While most employers need a positive Labour Market Impact Assessment (LMIA) to support your job offer for Express Entry, some jobs are LMIA-exempt.
However, LMIA-exempt job offers may not be as common as they have specific conditions and requirements.
Getting an LMIA-exempt job offer depends on the type of work you do and your employer.
Learn below when your employer does not require an LMIA and about the jobs that are LMIA-exempt.
Situations when your employer does not need an LMIA
If you meet the following requirements, your employer does not need an LMIA to support your job offer:
- You must have worked for an employer mentioned on your work permit for at least one year or have accumulated equivalent part-time experience.
- Have a valid job offer, and
- A valid work permit which is exempt from an LMIA under:
- International agreement
- Federal-provincial agreement
- “Canadian interests” category
If you meet the above requirements, you may be exempt from needing an LMIA under the below categories.
LMIA-Exempt Jobs
You may be excluded from needing an LMIA for Express Entry if your current temporary work is LMIA-exempt, mentions a specific employer or employers (for skilled trade jobs, up to two employers can make a job offer), and is:
- Part of an international agreement, such as CUSMA or GATS, and non-trade agreements. It can include professionals, traders and investors.
- It is an agreement between Canada and a province or territory, including “significant investment” projects.
- Exempt for “Canadian interests” for the following reasons:
- Providing “significant benefit“-if your employer can demonstrate that you will provide significant social, cultural, and economic benefit to Canada. This could include:
- General: such as self-employed engineers, technical workers, creative and performing artists, etc
- Workers transferred within a company, such as intra-company transferees with specialized knowledge – only those whose talents and experience will help Canada.
- Workers who are under Mobilité francophone
- Having Reciprocal employment- it allows foreign workers to get jobs in Canada while Canadians have similar opportunities in other countries
- The general category includes professional coaches and athletes working for Canadian teams.
- International Experience Canada – it is a work-abroad program for young professionals
- Individuals part of exchange programs such as visiting lecturers and professors
- Minister designated
- These include academic researchers, guest lecturers and visiting professors sponsored by a recognized federal program.
- Competitiveness and public policy
- fellows and medical residents
- Post-doctoral fellows and those who won academic awards from Canadian schools
- Religious and charity workers, excluding volunteers
- Providing “significant benefit“-if your employer can demonstrate that you will provide significant social, cultural, and economic benefit to Canada. This could include:
It is important to note that even though these jobs are exempt from LMIA, you still need a valid work permit. In addition, you must also meet the initial requirements that exempt employers from getting you an LMIA
Source: IRCC
10 New Canada Laws And Rules Taking Effect In October 2026
October 2026 brings a packed set of federal changes that will reach Canadian households, workers, seniors, patients, and taxpayers across every province and territory. Some of these rules are brand new, while others represent scheduled expiries or legislative proposals that are advancing through Parliament. This month delivers higher Old Age Security payments, a new consolidated…
5 New CRA Benefit Payments Coming In October 2026
October 2026 delivers 5 separate Canada Revenue Agency benefit payments within a single three-week window, making it one of the busiest deposit months of the entire benefit year. The first payment arrives on October 5 and the last lands on October 23, with three additional deposits scattered across the dates in between. Every one of…
2 New Canada Worker Pay Rules Coming In October 2026
2 new major worker pay rules take effect across federally regulated Canadian workplaces in October 2026, under the Canada Labour Code. The first rule targets wage gaps between employees who do substantially the same work but hold a different employment status. The second rule protects employees of federally regulated temporary help agencies from earning less…
IRCC Reveals Why Nearly 250,000 Canada PR Applications Are Waiting For Space
Nearly 250,000 Canadian permanent residence applications are waiting for admissions space under yearly immigration targets, according to IRCC’s latest inventory data released in September 2026. The bottleneck is admissions capacity: when a program’s yearly target is full, complete applications wait until space becomes available. For some applicants, that can push processing into a future year.…
New OAS Payments Coming On September 25, 2026
The next Old Age Security deposit – OAS payment is confirmed for Friday, September 25, when Service Canada will issue OAS pensions, Guaranteed Income Supplement top-ups, Allowance payments, and Allowance for the Survivor payments on the same nationwide payment date. This is the third and final deposit at the July-to-September 2026 quarterly rates, which delivered…
Canada Developing A New Express Entry Application System
Canada is building new digital infrastructure for Express Entry, and IRCC has now named the program as an early modernization priority. IRCC says the first release of its new case management platform will deliver a new Expression of Interest system for Express Entry. Express Entry candidates are also the next group targeted for IRCC’s consolidated…
7 Online Costs Newcomers To Canada Should Check Before Paying
