Permanent residence applications from live-in caregivers: Application process and who may apply
This section contains policy, procedures and guidance used by IRCC staff. It is posted on the department’s website as a courtesy to stakeholders.
Who may apply
Live-in caregivers may apply for permanent residence after they have worked full time for at least 24 months within the four years immediately following their entry into Canada under the Live-in Caregiver Program (LCP) or for a total of 3,900 hours within a minimum of 22 months, which may include a maximum of 390 hours of overtime. Live-in caregivers must meet the requirements of the class as specified in section 113 of the Immigration and Refugee Protection Regulations (IRPR) at the time of their application for permanent residence.
In order to be eligible for processing, all new permanent residence applications under the live-in caregiver class must be accompanied by evidence that the work permit associated with the foreign national's initial entry as a live-in caregiver under the LCP was based on a Labour Market Impact Assessment (LMIA) that was requested from Employment and Social Development Canada/Service Canada on or before November 30, 2014.
Submitting the application
Completed applications for the principal applicant and their family members must be submitted to the Case Processing Centre in Edmonton (CPC-E). In most cases, these applications are processed at the CPC-E, but some may be transferred to a local office in Canada.
The CPC processes the applications for any family members in Canada as well as any family members overseas serviced by the visa office in Manila.Footnote 1 However, when there is a great deal of complexity surrounding these overseas family members, their files are transferred to the Manila visa office for processing.
All other family members outside Canada are processed by the responsible visa office. In these cases, the CPC sends a memo or an email to the visa office to initiate concurrent processing of the family members. The CPC
- enters the required information from the application in the Global Case Management System (GCMS) and adds the visa office as the secondary office;
- scans and uploads into GCMS the family members' application forms (including Schedule A) and documents (police certificates, marriage certificates, birth certificates, etc.);
- confirms that fees have been paid for family members to be processed concurrently;
- provides up-to-date contact information for family members, including a telephone number and an email address, if possible.
The visa office then contacts the family members directly and requests any additional documentation, if required.
Note: The physical file remains at the CPC. Visa offices should use scanned copies of the documents for verification purposes, when possible, rather than the original documents. If a document is missing from GCMS, the visa office may request that the CPC scan and upload the document into GCMS. However, if it is deemed necessary, the original documents may also be requested from the CPC. The visa office must send an email to the CPC requesting a transfer of the original documents.
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