What are the four genuineness tests for a work permit?

Under subsection 200(5) of the Regulations the employer must be actively engaged in the business, the job must be consistent with the reasonable employment needs of that business, the employer must be able to fulfil the terms of the offer for the whole permit, and the employer and anyone who recruited the worker must have complied with federal and provincial employment and recruitment laws. All four must be met.

Does a positive LMIA prove the offer is genuine?

No. A positive LMIA means ESDC is presumed to have found the offer genuine, but IRCC must still be satisfied on every requirement of section R200, including genuineness, and the border officer checks the four tests again when the permit is issued.

Do the tests apply to LMIA-exempt work permits?

Yes. Every employer-specific permit under the International Mobility Program, from intra-company transfers to CUSMA professionals, Francophone Mobility and PNP-supported permits, is assessed against the same four tests. Open work permits are not.

What documents will the employer be asked for?

Depending on the test in doubt: confirmation of the CRA business number, licences and permits, income and tax documents and trading contracts; the T4 Summary of Remuneration Paid, T2 Schedule 100 and 125 or a T2125, and a workers' compensation clearance letter; and for compliance, details of any past orders and the recruiter's provincial licence.

How long does the employer have to reply?

15 days from the procedural fairness letter, or the office standard if one is set. The reply goes directly from the employer to IRCC, with the documents requested and a signed acknowledgment. IRCC then allows a further 30 days for the reply to reach the file before deciding.

Can I, the worker, reply on my employer's behalf?

It will not help. Information provided by or requested from the foreign national is not "provided by the employer" and cannot be inspected for accuracy; officers use it only to confirm you understand the job. The evidence has to come from the employer.

What if the recruiter was not licensed?

Where the province requires recruiters of foreign workers to be licensed and the recruiter is not, IRCC can refuse the permit for non-compliance on that ground alone. IRCC names Manitoba and Alberta as examples; Ontario, British Columbia, Saskatchewan, Quebec, New Brunswick and Nova Scotia also license recruiters.

Can genuineness be raised at the airport after my permit is approved?

Yes. If new information arrives after the letter of introduction but before the permit is issued, the border officer can ask the employer for more and must refuse if the four tests are no longer met, even where a positive LMIA or an International Mobility Workers Unit opinion exists.

Is Your Job Offer Genuine? IRCC's 4 Tests (2026)

Most people think of the LMIA as the hard part of an employer-specific work permit. It is the expensive part. It is not the last time anyone asks whether the job is real. On 17 September 2026 IRCC updated the instructions its officers follow when they decide whether an offer of employment is genuine, and those instructions apply to every employer-specific permit: LMIA-based permits under the Temporary Foreign Worker Program and LMIA-exempt permits under the International Mobility Program alike. If you are the worker, this is the part of the process you cannot see and cannot answer for. If you are the employer, it is the part you have to be ready for before the letter arrives.

What changed on 17 September 2026

The legal test is not new. Subsection 200(5) of the Immigration and Refugee Protection Regulations has required officers to assess genuineness for years. What IRCC has done is set out, in one place and in unusual detail, how officers are to run that assessment: which tabs and records they check, when they must dig deeper, which documents they should ask employers for, and how the employer is to answer. The practical effect is that the assessment becomes more uniform and more evidence-driven. An offer that would have sailed through on a well-written contract now gets tested against tax filings.

The four tests

An officer must be satisfied on all four. If the offer fails any one of them, the work permit is refused because the requirements of section R200 are not met.

1. The employer is actively engaged in the business

The business must legally exist and be able to show that it actively sells goods or services from a physical address in Canada. A company with no employees that exists in name only, set up to bring workers in, does not qualify. Officers are told to look harder when the business is less than a year old, when an internet search turns up bad news or a closed business, when earlier verifications on the employer went badly, or when the employer appears on IRCC’s list of non-compliant employers.

IRCC’s own contrast makes the standard plain. A Toronto restaurant open six years with 36 staff, hiring a sous-chef: actively engaged. A five-month-old meal-delivery business run from home with two staff, no T4s because it is too new, no lease because it operates from the owner’s house, and a few produce receipts from last week: not enough. IRCC is careful to say the home address is not the problem in itself. A business selling handmade goods or digital services can reasonably run from home; a restaurant usually cannot. What matters is evidence that the business is trading.

2. The offer is consistent with the reasonable employment needs of the business

The job has to be one you would expect in a business of that type and size, and the employer has to be able to explain why it needs someone in that role. IRCC gives three examples of offers that fail this test: a catering company hiring a roofer; a company with ten employees offering its sixth supervisor position in a year; and a single franchise restaurant hiring a full-time business analyst, a role that belongs, if anywhere, at head office. If the officer is unsure, the employer is asked to explain the role in its operations. An employer that declines to explain does not get the permit.

