Who was eligible

You may have qualified for the Direct to permanence residence category through the Home Child Care Provider Pilot or Home Support Worker Pilot, if you

• had enough work experience
• met the language level
• met the education requirement
• were admissible to Canada
• planned to live outside the province of Quebec

Work experience

You must have had enough full-time work experience in Canada in the 36 months before you applied to the Direct to permanent residence category.

The work experience requirements for the pilots have changed over time. The amount of Canadian work experience you needed depends on when we assessed your application:

• From June 18, 2019, to April 29, 2023: You needed 24 months of work experience
• From April 30, 2023, to June 15, 2024: You needed 12 months of work experience
• From June 16, 2024, onwards New: You needed 6 months of work experience

If you didn’t have enough work experience before you applied, we’ll refuse your application. Any experience you gain after submitting your application doesn’t count.

Your qualifying work experience must have

• been in 1 of these National Occupational Classification (NOC) jobs, depending on which pilot you applied for:

  Home child care provider (NOC 44100)

  • You must have cared for children in your own home or in your employer’s private home.
    • The location couldn’t have been an institutional setting such as a daycare.
  • Your employer could have been a private individual or a business.
  • You didn’t need to live in your employer’s home to qualify.
  • Experience as a foster parent didn’t count.
  Home support worker (NOC 44101)

  • You must have cared for someone who needs help from a home support worker in your employer’s private home.
    • The location couldn’t have been an institutional setting such as a nursing home.
  • Your employer could have been a private individual or a business.
  • You didn’t need to live in your employer’s home to qualify.

  Your work experience couldn’t have been a mix of both jobs.

• matched the NOC job description and you must have done most of the main duties listed
• been gained within the 36-month period before you submitted your application
  • You didn’t have to work 6 months in a row, just 6 months total, within that period.
  • Any experience you get after submitting your application doesn’t count.
• been full-time authorized work in Canada
  • Full-time means at least 30 hours of paid work each week.
  • Any week in which you worked less than 30 hours doesn’t count.
  • Any work experience you had while you were a full-time student doesn’t count.
  • The work could have been authorized under a work permit, as well as under maintained status or a public policy.
  • Experience working for a business can also count.

Language levels

You had to take a language test to prove you meet the minimum language skills.

To measure your English or French skills, we use

• Canadian Language Benchmarks (CLB) for English
• Niveaux de compétence linguistique canadien (NCLC) for French

The minimum language skill was CLB 5 in English or NLCL 5 in French for all 4 language skills:

• writing
• reading
• listening
• speaking

Education

You had to have a completed post-secondary education credential of at least 1 year in Canada. If you didn’t have a Canadian education credential, you had to get your foreign education credential assessed to show that it’s equal to a completed Canadian post-secondary education credential of at least 1 year.