The Canada Start-Up Visa is a permanent residence route for founders whose business is innovative, can create jobs in Canada and can compete internationally. There is no minimum personal investment. What you must have is a letter of support from a Canadian designated organisation — a business incubator, an angel investor group or a venture capital fund. Intake is capped and processing is measured in years, so the founders who get through are the ones who prepare early and evidence everything.
Yes
CLB 5 in all four abilities
As published by IRCC
CAD 2,500 approx.
A job offer from a Canadian employer, or a Canadian work permit, is another route into the country. Most employer-driven options need an LMIA or an LMIA-exempt category, and they take months to arrange rather than weeks.
Canadian citizens and permanent residents can sponsor a spouse or partner and dependent children. Parents and grandparents are sponsored through a separate programme with a limited, invitation-based intake.
Business immigration covers several streams: provincial entrepreneur nominations, Quebec’s investor and entrepreneur categories, and the federal Start-Up Visa. The federal self-employed persons class still exists in the Regulations, but IRCC controls intake and it has been paused at times; check its current status before relying on it.
1Assess your profile and confirm the right route
2Sign a written retainer and open the file
3Build the business plan, evidence and certified translations
4File, respond to IRCC and plan your landing
You need an innovative, scalable business and a letter of support from an organisation IRCC has designated — a business incubator, an angel investor group or a venture capital fund. Without that letter the application cannot be made.
There is no minimum personal investment. You do need settlement funds for your family size, and in practice working capital to run the business. Where a venture capital fund or an angel investor group backs you, the investment comes from them. Minimum investment amounts for designated venture capital funds and angel investor groups are set by IRCC and can change; confirm the current amounts before you approach a designated organisation.
Either is possible. Up to five people can apply on the same business. Each applicant must meet the requirements individually and hold at least 10% of the voting rights, and the designated organisation may identify one or more applicants as essential to the business.
Once permanent residence has been granted it does not depend on the business succeeding. It can still be revoked if it was obtained through misrepresentation. Before a decision is made the position is different: if the venture collapses or the designated organisation withdraws its commitment, the application can be refused.
No. The letter of support is a mandatory part of the application and IRCC will not assess a file without it. It is the designated organisation’s confirmation that a commercial body has examined the business and is prepared to back it.
Ask for a free assessment of your profile. We will tell you plainly whether you meet the published requirements and what evidence you would need to gather. No assessment can promise an outcome — that decision belongs to IRCC — but it does stop you spending money on an application that was never going to qualify.
The Start-Up Visa Program lets founders based outside Canada bring an innovative business to the country and apply for permanent residence at the same time. It is the federal business immigration route that remains open to new applicants, and it is built around one thing: the backing of a Canadian designated organisation.
This page sets out the Canada start-up visa requirements for 2026, the documents IRCC asks for, the fees, realistic processing times, and the parts of the process that most often go wrong. It also explains what Aval Visa does, and does not, do on these files.
The Canada Start-Up Visa is a permanent residence programme for entrepreneurs whose business is innovative, scalable and capable of creating jobs in Canada. It is designed for founders who can persuade an IRCC-designated organisation — a business incubator, an angel investor group or a venture capital fund — that the venture is worth backing.
The programme exists to add companies and founders to the Canadian economy. IRCC assesses whether the business is genuine, whether you are actively involved in running it, and whether the designated organisation’s commitment stands up to scrutiny. A file can be sent for independent peer review if an officer doubts that assessment.
If you want a route that does not require a large personal investment and lets you build a company in a stable market, the start-up visa is worth examining — provided you can obtain a letter of support and can wait out a long processing queue.
IRCC sets four core requirements for the start-up visa, alongside the usual admissibility checks. Each must be met on the day you apply and, in practice, maintained until a decision is made.
The business must be innovative, able to create jobs for Canadians and able to compete on an international scale. Each applicant must hold at least 10% of the voting rights attached to all outstanding shares, and the applicants together with the designated organisation must jointly hold more than 50% of those voting rights. The company must be incorporated in Canada and carrying on active business there, and you must intend to settle in a province or territory other than Quebec.
You must obtain a commitment certificate and a letter of support from one of the three types of organisation IRCC has designated. Each type carries its own investment threshold.
| Designated Organisations |
|---|
| Business Incubators |
| Venture Capital Funds |
| Angel Investor Groups |
IRCC manages intake to this programme and gives priority to some categories of file; ask your designated organisation about current capacity and priority rules before you start. Obtaining a letter of support is now the hardest part of the process, not a formality.
You need CLB 5 as a minimum in each of the four abilities — speaking, listening, reading and writing — in either English or French. Accepted tests are IELTS General Training, CELPIP-General, TEF Canada and TCF Canada, and results must be less than two years old on the day you apply.
The start-up visa does not come with an income. You must show unencumbered settlement funds for your family size, using the figures IRCC publishes and updates each year. The money must be yours, available and not borrowed; bank statements are the standard proof. Budget for the business separately — settlement funds are for living costs, not working capital.
You must show that you intend to run the business from Canada. If the company is incorporated elsewhere, or you are not actively managing it from within Canada, the application can be refused. Officers look at where the operations, the staff and the decision-making actually sit.
