What Applicants Often Misunderstand About Canadian Work Experience

One year of Canadian work experience may be enough to qualify for the Canadian Experience Class (CEC), while additional experience can increase your Comprehensive Ranking System (CRS) score. That sounds straightforward, but there are several nuances that can affect how much experience IRCC will actually count.

The Express Entry profile also does not capture every circumstance that may make part of your work experience ineligible. This means your profile could show you as eligible for CEC or award CRS points for experience that may not ultimately qualify.

It is your responsibility to make sure the work experience you claim meets IRCC’s requirements.

Here are some of the common issues applicants can run into when calculating their Canadian work experience.

This article provides general information only and should not be considered legal or immigration advice. Whether Canadian work experience qualifies will depend on the specific facts of your employment and immigration history. If you are unsure how much experience you can claim, consider getting advice before submitting your Express Entry profile or permanent residence application.

Common Misunderstandings

Vacation Time

By law, you may be entitled to paid vacation, but that does not mean every period of vacation can automatically be counted as work experience simply because you remained employed.

Only reasonable vacation time can generally be included when calculating a 52-week period of work experience. IRCC uses two weeks of vacation within a 52-week period as an example of what may be considered reasonable in its work experience guidance for other economic programs.

The difficulty is that your Express Entry profile does not ask you to identify every vacation you took during a period of employment. If you enter that you worked for an employer from January to December, the system may treat the entire period as qualifying Canadian work experience. However, the amount of time you actually worked may become relevant later when IRCC reviews your supporting documents, such as pay records, employment letters or other evidence.

So, if you have exactly 52 weeks of Canadian employment but took four weeks of vacation during that period, you may want to wait until you can show 52 weeks of employment before relying on the full year.

Maternity/Paternity/Parental Leave

Maternity, paternity and parental leave generally cannot be counted as Canadian work experience because, during that period, you are not actually performing qualifying work for your employer.

In most cases, you are also not being paid wages for work performed. Instead, you may be receiving Employment Insurance benefits, employer top-up payments or another form of leave-related income.

The fact that you remain employed by the company does not, on its own, make the leave period qualifying Canadian work experience.

For example, if you have been employed by a Canadian company for 25 months but spent six months of that period on parental leave, you should not assume that you have 25 months of qualifying Canadian work experience.

You should calculate the period during which you were actually performing qualifying work and make sure you have enough eligible experience without relying on the leave period.

Working Outside Canada for a Canadian Company

Canadian work experience must actually be acquired while you are physically in Canada. This is particularly important for people who work remotely and decide to spend time overseas while continuing to work for their Canadian employer.

Any period worked from outside Canada cannot be counted toward CEC eligibility or Canadian work experience CRS points.

For example, you might take a two-week vacation to India and then decide to stay for another month while working remotely for your Canadian employer. That additional month cannot be counted as Canadian work experience.

Again, your Express Entry profile may not identify this automatically. If you enter one continuous period of employment with your Canadian employer, IRCC may have no way of knowing from the profile alone that part of that work was actually performed outside Canada.

You therefore need to calculate this yourself and exclude any periods when you were working from outside Canada. If you spent one month working abroad, make sure you have accumulated the required Canadian work experience without relying on that month before claiming the corresponding eligibility or CRS points.

Working More Than 30 Hours Per Week

One of the most common misunderstandings is that reaching 1,560 hours means you have automatically completed one year of Canadian work experience.

IRCC counts a maximum of 30 hours of work per week. This means working additional hours cannot allow you to reach one year of qualifying work experience more quickly. For example, you cannot work 40 hours per week for 45 weeks and claim that you have completed a year simply because your total hours exceed 1,560.

If you are relying on full-time Canadian work experience, you still need to accumulate at least 12 months of qualifying experience.

Your Hours Change from Week to Week

IRCC only counts a maximum of 30 hours of work in any individual week towards your qualifying work experience. This means that extra hours worked in one week cannot be used to make up for fewer hours worked in another.

For example, imagine you work:

• 40 hours in one week
• 20 hours the following week

You cannot count this as 60 hours over two weeks. The first week would be capped at 30 qualifying hours, while the second week would contribute 20 hours, giving you 50 qualifying hours in total.

Work Completed While You Were a Student

Canadian work experience gained while you were a full-time student does not count toward the minimum work experience requirement.

This includes work completed during a co-op term.

This can cause confusion for applicants who worked throughout their studies and assume that all of their Canadian employment can be included when calculating their CEC eligibility.

Work completed after you finish your studies can be different. For example, if you have completed your program, applied for a Post-Graduation Work Permit (PGWP) whilst your study permit was still valid, and are authorized to work while your application is being processed, qualifying work completed during that period may count.

Unauthorized Work

To count as Canadian work experience, you must have been authorized to work in Canada during the period you are claiming.

In most cases, this means you were working with a valid work permit, had maintained status that allowed you to continue working, or were otherwise work permit-exempt and legally authorized to work.

If you worked during a period when you were not authorized to do so, that work cannot be counted toward CEC eligibility or Canadian work experience CRS points.

This is important because being paid, receiving a T4 or declaring the income on your taxes does not, on its own, make the work qualifying Canadian work experience.

Self-Employed Work Experience

Self-employed Canadian work experience generally does not count toward the minimum Canadian work experience.

It is therefore important to consider the nature of your employment relationship, particularly if you worked as a contractor or were responsible for invoicing a company for your services.

There is a specific exception for certain physicians providing publicly funded medical services in Canada.

CEC Eligibility and CRS Points Look at Different Time Periods

Applicants can also confuse the Canadian work experience required for CEC eligibility with the Canadian work experience used to calculate CRS points.

For CEC, you need at least one year of qualifying Canadian work experience acquired within the three years before you apply.

CRS points for Canadian work experience, however, can be awarded for qualifying Canadian work experience acquired within the previous 10 years.

This means you could have Canadian work experience that is too old to establish your CEC eligibility but that can still contribute toward your CRS score.

That becomes much more important if those weeks make the difference between having 11 months and 12 months of Canadian work experience, or between having one year and two years for CRS purposes.

Before relying on Canadian work experience for either your CEC eligibility or your CRS score, work out exactly how many weeks of qualifying experience you can demonstrate. A few weeks can make the difference between your eligibility or the CRS score shown in your profile and the score you are actually entitled to claim.