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Pakistan → Canada · Start here

How to immigrate to Canada from Pakistan.

There is no single “Canada visa”. There are a handful of real routes, each built for a different kind of person — and picking the right one first saves you a year and a refusal.

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Two kinds of route — and why the difference matters

Permanent residence lets you live in Canada for good and leads to citizenship. Temporary status — study, work, a visit — runs out, and only some of it builds toward permanent residence. Nearly every plan that works from Pakistan takes one of three shapes.

  1. 1

    Straight to permanent residence

    Through Express Entry or a provincial nomination, applying from Pakistan or from the Gulf. Built for people with a degree, strong language scores and skilled work experience.

  2. 2

    Study first, then stay

    A study permit, then a post-graduation work permit, then Canadian work experience that counts toward permanent residence. Longer — but it is how many young applicants get there.

  3. 3

    Work first, then stay

    A work permit — through a Canadian employer, or through your own business — and then Canadian experience. The employer route has to be genuine; more on that below.

And a fourth, if it applies to you: if your spouse, partner, parent or child is already a Canadian citizen or permanent resident, family sponsorship may be the most direct route of all.

Every route

Who each route is actually for

Two lines each. The page behind every card goes into the detail — requirements, process, and where applications from Pakistan tend to go wrong.

Permanent residence

Express Entry

Skilled workers with a degree, good language scores and at least a year of skilled work. Everyone eligible is ranked; the highest scores are invited to apply.
How Express Entry works

Permanent residence

Provincial nomination

A province chooses you for its own labour needs. Some streams run through Express Entry, others stand alone — and some suit profiles Express Entry ranks low.
How the PNP works

Temporary → permanent

Study in Canada

A real study plan at a designated school, money to support it, and a reason the course makes sense for you. Refused most often on that last point.
Studying in Canada

Temporary → permanent

Work permits

An employer-backed permit — usually after the employer gets an LMIA — or one of the routes that need no Canadian employer at all.
Work permit routes

If you run a business

Owner-operator route

If you own a business in Pakistan, there is a way to work in Canada by running one there. Most agents never file it.
See if it fits you

Permanent residence

Family sponsorship

Your spouse, partner, child, parent or grandparent is a Canadian citizen or permanent resident and can sponsor you.
How sponsorship works

Employer-driven

Atlantic & rural programmes

Programmes for smaller communities that need workers. Overlooked by most applicants — which is part of why they are worth a look.
Atlantic Immigration Program

Not a route to stay

Visit visa

To see family, travel or attend business meetings. It is not a way to move to Canada — and an application that reads like one is refused.
What a visit visa takes

Paperwork

What almost every file from Pakistan needs

Which of these apply depends on your route — but most people need most of them, and several take weeks to get. Starting them early is the cheapest way to save time.

A valid passport
Renew early if it is close to expiry — a permit generally cannot run past the date your passport does.
A language test
For Express Entry: IELTS General Training, CELPIP or PTE Core for English; TEF Canada or TCF Canada for French. Results must come from an approved test and still be valid when you apply.
An education assessment
A Pakistani degree usually needs an Educational Credential Assessment from an IRCC-designated organisation before it counts in Express Entry.
Police certificates
For permanent residence, from Pakistan and from every country you have lived in for six months or more since you turned 18 — which, for most of our Gulf clients, means two countries at least.
A medical exam
Done by an IRCC panel physician — not your own doctor — when your application calls for one.
Biometrics
Fingerprints and a photo, given in person at a Visa Application Centre. There are centres in Pakistan; you can also give them where you live in the Gulf.
Proof of funds
For Federal Skilled Worker and for study, money that is genuinely yours and available. IRCC publishes the amounts — and a large deposit with no history is read as borrowed.
Translations
Anything in Urdu — a nikah nama, a family registration certificate, a degree transcript — needs a certified translation into English or French.

Where it goes wrong

Four mistakes we see from Pakistan again and again

None of them is about a missing form. Each one is avoidable — and each one can follow you into every application you make afterwards.

Mistake one

Using a visit visa as a plan to stay

Officers read a visit application for one thing: will this person go home? A file built around staying answers that question for them. What a visit visa actually takes.

Mistake two

Buying a job offer

Genuine Canadian employers do not sell job offers, and an employer may not make a worker pay for its LMIA. A purchased offer is usually fake — and a fake document can mean a misrepresentation finding and a five-year ban.

Mistake three

Leaving out an old refusal

Applications ask whether any country has ever refused you a visa. Leaving out a UK or Schengen refusal is misrepresentation in its own right — the omission does more damage than the refusal would have.

Mistake four

“Parking” money before applying

Funds that appear in an account weeks before an application, with no history behind them, are read as a loan. Savings need a story the officer can follow.

Cost and time

The numbers we won’t print — and where to find them

Government fees and processing times change, sometimes several times a year. A figure copied onto a consultancy’s website goes stale quietly, and people plan their lives around it.

Where the real figures live

IRCC publishes its current fees and processing times. On top of the government fee, most routes involve a language test, an education assessment, a medical exam, biometrics, police certificates and translations.

Our own fee is on our fees page, in writing, before you commit to anything.

Questions

What people in Pakistan ask us first

Can I immigrate to Canada from Pakistan without IELTS?
Without IELTS, yes — without a language test, usually not. Express Entry and most provincial streams require an approved test, but IELTS is only one of them: CELPIP and PTE Core are accepted for English, and TEF Canada and TCF Canada for French. Some temporary routes, like a visit visa, do not ask for a test at all.
Do I need a job offer to move to Canada?
Not for Express Entry’s Federal Skilled Worker programme, which is built for people applying from abroad without one. Some provincial streams and every employer-backed work permit do need one — and it has to be genuine.
Can my wife or husband and children come with me?
Yes. On a permanent residence application you include your spouse or common-law partner and dependent children. On many work and study permits, family can come with you on their own permits.
How much money do I need?
It depends on the route. Federal Skilled Worker and study permits have minimum funds that IRCC sets and updates — we link to the current figures rather than copy them here, because a stale number is worse than none. What matters as much as the amount is being able to show where it came from.
I live in Saudi Arabia or the UAE. Can I still apply?
Yes — most of our clients apply from the Gulf. You apply online from where you live, give biometrics there, and include police certificates from the Gulf country as well as Pakistan.
How long does it take?
It varies by route and changes month to month. IRCC publishes current processing times, and we will tell you in your consultation what is realistic for your route — including the time it takes to get a file ready, which most people underestimate.
Can you guarantee my visa?
No — and neither can anyone else. A visa officer decides every application. What we can do is tell you honestly whether your case is strong, fix what is weak before it is filed, and present it properly.
Reviewed by the Tashfeen legal teamLast reviewed October 2026

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