Canada / Business
Canada's Start-up Visa Is Paused
IRCC stopped taking applications on June 30, 2026 and promised a new entrepreneur pilot instead. Here is where that leaves American founders.
If you came here to apply, you can't right now. Canada closed the Start-up Visa to new applicants at the end of 2025 and paused it outright on June 30, 2026, with roughly 43,000 applications still in the queue. Ottawa says a smaller, pickier entrepreneur pilot is coming. Until it lands, there are still real ways for an American to start a business in Canada, and one of them exists only because you hold a U.S. passport.
Program status, checked September 15, 2026
IRCC's own page reads "Status: Paused." Designated organizations stopped issuing commitment certificates after December 31, 2025, and holders of a valid 2025 certificate had until June 30, 2026 to file. Anything accepted before that date is still being processed. No reopening date has been published.
What happened
Ottawa hit pause on its own startup program
The Start-up Visa promised founders permanent residence in about six months. By late 2025 the queue had passed 40,000 people and IRCC's wait-time tool was quoting new applicants more than ten years.
So on December 19, 2025, the immigration department stopped the intake. Start-up work permits ended that day, applications ended on December 31, and holders of a 2025 letter of support got six months to file. When that window closed, the program went dark.
The good news is that nothing already filed was thrown out. IRCC says it will keep working through the files it has, and founders already in Canada on a start-up permit go toward the front of the line.
The numbers behind the pause
June 30, 2026
Last day IRCC accepted a Start-up Visa application
no new intake since
500
Federal business immigration spots for 2026
cut from 1,000 under the previous plan
43,000
Applications still sitting in the queue
IRCC says it will keep processing them
$54,000
What an angel group had to commit
CAD 75,000, or CAD 200,000 from a fund
The old rulebook
What the program asked for, and probably will ask again
A Canadian backer had to say yes first
IRCC never judged your business idea. A designated organization did: a venture capital fund, an angel group or a business incubator, picked off a public list of more than 70. Once one wrote you a letter of support, the innovation question was settled.
The money was theirs, not yours
There was no personal investment requirement. A fund had to commit CAD 200,000 (about $144,000), an angel group CAD 75,000 (about $54,000). An incubator put in nothing and simply accepted you into its program.
You still had to arrive with cash
One person needed CAD 15,263 (about $10,980) in settlement money, a family of four CAD 28,362 (about $20,400), none of it borrowed.
The rest was gentler than people expect
Canadian Language Benchmark 5 in speaking, listening, reading and writing. Up to five founders per business, each holding at least 10 percent of the voting rights, with the founders and their backer together holding more than half.
- Quebec was always carved out. The program covered businesses everywhere else in Canada.
- Each designated organization could only send IRCC 10 group applications a year, a cap in force since April 2024.
Start-up Visa
For entrepreneurs with a viable business idea supported by a designated Canadian organization. Leads to permanent residence if the business is established in Canada.
- Government cost
- $1,575
- Processing time
- ~365 days
- Timeline
- 12 months or more
- Difficulty
- Moderate
Key requirements
- Qualifying business
- Letter of support from designated organization
- Proof of funds
- Clean criminal record
- Medical exam
About that data card
The card above pulls from our database, and two of its numbers have aged out. The government fee has been CAD 2,495 (about $1,795) for one adult since April 30, 2026. The 12 month timeline belongs to a version of this program that stopped existing years ago. Files in the queue have been quoted anywhere from 40 months to more than a decade.
What to do now
The routes American founders are using instead
The CUSMA investor work permit
This one is yours alone. Under the Canada United States Mexico Agreement, a U.S. citizen who puts substantial money into a Canadian business and comes to run it can get a work permit with no labor market test attached. There's no fixed dollar minimum; an officer weighs what you put in against what a business like yours costs to start.
U.S. citizens have to hold at least half the company, and you can ask for the permit at a border crossing or airport. It runs a year at a time and renews while the investment stands. Green card holders don't qualify because citizenship is the test.
The C11 work permit
Same idea, open to any nationality: own and run a Canadian business that brings a real benefit to Canada. IRCC tightened it in 2025 around majority ownership and temporary intent, so treat it as permission to build, not a residence plan.
A province, then permanent residence
Most provinces run their own entrepreneur streams, and that is where founders on a work permit go for status. Expect a net worth test, a real investment, and a commitment to settle in that province. Ontario shut its stream in 2026, so check before you plan around one.
Or skip the founder route
If your own resume scores well, Express Entry and the Provincial Nominee Program are open, faster and far cheaper. Plenty of people land residence on their work history and start the company after.
