Canada · Bridging open work permit
Keep working while your PR application is decided
A bridging open work permit closes the gap between a work permit that is running out and a permanent residence decision that has not arrived. It is narrow, conditional, and tied to the expiry date of the permit you already hold.
The measure, plainly
What a bridging open work permit is for
Permanent residence is not decided overnight. A person can be working lawfully in Canada, file a well-prepared economic-class application, and still watch their work permit run out long before a decision is made. Without a remedy, that person stops being allowed to work — through no fault of theirs and while their own application is sitting in the queue.
The bridging open work permit is that remedy. It allows certain permanent residence applicants who are already in Canada on a work permit to apply for a further permit that carries them through to the decision. In most cases it is open, meaning it is not tied to a single named employer, though there are situations where the permit that follows is employer-specific instead.
Two things are worth being blunt about. First, it is a bridge and nothing more — it does not advance, strengthen or accelerate the permanent residence application underneath it. Second, it is not a general safety net. It covers particular classes of applicant, at a particular stage, within a particular window. Falling outside any of those means it does not apply to you.
Four conditions, all of them
What has to be true at the moment you apply
These are cumulative. Meeting three of the four is the same as meeting none.
Where you are
Physically in Canada
What you hold
A valid work permit now
What you have filed
A PR application at the right stage
When you apply
Inside the expiry window
The expiry date is the whole game
Almost every serious problem with this route reduces to timing. The right to apply is defined by reference to when your current permit expires, and the protection that lets you keep working while the new application is assessed depends on having filed before that expiry — not after it.
Miss it and the consequences are immediate and real: you must stop working, your employer must stop employing you, and you are relying on a discretionary restoration process that nobody should plan around. Treat the expiry date on your permit as a hard deadline you work backwards from, not a date you notice when it arrives.
The sequence
How the bridge is reached, in order
The bridge does not open when you file for permanent residence. It opens at a later, defined point.
- 1
You are working in Canada on a permit
The bridge assumes an existing lawful basis to work. Everything below depends on that permit still being alive when you act.
- 2
You file for permanent residence
Under an economic class that the bridging measure covers. Filing starts the clock but does not by itself make you eligible.
- 3
IRCC acknowledges or clears the file
Each class has its own trigger point, and they are not the same: some classes open the bridge once the application is acknowledged as received, others only once the file has cleared a completeness check or reached an approval-in-principle stage. IRCC also introduces temporary measures that move these trigger points. Confirm the trigger for your own class on IRCC’s current page rather than assuming.
- 4
You apply for the bridging permit online
Before your current permit expires, and within the window IRCC defines relative to that expiry. You apply from inside Canada, as an extension of your work authorisation.
- 5
You keep working while it is assessed
A properly filed extension made before expiry normally lets you continue working under the conditions of your existing permit while the new one is decided. This protection depends on having filed in time.
- 6
If granted, it covers the gap
It is a holding measure while the permanent residence application is processed, not an outcome, and it is not open-ended — it is issued for a fixed validity period set by IRCC. If the PR decision has not arrived by the time it runs out, a further application may be needed. Nothing about it is automatic or guaranteed.
Which applicants, as a category
The classes the bridge is built around
The measure is economic in character. It is built around applicants who came to Canada to work, worked here, and are now applying to stay permanently through an economic route — the Express Entry programs, provincial nominee applicants, Quebec’s own economic selection, and a number of federal pilots.
It is not designed for every path to permanent residence. Family-class and humanitarian applicants are handled under separate rules that this page does not describe, and some pilots are expressly outside it.
We do not reproduce the covered list, because it is adjusted as pilots begin and end and each class carries its own stage requirement. Check your own class against IRCC’s current page for this permit before you rely on being inside it.
Read the terms
Open is not always open
Open, in the usual case
Not tied to one named employer, so you can generally change jobs without a fresh authorisation.
Restricted, in some cases
Where a provincial nomination imposes an employment restriction, the open permit is generally not the route — a separate employer-specific bridging permit is, with additional steps required from the employer. Naming an employer and restricting employment are not the same thing; the nomination letter decides it.
Not a status upgrade
It maintains your ability to work as a temporary resident. It confers nothing permanent.
Tied to the PR application
It exists because of the application underneath it. If that application ends, so does the basis for the bridge.
Not automatic
It is an application with its own requirements, assessed on its own merits, and it can be refused.
What commonly goes wrong
The failure patterns worth planning against
Applying after the permit has already expired. The single most damaging error, and the least recoverable. Once expiry has passed there is no bridge, only a discretionary restoration process during which you cannot work.
Applying before the bridge has opened. Filing the moment the permanent residence application goes in, before it has reached the stage IRCC requires, tends to produce a refusal — and refusals consume time you may not have.
Assuming a nomination means an open permit. Where the nomination carries an employment restriction, the route is a separate employer-specific permit rather than the open one, and it needs steps taken by the employer. People resign in anticipation of portability they do not have.
Confusing this with a permit extension on the same basis. A bridging permit depends on a live permanent residence application at the right stage. If your PR application is not there yet, a different extension route may be the correct one — or there may be none.
Travelling at the wrong moment. Leaving Canada while an in-Canada extension is pending can complicate both your re-entry and the application. Take advice before booking, not after.
Letting the employer discover the problem first. Employers stop payroll when work authorisation lapses. Tell your employer your expiry date early so nobody is improvising in the last week.
Being honest about fit
Who this does not help
If you are reading this from Pakistan, this is probably not your page
The bridging open work permit is an in-Canada measure for people who are already working here on a valid permit and already have a permanent residence application under way. If you have not yet come to Canada, there is nothing here for you to apply for — the relevant conversation is about the underlying work permit or the permanent residence route itself.
It also does not help people whose permanent residence application sits outside the covered economic classes, people whose current status is something other than a work permit, people whose permit has already expired, and people whose permanent residence application has not reached the stage that opens the bridge. In each of those cases the answer is not a bridging permit — and pretending otherwise wastes the little time that is left.
We will say so plainly if this does not fit your situation, and tell you what does. No application outcome is ours to promise, which is why we publish a no-guarantee policy.
Where the current details live
Windows, fees and covered classes
The window relative to your permit’s expiry, the application fee, the open-work-permit holder fee where it applies, and the exact list of covered permanent residence classes are all published by IRCC and all change. We deliberately do not reproduce them here, because a figure that is correct today becomes a trap on a page you might read next year.
IRCC publishes the current requirements for this permit on canada.ca, and the underlying authority for work permits and status maintenance sits in the Immigration and Refugee Protection Regulations. Read the figures at the source, on the day you need them.
Related routes on this site: post-graduation work permits, spousal open work permits and LMIA-based permits.
Straight answers
The questions people actually ask
What does a bridging open work permit actually do?
Which permanent residence applicants does it cover?
I have a provincial nomination. Am I automatically eligible for an open permit?
When exactly should I apply?
What happens if I let my permit expire first?
Does the bridging permit improve my chances of permanent residence?
Can my spouse work while I hold a bridging permit?
Can I apply for a bridging permit from Pakistan?
Before your permit expires
Work backwards from your expiry date, not forwards from today
Tell us what permit you hold, when it expires and where your permanent residence application has reached. We will tell you whether the bridge is open to you and when to move.