Here is a sentence that causes a good deal of expensive trouble: “Once I buy the business, I can get my status.” It is a very natural assumption. A person has savings, a plan to open a logistics company near the Highway 410 corridor or to take over a restaurant on Queen Street, and they intend to hire local people. Surely the country wants that?
In general it does, but Canadian immigration law does not work that way. Owning shares in an Ontario corporation, signing a commercial lease, and hiring staff are business steps. None of them gives the owner a right to enter, live, or work in Canada. The two tracks run separately, and an entrepreneur who gets them out of order can end up holding a lease and a loan with no lawful way to run the company they have paid for.
This article is general information, not legal advice. The entrepreneur side of the immigration system has been in unusual flux, with programs paused or closed and replacements promised, so anything here needs to be confirmed with IRCC and the Ontario government on the day you are making a decision.
Business Ownership and Status Are Separate
A foreign national can generally own shares in an Ontario or federal corporation. You do not usually need to be a Canadian to incorporate, and a corporation is its own legal person. Our business formation page covers that side.
Owning something, however, is different from working in it. Under Canadian immigration law, day-to-day hands-on involvement in your own company is generally treated as work and normally requires authorization. A visitor may do limited business activities, such as attending meetings or negotiating a contract, but cannot just open the doors of a Brampton store and begin serving customers. The same goes for someone on a study permit or an employer-specific work permit whose conditions do not cover their own company.
So the question to start with is not “how do I set up a business?” but “under what authority will I be in Canada, and what does that authority let me do?”
Federal Programs: Closed or Paused
For a long time, an entrepreneur would first look at two federal permanent residence programs. Neither is available to a founder starting today.
The Start-up Visa Program. This route depended on the support of a designated venture capital fund, angel group, or business incubator. IRCC stopped accepting new applications after December 31, 2025, with a limited exception for people who already held a valid commitment from 2025 and applied by June 30, 2026. IRCC’s page describes the program as paused and closed to all other applications. The related work permit also stopped taking new applications, except for certain extensions.
The Self-Employed Persons Program. This program was never a general business route. It was aimed at people with relevant experience in cultural activities or athletics who could make a significant contribution to those fields in Canada. It is also paused, until further notice.
IRCC has said it intends to launch a targeted pilot program for immigrant entrepreneurs. A founder should not build a plan around it until it has published actual rules. If you see a website confidently explaining the requirements of a pilot that IRCC has not yet published, treat that with caution. For the same reason, anyone selling a “guaranteed” spot in a future entrepreneur program should be avoided.
Ontario’s Provincial Route
Ontario once had an Entrepreneur stream under the Ontario Immigrant Nominee Program (OINP). It is not an available option. The OINP has gone through a redesign, described as the first of two phases, and the program’s main page says that the Ontario Workforce Priority stream has launched and other streams are closed.
The Workforce Priority stream is focused on people with job offers and certain other categories, including self-employed physicians. It is not a general route for founders. Ontario’s published update does not describe an entrepreneur stream, and it gives no detail on the scope or timing of the second phase. Watch the Ontario site, but do not make plans on the assumption that a particular stream will return.
Some other provinces and territories run their own business immigration streams. They usually require real intent to live in that province, and a person who wants to live in Brampton cannot honestly use another province’s program as a side door. Applying somewhere you do not intend to settle can create serious credibility problems.
Entrepreneur Work Permits
With permanent residence programs closed, the temporary side receives more attention. The regulations allow a work permit without an LMIA where the work would create or maintain significant social, cultural, or economic benefits or opportunities for Canadians or permanent residents. That language comes from section 205(a) of the Immigration and Refugee Protection Regulations. Practitioners often refer to the version used for entrepreneurs and self-employed people by its code, C11.
This route is sometimes described as if it were simply a matter of filling in a form. It is not. It is discretionary, and the business owner has to convince an officer of the benefits they will bring to Canada. A general statement that a firm will “create jobs” is unlikely to go very far. Officers tend to want a credible business plan, proof of funds and of the money’s source, relevant experience, and specifics on who will be hired and when. Owners should expect questions about how much of the business they hold, and why this business needs them in particular.
