Canada Immigration Minister Marc Miller has announced a cap on the number of permanent residence applications through the Start-Up Visa Program.
Immigration, Refugees and Citizenship Canada will limit the applications it receives each year to those associated with no more than 10 start-ups per designated organization.
The news was part of Miller’s announcement of several changes to the country’s federal business programs to help reduce processing times and improve the current application backlog.
“Fast processing is critical to the success of entrepreneurs who come to Canada through our federal business programs,” he said.
“These necessary changes will set the Start-up Visa Program and Self-Employed Persons Program on the path to faster processing times while we look ahead to further reforms to make these programs more sustainable and effective over the long term.”
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As part of this aim, Miller also announced that IRCC will encourage designated venture capital firms, angel investor groups and business incubators to focus on the most promising proposals.
It will do this by providing priority processing for entrepreneurs whose start-up is supported by Canadian capital or by a business incubator that is a member of Canada’s Tech Network, including applications in the inventory and new applications.
The changes, which are set to take effect on Tuesday April 30, will also include a full pause on application intake for the Self-Employed Persons Program to focus on processing applications from the inventory.
The Self-Employed Persons Program, for which processing times have increased to four years, provides a pathway to Canada PR for people who have notable experience in art, culture, recreation or sports and who will contribute to Canada’s cultural vitality.
With a combination of a restriction in application intake until the end of 2026 and planned increases in admissions for the federal business category as tabled in the 2024-2026 multi-year levels plan, IRCC plans to reduce the backlog and bring down wait times while continuing to welcome “talented, innovative and entrepreneurial newcomers”.
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Start-Up Visa entrepreneur immigration softened in February 2024, compared to its rapid pace in January, with new PR numbers dropping by 14.3 per cent month over month.
Canada accepted 420 immigrant entrepreneurs as PRs through the SUV in February, down from 490 in January.
However, the number of new permanent residents through the SUV in February this year was more than 10 times the level of immigration through the program during the comparable month last year when 40 came through the SUV.
Projecting out from the current level of SUV immigration in the first two months would mean Canada could welcome up to 5,550 immigrant entrepreneurs this year.
Canada was ranked number one as the most attractive destination for start-up founders in a 2023 report by the Organization for Economic Co-operation and Development.
The rankings for this list were based on a wide variety of factors, including access to capital, corporate tax rates, skills of the workforce, strength of its universities and quality of life, as well as immigration policies for entrepreneurs and their families.
Qualifying to apply for the Start-up Visa Program requires that a foreign entrepreneur must have the committed support of a designated venture capital fund (investment of $200,000), angel investor group (investment of $75,000) or business incubator (acceptance into their incubation program).
Since the program started in 2013, about 900 entrepreneurs have become permanent residents through this category, representing the launch of more than 300 start-ups.
All applications in the venture capital and angel investor streams will get priority processing, as will any business incubator–supported applications that report an investment of at least $75,000.
