HomeCanada’s Entrepreneur & Business Immigration Programs

You must:

• have a qualifying business;
• have a letter of support from a designated organization;
• meet the language requirements; and
• have enough money to settle and live in Canada before you make money from your business; and
• meet admissibility requirements to enter Canada.

Your letter of support must meet the following requirements:

• a designated angel investor group confirming that is investing at least $75,000 or many angel investor groups investing a total of $75,000.
• a designated venture capital fund confirming an investment of at least $200,000 or many venture capital funds investing a combined total of at least $200,000.
• a designated business incubator confirming the acceptance of a qualifying business into its program.

Ghasemi Law generally recommends against applying through the start-up visa program. A total of 1000 permanent resident visas are issued under the Federal Business Investors program each year from 2021 – 2023. The federal business investors program includes both the start-up visa stream and the self-employed persons stream. As start-up visas have lax requirements for language ability, education, previous experience, and available funds, the competition for this stream is fierce.

• The Self-employed Persons Program is a Canadian immigration program that allows the permanent migration of a self-employed person.

The federal Immigrant Investor Program has been CLOSED and is no longer accepting applications.

If you applied for the program, your application has been terminated.

Learn more about the Immigrant Investor Program closure here.

• Provincial Nomination Programs (“PNPs”) are immigration streams unique to each province that allow individuals to apply for permanent residence in Canada. Certain PNPs qualify as investment immigration streams. For example, the BC Enterpreneur Immigration (‘EI’) stream allows individuals with a net worth of $600,000 to invest a minimum of $200,000 in British Columbia. If that individual operates their British Columbia business for a few years and meets certain performance standards set by the province, they will then be allowed to obtain Canadian permanent residence.