3. The employer can fulfil the terms of the offer

This is the test that has changed most in practice, because IRCC now names the documents. The employer must show it can provide the hours, wage, benefits and working conditions in the offer for the whole length of the permit. To test that, officers can ask for:

the T4 Summary of Remuneration Paid, which shows the total payroll last year and therefore the size of the business;
the T2 Schedule 100 and 125 for a corporation, which show its financial position, operating income and retained earnings;
a T2125 or equivalent financial statement for a sole proprietorship or partnership;
a workers’ compensation clearance letter confirming the employer is registered and in good standing; and
where the work is contracted from a foreign company, the business contracts that show future income and the licences that show the business may provide the service.

The negative example IRCC uses is a new gourmet meal-delivery business whose owner declared a profit of $10,000 last year and is offering a foreign worker $45,000, with nothing else on file. A bank balance does not answer that question. Payroll and tax records do.

4. Compliance with employment and recruitment law

The employer, and anyone who recruited the worker on its behalf, must have complied, and keep complying, with federal and provincial laws on employment and recruitment in the province where the worker will be. Past violations count whether the workers affected were Canadians, permanent residents or foreign nationals, and the laws in question cover employer registration, consultants and recruiters, workplace safety, wages and benefits. A listing on a provincial violators page does not automatically bar an employer, since not every penalty is a ban, and officers must make further inquiries before refusing on this ground.

One point is absolute. Where the province requires recruiters or employment agencies of foreign nationals to be licensed, and the recruiter who acted for the employer is not, the permit can be refused for non-compliance on that basis alone. IRCC names Manitoba’s Worker Recruitment and Protection Act and Alberta’s Fair Trading Act as examples. Ontario, British Columbia, Saskatchewan, Quebec, New Brunswick and Nova Scotia also license recruiters. If someone was paid to find you the job, or to find the employer a worker, that person’s licence is now part of your file.

How the officer decides

For an LMIA-exempt permit, the employer submits the offer through the Employer Portal before you apply, and the offer is not looked at until your work permit application arrives. Every field has to be complete. If you upload a contract or letter of employment, the officer compares it to what the employer entered; the two should match line for line.

For an LMIA-based permit, the contract and the positive LMIA go in with your application. IRCC treats a positive LMIA as a presumption that ESDC found the offer genuine, but the officer must still be satisfied on every requirement of section R200, and can reach a different conclusion on the evidence in front of them.

In either case, if the officer relies on anything you would not know about, such as a company search or a news article, they must tell you what it is and give you a chance to respond before finding the offer is not genuine. Their searches, with the URL and date, go in the case notes; the material goes in the file.

The procedural fairness letter: 15 days, employer to IRCC

When an officer has a concern, they send a procedural fairness letter to the applicant. It must say which of the four tests is in doubt and why, and it must tell you that the employer should provide the evidence directly to IRCC within 15 days, or the office’s own standard where one exists. The usual route is the IRCC webform, and the employer is asked to include your name and date of birth exactly as in your passport, your application number, the documents requested, a copy of the letter if possible, a note saying the information is being provided at IRCC’s request, and a signed letter acknowledging that IRCC asked for the documents and that the employer is providing them to support your application. The officer then sets a follow-up date 30 days past the deadline to allow the reply to reach the file.

Two things follow from that. First, you cannot answer the letter for your employer. The compliance regulations are explicit that information provided by or requested from the foreign national is not “provided by the employer”, cannot be inspected for accuracy, and may be used only to confirm that you understand the job. Second, silence is a refusal. If the employer does not respond, the officer decides on what is already in the file, and if that does not satisfy them, the permit is refused.

At the border

Approval is provisional until the permit is printed. If information reaches IRCC or CBSA after your letter of introduction is issued that suggests the offer no longer meets the four tests, the border services officer can ask the employer for more before issuing the permit, and must refuse if the tests are not met. That is true even where a positive LMIA exists, and even where the International Mobility Workers Unit has given an opinion on an LMIA-exempt offer. The four tests are checked again at the port of entry.

What to do now

Employers: before the application is filed, put last year’s T4 Summary, the T2 Schedule 100 and 125 or T2125, a current workers’ compensation clearance letter, your CRA business number confirmation and your business licence in one folder, with a one-page note on what the role does and why you need it. If a recruiter was involved, get a copy of their provincial licence. That folder is the answer to any letter that comes.
Workers: ask your employer whether those documents exist. If the business is under a year old, runs from home, or is offering a wage that its last tax return could not obviously carry, the offer will be questioned, and the answer has to come from them, not you.
Either: run the offer through our job offer genuineness checker. It scores the four tests, lists the documents by test, and tells you what to fix before anything is filed.

See our LMIA work permit guide for the four tests in the context of the full LMIA process, and every work permit route for the alternatives. If a procedural fairness letter has already arrived, the 15 days are running: contact us today to discuss your case.

Source: IRCC, Assessing the genuineness of the offer of employment on a work permit application, updated 17 September 2026, and the Immigration and Refugee Protection Regulations, ss. 200(5), 203(1), 209.11, 209.2 and 209.3. Checked 19 September 2026. General information, not legal advice.

Is your job offer genuine? The four tests IRCC now applies to every work permit.