An important limit is that this is temporary status. A work permit does not automatically lead to permanent residence, and an officer has to believe the person will leave when their authorized stay ends, even where they also hope to become a permanent resident later. The dual intent concept can accommodate that hope, but it needs careful handling.
There are other possible temporary options depending on your background:
- Trade agreement investors and traders. Citizens of some countries with trade agreements with Canada may have routes for those who invest substantially or carry on significant trade.
- Intra-company transfers. Someone who has worked for an existing foreign company may be able to transfer to a real Canadian branch, subsidiary, or affiliate, including in some cases to start a new office. This requires a real, operating business abroad.
- Owner employed by the company. Where a person owns a meaningful share of a Canadian company and seeks an LMIA-based permit, an officer can look closely at whether the job is real and whether the application is an attempt to create status. These files draw extra scrutiny.
Where Permanent Residence Might Come From
Without a dedicated program, founders need to examine the general routes. Some of them are less friendly to entrepreneurs than people expect.
Express Entry’s Canadian Experience Class is one example. IRCC is clear that self-employed work in Canada generally cannot be counted as qualifying Canadian experience, with a limited exception for some physicians under a temporary public policy. A founder who runs a successful Brampton company for three years, on the assumption that this will earn them permanent residence, can be disappointed to learn the experience does not count for that class. This should be understood before you structure your role.
Other options to look at, depending on your history, include:
- Foreign skilled work experience under the Federal Skilled Worker Program.
- Family sponsorship by a spouse or common-law partner who is a citizen or permanent resident, if the relationship is genuine.
- Employment for someone else, rather than yourself, which would count as Canadian experience in the normal way.
A person can legitimately decide that their spouse, who holds a skilled job, should be the principal applicant and that the founder should enter as an accompanying family member. For some couples, this may be the simplest route, even if it is not the first one they thought of.
The Problem With Buying First
Consider a hypothetical. A foreign buyer signs a purchase agreement for a small Brampton convenience store, assumes the lease, and pays the seller with savings from overseas. They then find out that no program fits. The lease has personal guarantee terms, the staff expect wages, and the buyer can’t lawfully run the store day to day. If they do so anyway, working without authorization can damage any later application.
A much better order is to get immigration advice before you sign. Where you are determined to proceed, a purchase agreement can sometimes include conditions or timing that give you room to deal with the immigration side, and the purchase and sale of businesses work is best coordinated with immigration planning. A lender or landlord may also want to know about your status, and any personal guarantee could survive even when your plan does not.
Be wary, too, of arrangements where a person “buys” a job. Paying an employer in exchange for a job offer or an LMIA is prohibited and exposes both the worker and the employer to serious consequences. Offers that look like this circulate in the Greater Toronto Area, and some are described as investments or partnerships to disguise what they really are. Similarly, a business created mostly to support a work permit, with no real operations, may be treated as a misrepresentation.
Keeping Good Records From Day One
If you have a lawful route, prepare as though someone will audit you, because someone might. Keep the business plan updated as events unfold, and retain proof of investment and how the money moved. Have payroll records for the people you employ, licences from the City of Brampton where required, and tax filings. Permit extensions often depend on showing that what you promised actually happened. An officer who was told three hires would follow within a year will want to know whether they did, and why not if they did not.
Tax residency and immigration status can also pull in different directions. A person can become a resident for tax purposes while still having only temporary immigration status, and moving money between countries can have consequences. Get accounting advice alongside legal advice.
Questions Worth Answering Before You Spend
Before putting down a deposit or forming a company for immigration reasons, try to answer these:
- What gives you the right to be in Canada today, and on what date does that right end?
- Does your current status let you work in the business, or only own it?
- Which specific, open program or permit are you relying on? Can you point to the page on an official site?
- What happens to the business and your investment if the permit is refused?
- Would you still want to own this business if it never led to permanent residence?
That last question is often the most helpful. Business decisions made purely to get immigration status tend to do badly on both counts. A sound business plan that you would pursue anyway, combined with an honest assessment of your realistic immigration route, is a much stronger place to start. If you want to look at your situation in detail, our immigration law page outlines how we can help. No one can promise an outcome here, and programs in this area can change quickly, so verify everything on IRCC’s site and on Ontario’s OINP page.