A $9.99 subscription can look harmless until sales tax, currency conversion, or automatic renewal pushes the actual cost higher. That is easy to miss when you have just arrived in Canada and are already paying for rent, groceries, transportation, a phone plan, and perhaps remittances to family abroad. Every digital service has its own checkout…
Canada Visitor Visa Screening Tightens With 40+ Criteria Now In Play
Canada’s screening of visitor visa applicants has become more rigorous as Immigration, Refugees and Citizenship Canada discloses new details about the layered framework governing who may travel to the country. IRCC says Canada’s Visa Policy Framework relies on more than 40 criteria when evaluating whether to impose, lift, or partially lift a visa requirement for…
New CPP Payments To Be Sent Canada-Wide On September 25
Millions of retirees will receive the next Canada Pension Plan deposit, with CPP payments scheduled for Friday, September 25, according to Service Canada. The maximum CPP retirement pension for someone starting at age 65 in January 2026 is $1,507.65 per month, while the current average for new age-65 beneficiaries is $877.01 per month. CPP benefits…
How CRA Benefit Payments Actually Reach Your Bank Account
It’s payment day, at least according to the calendar on the fridge. A quick check of the banking app first thing in the morning shows nothing new, just yesterday’s balance sitting there unchanged. For anyone waiting on a CRA benefit payment, that gap between the date on paper and the number actually landing in the…
New Canada LMIA Rules Now Clarify Who Can Hire Foreign Workers
Service Canada published updated employer guidance across multiple major Temporary Foreign Worker Program streams on September 18, 2026, establishing explicit criteria for determining which entity qualifies as the employer when a Labour Market Impact Assessment application is assessed. The new guidance defines who Service Canada considers the true employer of a temporary foreign worker and…
New Canada Benefit Payments Still Coming In September 2026
10 major Canada benefit payments and assistance deposits are still coming before September ends, split evenly between 5 federal and 5 provincial programs. These benefit payments are scheduled across four dates between September 23 and September 29, covering federal pensions and seniors benefits, disability payments, and provincial income-support programs. Several of the largest federal programs,…
New Minimum Wage Increase In 5 Canadian Provinces Effective October 1
5 Canadian provinces are raising their minimum wage on October 1, 2026, delivering increases that range from 1.5% to 2.5% and putting more money into the pockets of hundreds of thousands of workers across the country. Manitoba leads the group with the largest increase both by percentage and by cents per hour, while Ontario will…
New OAS Payment Increase Coming In October 2026
Canadian seniors will receive noticeably larger Old Age Security deposits – OAS payments starting with the October 28 payment after the Government of Canada confirmed a 1.4% quarterly increase for the October to December 2026 period. This is the strongest single-quarter adjustment of the entire calendar year, surpassing the 1.2% increase that took effect in…
New Ontario List Of In-Demand Careers For 2026-2027
Immigration News Canada has compiled an updated 2026-2027 list of Ontario in-demand careers using the province’s official Explore In-Demand Careers database, following the latest investment in 40,000 new postsecondary seats for high-demand fields. Unlike rankings assembled by recruitment websites or third-party job boards, the occupations identified below are drawn from Ontario government labour market data…
New BC PWD Payment To Be Sent On September 23
British Columbia’s next Persons With Disability assistance (PWD payment) is confirmed for Wednesday, September 23, 2026. This deposit covers October 2026 living expenses and will land in bank accounts for recipients enrolled in direct deposit. A single person holding the Persons with Disabilities designation can receive up to $1,483.50 per month, combining the $983.50 support…
CAD or USD? How Online Platforms Display Amounts in Canada
An online casino balance of $100 may seem clear, but it leaves an important question unanswered: which dollars? For someone settling into life in Canada, the familiar symbol can conceal an unfamiliar unit. A Canadian-facing website, an English-language page, and a Canadian address do not, by themselves, identify an account’s currency. The amount needs a…
Canada Visa Refusal Overturned After Officer Ignored Key Evidence
A new Federal Court of Canada ruling has set aside a Canadian visa refusal after finding that the immigration officer failed to meaningfully address significant financial and family ties, evidence that directly contradicted the stated reasons for refusing the application. In Kumar v. Canada (Citizenship and Immigration), 2026 FC 1138, Justice Azmudeh of the Federal…
New Ontario Rent Rules Effective September 21
5 days from now, Ontario tenants and landlords will operate under a fundamentally different set of rental rules. The second wave of amendments under Bill 60 and Bill 97 takes effect on September 21, 2026, introducing shorter eviction timelines, a codified definition of habitually late rent, financial prerequisites for raising certain issues at hearings, and…
Deportations From Canada Surge For Indian Nationals In 2026
Canada has already enforced more than 12,000 immigration removals in the first seven months of 2026, and one nationality stands dramatically ahead of all others on the latest Canada Border Services Agency enforcement list. A total of 3,717 Indian nationals were removed from Canada between January 1 and July 31, 2026, according to CBSA’s most…
Something went wrong. Please refresh the page and/or try again.