RCIC, regulated by CICC: all forms, IRCC correspondence, webforms and follow-ups included, with direct access to your consultant throughout. Practising since 2019, and teaching immigration law at three colleges.

If you are weighing a work permit route now, or looking further ahead at Express Entry once the Canadian experience is banked, a 30 minute consultation ($80) is where that gets sorted. And if something here left you unsure, ask in the comments: keep it general, and for advice on your specific situation use a consultation.