If your employer's LMIA is slow, your work permit application should no longer be refused just because the clock ran out. IRCC updated its officer instructions on October 28, 2026, and, according to CIC News, officers are now told not to make a decision on a Temporary Foreign Worker Program (TFWP) work permit application until the LMIA decision is made.
What changed
| Before | Now | |
|---|---|---|
| Officer instruction | Hold the work permit application for a maximum of 90 days while the LMIA is pending | Make no decision until the LMIA has been decided |
The previous cap was itself a recent change: in August, IRCC lengthened the hold from 60 to 90 days (see our concurrent processing explainer). The change appears in IRCC's officer-facing page, Labour Market Impact Assessment Review – Temporary Foreign Worker Program.
We have not independently reviewed the IRCC page; the details here come from CIC News's reporting of it. No effective date beyond the October 28 update, and no official commentary, was stated.
Who it affects
This applies to people applying for a TFWP work permit from inside Canada while the employer's LMIA is still pending (concurrent processing). Per the report, the worker's current permit must expire in two weeks or less, and the employer must have filed the LMIA with enough lead time for it to be processed before the permit expires. Whether it affects anyone outside concurrent processing was not stated.
What this means for you
The risk of a refusal over processing delays goes down. Previously, if the LMIA took longer than the hold period, the application could be refused through no fault of the worker. Under the new instruction, it waits.
Apply before your permit expires. Applying in time gives you maintained status, which lets you keep working under your current conditions while you stay in Canada and wait for a decision. See our work permit guide and LMIA guide.
This does not make LMIAs easier to get. About thirty urban areas currently restrict LMIAs for non-exempt jobs paying below 120% of the provincial or territorial median wage, with the current period running from October 9, 2026 to January 7, 2027, per CIC News. Read our latest low-wage LMIA freeze update to see whether your area is affected.
Even with no hard deadline, a long wait means weeks without certainty. Keep proof of the date you applied and your employer's LMIA submission, and confirm with your employer that the LMIA was filed early enough to be processed before your current permit expires.