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It provides temporary work permits under the International Mobility Program to young foreign nationals from over 30 countries, so they can legally live and get a job in Canada. The permits are usually valid for either 12 or 24 months, depending on your country of citizenship (unless you have inadequate health insurance, more on that later).
Candidates must first create a profile, which notifies Canadian authorities of their desire to receive a working holiday visa in Canada. Successful candidates will receive an invitation to formally complete their application for a work permit, however this success is subject to eligibility and availability.
View the full list of International Experience Canada participating countries, including the different categories of work permits that are available.
A free Moving2Canada account gives you access to tons of free resources, including checklists with step-by-step instructions on how to apply for a working holiday visa, job matches from Canadian employers looking to hire IEC participants, guides on how to make a Canadian style resume and killer cover letter, and much more!
Once you sign up for free, we’ll show you exactly where and how to create your IEC profile, plus a bunch of other important tasks to help you along the way.
Sign up for a free account here.
You can create a profile on the Immigration, Refugees, and Citizenship Canada (IRCC) website.
Draws take place at regular intervals, where candidates are selected at random to receive an invitation to apply for a work permit, until all places are filled for the year. This means you can create a profile and become a candidate at your leisure, any time after the opening date for your country.
However, your best bet is to become a candidate as early as possible for a working holiday visa in Canada, as this IEC category is particularly popular. This will expose you to a greater number of these draws.
You’ll be asked to enter one or more ‘pools’ as determined by country and work permit category. ‘Australia: Working Holiday’ and ‘Ireland: Young Professionals’ are examples of pools.
IRCC has committed to giving at least five days notice before each country’s and category’s final rounds of invitations, which will mark the closure of that pool for the season.
Here’s how to become a candidate, and receive an invitation to apply for an IEC working holiday visa in Canada.
For a more detailed breakdown on how you can get a working holiday visa in Canada, sign up or log in to your free account.
To be eligible to apply for an IEC Working Holiday Visa in Canada, candidates must:
Check out this guide for full details on all the documents you need for your IEC work permit application
If your application is a success, congratulations! But you’re not quite there yet.
Next, a letter of introduction (LOI) will be sent to your account. At this point, you can book your travel to Canada (or organize to leave Canada and re-enter).
To successfully enter Canada on your IEC work permit, you will need to bring all of the documents required for your arrival in Canada:
You will show these documents to an immigration office at a Port of Entry (POE), such as an airport or border crossing. This is where you will receive your work permit.
We do really want to stress the importance of adequate health insurance coverage at this point. If you are not adequately insured, you may not receive your IEC work permit at all. If you don’t have health insurance for the entire period, your IEC work permit duration may be shortened. In other words, if you only have insurance for 6 months but you want to stay for 2 years (and that’s what your country’s IEC agreement allows), you will only be able to stay on an IEC work permit for 6 months.
Your chances of getting a Canadian working holiday visa depend on the country you are applying from. Some countries are more competitive than others. Draws from the Working Holiday pool are random, therefore the more people in the pool for your country, the less likely you are to get accepted. Likewise, each country has a different amount of working holiday permits they can issue. If you are from a country with a small quota, you are less likely to be selected.
Enter the pool now as the 2025 season is open. The longer you are in the pool, the more chances you have of being selected. The Working Holiday permit is the most competitive of the 3 IEC programs. If your country offers the young professional program, try job searching in Canada to secure employment. Applying as a young professional increases your chances of being successful.
This depends on the country you are from as each program has a different age limit to participate, either 30 or 35 (inclusive).
A prerequisite to qualify for the IEC program is to be able to show at least $2500 CAD in funds. There is no need to show these funds as part of your work permit application however when you land in Canada with your port of entry letter to activate your work permit, you must present a bank statement no older than 7 days which shows you have the equivalent of $2500CAD. If you are unable to show this, you will not be issued your Working Holiday permit.
It does not cost anything to enter the IEC working holiday pool.
You only pay if you are selected and go on to submit a work permit application, at which point you will need to pay the appropriate processing fees.
To get a Working Holiday Visa in Canada, it will be necessary to pay a processing fees of CAD$179.75, and an open work permit holder fee of CAD$100. In addition to this, applicants will need to pay an $85 biometrics fee unless they have given biometrics in the 10 years preceding their application. Learn more about biometrics for IEC.
The documents you need to provide for your Working Holiday permit are quite straight forward. To make it even easier for you, we have come up with a handy guide on what documents you need to have ready for your IEC application.
It’s important that you get adequate insurance for the entire duration of your IEC work permit. Start by comparing prices for IEC health insurance options with a free quote comparison from BestQuote.
Canada has not released full quotas for 2025.
As the IEC is a quota-based system, each country gets a quota on the number of permits it can issue. For instance, in 2024 Australia had an unlimited number of permits it could issue, the United Kingdom had a quota of 10,000 whereas Italy only had 1,000.
The Working Holiday permit is an open work permit which will allow you to work for any company, in any industry, in Canada, with few exceptions. This gives Working Holiday permit holders the opportunity to legally gain valuable Canadian work experience that can be used to support a permanent residence (PR) application. The type (TEER skill level) of work experience you will need will depend on the PR application you would like to make. For instance, if you are hoping to apply to the Express Entry pool, you will need skilled (TEER level 0,1,2 or 3) work experience. If you are gain lower skilled work experience, you will need to look for Provincial Nominee Programs. Either way, gaining Canadian work experience helps you on your way to become a permanent resident. Note that self employed work experience on the working holiday permit will not count towards your Canadian experience class eligibility.
As part of the eligibility criteria, applicants must not be accompanied by a dependant, including spouse or common law partner. however, there are ways your spouse/ common-law partner can join you in Canada.
As there is a limited number of times you can get a working holiday visa, option 2 is often the best option for many applicants to give flexibility for future use of the Working Holiday program.
In countries where it is available, the Working Holiday Visa in Canada category is popular as it provides participants with an open work permit, which they can use to work with any employer. You may be eligible for, and interested in, these other categories:
The Young Professionals category is designed for foreign youth, particularly post-secondary graduates, who wish to further their careers by gaining professional work experience in Canada.
Participants must have a signed employment offer letter or contract of employment with a Canadian employer before applying. If successful, they will be issued an employee- specific work permit.
Read our full guide to IEC Young Professionals Canada work permits.
The International Co-op (Internship) category is designed for foreign youth who are enrolled at a post-secondary institution in their country of citizenship.
Applicants must want to complete a work placement or internship in Canada to fulfill part of their academic curriculum and be registered students for the duration of the internship. Permits issued under this category are generally valid for up to 12 months, though some participants may be issued a longer validity due to their citizenship.
Applicants must have a signed job offer letter or contract for a work placement or internship in Canada that meets the requirements of their academic curriculum in their country of citizenship. The eligibility requirements for the Working Holiday Visa in Canada, listed above, also apply to the International Co-op category.
Read our full guide to IEC International Co-op work permits.
Please explore our many resources to help you plan your application. Research is crucial as you plan for success in Canada.
Moving2Canada readers get their first five international money transfers free with CurrencyFair.
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