The backers
Where Canada's designated organizations sit
Toronto
Jobs and big-city life
Canada's largest city and financial engine, and the deepest job market in the country. It's diverse, walkable in the core, and endlessly connected, but it's also the priciest place to rent, with one-bedrooms running CAD 2,200 to 3,200. Love it if your paycheck can handle it.
Vancouver
Mountains meet the sea
Canada's West Coast anchor, where glass towers meet snow-capped peaks and the sea. The province's job engine, strong in tech and a film industry big enough to earn the 'Hollywood North' nickname. What you pay for it is rent, which rivals Toronto's for the priciest in Canada. Winters are mild but rainy.
Victoria
Mildest winters in Canada
British Columbia's capital sits on the south tip of Vancouver Island, with gardens flowering in February, a harbor full of floatplanes, and the warmest winters in the country. Vancouver is a ferry or a short flight away. Island life means island prices and island logistics.
Calgary
Gateway to the Rockies
Banff is an hour west, the city is sunny and dry, and Alberta has no provincial sales tax. The economy still rises and falls with oil, and winter is long and cold, though chinook winds bring surprise thaws. Best for outdoorsy movers with a job lined up.
Worth an hour with someone who does this daily
A paused program is exactly when advice pays for itself, because the right answer now depends on your passport, your business and how much of it already exists. These three partners work with Americans heading to Canada: a licensed consultant for the strategy, a documents specialist for the paperwork, and a U.S. tax firm, because a citizen who owns a foreign company keeps filing at home.
Master Immigration Services (Canada)
Canada Immigration
A Vancouver consultancy led by Sal Koyuncu, a regulated Canadian immigration consultant with more than 15 years on Canadian files. The first call worth making about which permit your business actually fits.
Legalize That Doc
Document Preparation
Melissa Di Nardo's team handles US and Canadian vital records, FBI background checks, apostilles and translations. Every Canadian route wants police certificates and clean paperwork, and that is the part founders underestimate.
MyExpatTaxes
U.S. Expat Tax Service
A tax practice built for Americans abroad. Worth talking to before you incorporate in Canada rather than after, since the structure you pick follows you onto your U.S. return.
Questions founders are asking right now
What can an American entrepreneur do instead?
The most American-specific route is the CUSMA investor work permit, open only to US and Mexican citizens who invest substantially in a Canadian business and come to run it. There is no fixed minimum investment, US citizens have to hold at least half the business, and Americans can apply at a port of entry. The C11 work permit covers owners of any nationality whose venture brings a real benefit to Canada. For permanent residence, provincial entrepreneur streams, Express Entry and the Provincial Nominee Program are all still open.
Can I get the Start-up Visa open work permit?
Not as a new applicant. IRCC stopped accepting applications for that optional work permit on December 19, 2025. People already in Canada holding a start-up work permit may still apply to extend it while their permanent residence application is processed.
Is Canada's Start-up Visa still open in 2026?
No. Immigration, Refugees and Citizenship Canada stopped accepting new Start-up Visa applications after December 31, 2025, and paused the program on June 30, 2026, once the last holders of 2025 letters of support had filed. IRCC's own program page now shows the status as paused, with no date for reopening.
What happens to a Start-up Visa application already in the queue?
It stays alive. IRCC has committed to keep processing applications accepted before the pause, roughly 43,000 of them. Files are worked in priority order, with applicants already in Canada on a start-up work permit moved up. Quoted waits have ranged from about 40 months to more than ten years, so anyone with a pending file should keep the business genuinely running and documented.
Did the Start-up Visa require you to invest your own money?
No, and that was the unusual part. The capital had to come from a Canadian designated organization: at least CAD 200,000 from a venture capital fund or CAD 75,000 from an angel investor group, while a business incubator could support a founder without investing anything. Applicants still had to show unborrowed settlement funds of their own, CAD 15,263 for a single person as of the last published table.
Did the Start-up Visa work in Quebec?
No. The federal Start-up Visa was for businesses outside Quebec. Quebec selects its own business immigrants under its agreement with Ottawa and runs separate entrepreneur and investor programs with their own rules, so a Montreal or Quebec City venture was never a fit for this program.
What is replacing the Canada Start-up Visa?
IRCC has said it is designing a new, targeted pilot for immigrant entrepreneurs, with details to come in 2026. As of September 2026 no program name, eligibility rules, intake size or launch date has been published. Canada's 2026 to 2028 levels plan sets federal business immigration at 500 spots a year, down from 1,000, so the replacement is expected to be much smaller and more selective.
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