Are you looking to work in Canada for your international employer’s Canadian branch, parent company, subsidiary, or affiliate? If this is the case, you may be qualified to apply for an Intra-Company Transfer work permit (ICT). In this post, we will explain the ICT program and its requirements in a manner that is more user-friendly and approachable to the general public.
Understanding the ICT Program
Before we get into the nitty-gritty of it, here are two very important things to keep in mind concerning the ICT program:
- No Need for a Labour Market Impact Assessment (LMIA): Employers seeking to transfer eligible employees to Canada don’t have to go through the complex process of proving that the foreign national’s hiring won’t negatively impact Canada’s labor market.
- Job Categories: To be eligible under the ICT program, the applicant’s work in Canada should be “managerial, executive, or involving specialized knowledge.” Let’s explore what these categories mean.
- Managerial Positions: These can be further divided into senior managers, who oversee the entire enterprise, and functional managers, responsible for managing essential functions that contribute to the company’s goals.
- Executive Positions: Executives are responsible for directing the management of a corporation or a significant part of it.
- Specialized Knowledge Positions: These roles require advanced expertise and proprietary knowledge of the enterprise’s products, services, processes, and procedures.
Who Is Eligible to Apply for a Work Permit to Work in ICT?
To be qualified for a work visa in the field of information and communications technology (ICT), you need to satisfy certain criteria at various levels. These criteria vary depending on whether you are an employee, an established company, or a start-up business.
Employee Eligibility
The following are the requirements that must be met in order to be eligible for an ICT work permit as an employee:
- Currently work for a foreign multinational company (MNC) that plans to transfer foreign employees to Canada.
- Be transferred to a Canadian company that is a branch, parent company, subsidiary, or affiliate of your foreign employer.
- Work at a legitimate and ongoing establishment of the company in Canada
- Comply with all temporary entry requirements for immigration to Canada.
- Have worked full-time for at least one continuous year in a role similar to the one you’ll undertake in Canada within the last three years.
If you’ve worked for your foreign MNC on a part-time basis, the “full-time work” and “one continuous year” criteria may not apply to your position. This is especially true if you’ve worked in an administrative capacity. In situations like this, additional aspects, such as the number of years you’ve spent working for your multinational corporation (MNC) and the degree to which your positions in Canada and abroad are comparable, will be taken into consideration.
In addition, if your foreign MNC was recently involved in a corporate acquisition or merger, you may be excluded from the requirement that you have worked for “one continuous year” if you have worked for one of the new corporation’s affiliates for at least one year in the preceding three years. This exemption applies only if the acquisition or merger occurred within the last year.