Meeting these requirements is what gets an application assessed on its merits. It does not guarantee approval. Every start-up visa decision is made by an IRCC officer, and neither a consultant nor a designated organisation can commit IRCC to an outcome.
| Required documents for a Canada Start-up Visa application |
|---|
| Valid passport |
| Biometric photo |
| Letter of support from a designated organisation |
| Business plan |
| English or French language test result (IELTS, CELPIP, TEF or TCF) |
| Settlement funds to cover living costs |
| All forms completed and submitted |
| Police clearance certificate (original and certified translation) |
| Medical exam report from an approved panel physician |
A start-up visa application begins long before the forms. It begins with a business plan that a Canadian investor or incubator will take seriously: a defined problem, a product, a market, named competitors, financial projections and a plan for hiring in Canada. Once that exists, the process runs as follows.
Step 1: secure a letter of support
Approach a business incubator, an angel investor group or a venture capital fund on IRCC’s list of designated organisations and pitch the business. If they accept it, they send a commitment certificate to IRCC and issue a letter of support to you. Minimum investment amounts for designated venture capital funds and angel investor groups are set by IRCC and can change, and a business incubator must accept you into its programme with no investment required; confirm the current amounts before you approach a designated organisation. This step has no fixed timeline, and most approaches are declined.
Step 2: assemble proof of settlement funds
IRCC publishes a settlement funds table by family size and updates it each year. You must show that the money is yours, unencumbered and not borrowed, usually through six months of bank statements.
Property and shares are not counted unless they are liquid, and the settlement funds are assessed separately from any capital the business needs.
Step 3: submit the permanent residence application
Create an account on the IRCC portal, complete the forms and upload every document on the checklist. Fees are paid at submission. The right of permanent residence fee is CAD 600 per adult, payable before you become a permanent resident, and is not charged for dependent children. An incomplete application is returned rather than refused, which costs months.
Step 4: medical examination, police certificates and biometrics
The immigration medical examination must be carried out by an IRCC panel physician. You will need a police certificate from every country where you have lived six months or more since the age of 18; each country has its own procedure and some take weeks. Biometrics are given at a designated collection point after IRCC issues the instruction letter.
Step 5: assessment and decision
IRCC assesses whether the business and the commitment are genuine, and may refer the file for independent peer review or call you for an interview. IRCC publishes processing times for this programme and updates them regularly. Check the current estimate on the IRCC website before you plan around a date.
Step 6: work permit, landing and building the business
You may apply for an employer-specific work permit for your own start-up while the permanent residence application is processed, so you can begin operating in Canada instead of waiting abroad. If the permanent residence application is approved, you and your accompanying family members become permanent residents.
Related: IRCC’s own figures on approval rates and the real size of the queue: start-up visa data
The start-up visa is the federal route built for founders. Its appeal is that permanent residence is granted outright rather than after years of conditional status, and that it does not require a large personal investment. The main advantages are:
Most start-up visa applications fail for reasons that have little to do with the founder’s ability. They fail because the file does not evidence what IRCC asks for. These are the points that matter most.
The business must be genuinely innovative, able to scale beyond Canada and able to create jobs in Canada. A local service business, however profitable, is not what this programme is for.
The hardest requirement is the letter of support from a designated organisation. Designated organisations assess a venture on commercial terms, and IRCC manages intake to the programme, so ask them about current capacity and priority rules before you start. Your business plan needs market research, a growth plan, competitor analysis and financial projections that survive scrutiny.
You must show that you can cover living costs in Canada until the business supports you. If you apply as a team of up to five, each member must qualify individually and the team must hold the technical, commercial and management skills the plan requires.
Finally, the paperwork must be consistent. Financial documents, employment history, the business plan and the forms must tell the same story. Contradictions between them are the most common trigger for a procedural fairness letter, a request for more information, or a finding of misrepresentation.
Aval Visa is the practice of Hadi Imani, a Regulated Canadian Immigration Consultant (RCIC #R522575) regulated by the College of Immigration and Citizenship Consultants. We advise on Canadian immigration matters and can act as your authorised representative with IRCC.
On start-up visa files we assess your eligibility against the published requirements, tell you where the weaknesses are, help you prepare the business plan and supporting evidence to the standard designated organisations expect, and prepare and file the permanent residence application. We do not decide applications and we cannot influence the outcome: IRCC’s own guidance is that using a representative does not improve your chances of approval. What a representative can do is make sure the application is complete, consistent and correctly filed. Proceedings before the Federal Court, including judicial review of a refusal, must be conducted by a Canadian lawyer rather than a consultant.
To begin, request an assessment or call +98 21 59307.
You need an innovative, scalable business and a letter of support from an organisation IRCC has designated — a business incubator, an angel investor group or a venture capital fund. Without that letter the application cannot be made.
There is no minimum personal investment. You do need settlement funds for your family size, and in practice working capital to run the business. Where a venture capital fund or an angel investor group backs you, the investment comes from them. Minimum investment amounts for designated venture capital funds and angel investor groups are set by IRCC and can change; confirm the current amounts before you approach a designated organisation.
Either is possible. Up to five people can apply on the same business. Each applicant must meet the requirements individually and hold at least 10% of the voting rights, and the designated organisation may identify one or more applicants as essential to the business.
Once permanent residence has been granted it does not depend on the business succeeding. It can still be revoked if it was obtained through misrepresentation. Before a decision is made the position is different: if the venture collapses or the designated organisation withdraws its commitment, the application can be refused.
No. The letter of support is a mandatory part of the application and IRCC will not assess a file without it. It is the designated organisation’s confirmation that a commercial body has examined the business and is prepared to back it.
