Skip to main content
Call 647-948-7200 hello@chkimmigration.ca
New rule

Employer-specific work permit? Since 17 September 2026 IRCC applies four genuineness tests to every job offer, LMIA or not.

Check your offer

Extensions · Maintained status · Restoration

Extend Your Status in Canada — can you keep working while you wait?

Filing before your permit expires lets you stay. What you may do while the decision is pending is a separate question — and it depends on which permit you hold, and whether you leave the country.

Check my rights Fees by permit
  1. Permit validFile the extension any time before the date.
  2. Expiry dateThe fork.
  3. Filed before itMaintained status: you stay, under the same conditions.
  4. Not filedOut of status. 90 days to apply to restore.
  5. Day 91No power to extend the deadline.

Government fees, 2026Reviewed August 2026

Work permit — incl. extension
$155
Open work permit holder fee
$100
Study permit — incl. extension
$150
Extend as a visitor
$100
Restoration — plus the permit fee
$246.25+

Biometrics add $85 where required, though they are usually not repeated for in-Canada extensions if still valid. Confirm on the official fee list.

Maintained status

What you may do while the decision is pending. Four answers, by permit.

Maintained status is not a permit and it is not an upgrade — it continues the conditions you already had. The most expensive misunderstandings on this page are people who kept working when they shouldn't have, and people who left Canada assuming they could pick up where they left off.

02Did you file the extension before it expired?

03Are you still inside Canada?

By permit type

What each extension actually turns on.

The fee is the smallest part. What decides the outcome is whether the basis for the permit still exists on the day you file.

  • $155per person

    Work permit — employer-specific

    Tied to one employer, one role, one location. A new employer means a new permit, not an amendment.

    What it turns on

    The renewal basis has to still exist: a valid LMIA, or the exemption code you were issued under.

  • $255per person

    Work permit — open

    Any employer, with limited exceptions. Includes spousal open permits and post-graduation permits.

    What it turns on

    Open permits add the 100 holder fee. Eligibility for a second one is where most of these fail.

  • $150per person

    Study permit

    Extended when your program runs past the permit's expiry, or you move to a new one.

    What it turns on

    Enrolment, academic progression, and funds. Officers now look hard at the source of those funds.

  • $100per person

    Visitor record

    Extends your stay as a visitor. Authorises no work and no study.

    What it turns on

    Purpose, funds for the period requested, and a credible end date.

Extending purely as a visitor? That has its own rules, its own 90-day restoration window and a fee figure most sites get wrong — see the visitor record page.

A closed passport beside a blank desk calendar and a red pencil on a bright desk by a window over the Toronto waterfront

What changed · newest first

Four rule changes that reshaped in-Canada extensions.

  1. C20 reciprocal employment tightened

    Officer instructions now require the worker to be currently employed by the company abroad. Hiring someone who would begin employment on arrival no longer fits the exemption, which closes a route a number of employers had been using.

  2. Restoration guidance rewritten

    Workers and students who lose status may now restore as visitors, stated explicitly. Restoration cannot be granted at a port of entry. And an application returned as incomplete does not create maintained status — the 90-day clock still runs from the original expiry.

  3. Flagpoling is closed

    You can no longer drive to the border and return with a new work or study permit. Applications go through the online portal, where employer-specific permits have been running roughly four to six months. Narrow carve-outs remain for CUSMA and other free-trade professionals and for certain international truck drivers.

  4. Visitors can no longer apply for work permits inside Canada

    The temporary public policy that allowed it ended and has not been renewed. A visitor who finds a job must now apply from outside Canada unless a separate exemption applies.

Where files go wrong

Four mistakes that cost status. All of them avoidable.

  1. Filing in the final week

    Technically on time is still on time — but with processing measured in months, a late filing leaves you on maintained status far longer than necessary, unable to change employers.

  2. Leaving Canada mid-application

    Maintained status does not survive departure. You may be able to return as a visitor, but you cannot resume work or study until the new permit is issued.

  3. Assuming an incomplete return is a filing

    If IRCC returns the application without processing it, you were never on maintained status, and your restoration window has been running the whole time.

  4. Changing employers on an employer-specific permit

    Working for a new employer before the new permit is issued is unauthorised work. It is one of the hardest findings to recover from.

Book a consultation Check my rights first

Related

If your situation sits elsewhere.

Next step

Tell us your expiry date and what you hold.

We will confirm whether you extend or restore, what you may lawfully do while it is pending, and how fast the file has to move. Brampton, London, or remotely across Canada.

Book a consultation

Reviewed August 2026 — general information only, not legal advice, and no consultant–client relationship is created by reading this page. Maintained status depends on the conditions of your existing permit; a condition on your document overrides anything shown here. Fees and processing times change — confirm on IRCC's fee list and the processing-times tool before filing.

Good to know

Extensions, answered.

The questions we hear most on this topic, answered by our consultants. The full list is in the Help Centre.

How do I extend a visitor stay in Canada?
Apply for a visitor record before your current status ends. A visitor record extends how long you may stay, but it is not a visa, so on its own it does not let you re-enter Canada after leaving. If your status has already lapsed, restoration may still be available for a limited window.
When should I apply to extend?
Before your current status expires — ideally thirty days or more ahead. Applying in time is what gives you maintained status; applying late gives you nothing.
What is maintained status?
If you apply to extend the same type of status before it expires, you can generally stay and continue the same activity under the same conditions until a decision is made. It ends if you leave Canada or the application is refused.
My status already expired. Can I fix it?
Possibly. Restoration may be available within ninety days of losing status if you still meet the requirements of the status you held. You must stop working or studying immediately in the meantime, and the window is strict.
Can I switch from visitor to worker or student inside Canada?
Sometimes, depending on the category and current public policies. It is not automatic and it is not available to everyone, so confirm before you make plans that depend on it.

More questions on this topic are answered in the Help Centre.

Status review

Can you extend or restore your status?

Send a few details. A licensed RCIC reads your profile personally, then replies with the routes that genuinely fit, the ones that do not, and the consultation fee and next available times.

  1. 01Read personally by a CICC-licensed consultant
  2. 02A written shortlist of the programs you qualify for
  3. 03Fee-based; the fee and times come by reply

CHK Immigration Services, Regulated Canadian Immigration Consultant (CICC). Offices in Brampton and London, Ontario. Submitting this form does not create a client–consultant relationship; IRCC makes all final decisions. Prefer to talk first? Call 647-948-7200 or book a paid consultation.