The Quebec Investor Program is Quebec’s own route to Canadian permanent residence for people with substantial capital and a management background. You are not asked to build or run a business under it. Instead you place a passive investment through a financial intermediary authorised by Quebec and pay a separate, non-refundable contribution. Intake rules for the program, including quotas and opening dates, are set by Quebec’s immigration ministry and can change, so confirm the current intake status before you commit funds.
Spouse and dependent children
Oral French, level 7, is required
3 to 5 years to permanent residence
CAD 1,200,000
A job offer from a Canadian employer, or a Canadian work permit, is one of the faster ways into the country. Most permits need either a positive LMIA or an LMIA-exempt category under an international agreement or a provincial arrangement.
Canadian citizens and permanent residents can sponsor close relatives for permanent residence, including a spouse or partner and dependent children, and parents or grandparents through the annual intake.
Business immigration is not one program but several: provincial entrepreneur streams, the federal Start-up Visa, and Quebec’s investor route. Some ask you to build and run a business in Canada; others ask you to place capital and settle in a named province.
1Assessment of your profile and the route that fits
2Written retainer agreement and the file is opened
3Documents prepared and translated, biometrics booked
4Decision, then arrival and settlement support
No. The investor stream is a passive investment, so no business plan or business idea is assessed. What is examined closely is where your money came from, your management history, your French, and your intention to live in Quebec.
Quebec sets the deadline in the conditional selection letter; under the earlier rules it was about 110 days from the interview result. Work to the date printed on your own letter rather than to a general figure.
Plan for three to five years end to end. You first move to Quebec on a work permit. Within the two years after your work permit is issued you must complete a stay in Quebec of at least 12 months, at least six of which you must complete personally, before you can apply for the CSQ. The federal permanent residence stage that follows commonly takes another 12 to 24 months. Quebec and IRCC set their own processing times and neither can be hurried by a representative.
You may prepare and sign your own application. What you cannot arrange yourself is the investment: it has to be placed through a financial intermediary authorised by Quebec. Note also that IRCC’s published position is that using a paid representative does not improve your chances of approval or speed up a decision. A representative helps you build a complete, consistent file; nothing more.
Send us your profile and we will tell you in writing whether the Quebec Investor Program fits, and what is missing if it does not. An assessment cannot change how Quebec or IRCC decides, but it does show you the weak points in your file while there is still time to deal with them.
If you hold significant capital, can document where it came from, and want Canadian permanent residence without running a business, Quebec’s investor route deserves a close read. It sits outside every federal program: Quebec selects the applicant first, and only then does the file for Canadian immigration move to the federal stage, where IRCC assesses admissibility and issues permanent residence. The sections below cover the money, the points, the documents, the fees and the timeline.
Canada is a stable, rule-based economy with deep capital markets, predictable courts and trade agreements reaching most of the developed world. Immigrating as an investor lets your family settle while you keep building elsewhere.
Quebec business immigration has two separate streams:
You apply under one of them, not both.
Quebec runs its own investor program, separate from anything federal. Applicants must intend to live in Quebec, place CAD 1,000,000 with an authorised financial intermediary for five years, and pay a non-refundable contribution of CAD 200,000. Net worth must be at least CAD 2,000,000, lawfully acquired, alone or together with an accompanying spouse. The older figures of CAD 800,000 and CAD 1,600,000 belong to the version of the program that closed in 2018 and no longer apply.
The entrepreneur route is assessed on your business project and the Quebec market rather than on federal criteria. Selected applicants must live in Quebec and start or acquire a business there. The capital expected is far lower than under the investor route, from roughly CAD 300,000 depending on the stream. Intake rules for Quebec’s business programs, including quotas and opening dates, are set by Quebec’s immigration ministry and can change, so confirm the current intake status before you commit funds.
Every cost in this program is yours to carry: the Quebec and federal fees, the intermediary’s charges, legal and translation costs, and the investment itself. No Canadian government grant, loan or subsidy attaches to business immigration.
Quebec scores investor applicants against a selection grid before eligibility is confirmed. The factors are:
The pass mark used to date has been 40 points for an applicant on their own and 45 points where a spouse is included. Quebec can revise both the grid and the pass mark, so confirm the current version before relying on the tables below.
| Credential | Points |
|---|---|
| High school diploma | 2 |
| Vocational high school diploma | 6 |
| Two-year post-secondary diploma | 4 |
| Two-year vocational diploma | 6 |
| Three-year vocational diploma | 8 |
| One-year university certificate | 4 |
| Associate degree / college diploma | 6 |
| Bachelor’s degree | 10 |
| Master’s degree | 12 |
| Doctorate | 14 |
Less than two years of management experience scores nothing. Two years or more scores 10 points.
| Age | Points |
|---|---|
| 18 to 45 years | 10 |
| 46 | 8 |
| 47 | 6 |
| 48 | 4 |
| 49 | 2 |
Language points are awarded across the four skills:
Quebec is a French-speaking province, so French carries far more weight:
English is scored more narrowly:
Language can therefore contribute up to 22 points. Separately from the grid, the principal applicant must demonstrate oral French at level 7 of the Quebec scale. That is a condition of eligibility, not a bonus.
| Previous stay or family ties | Points |
|---|---|
| Study in Quebec for at least one term | 5 |
| Three-month work stay in Quebec | 5 |
| Six-month youth exchange work placement | 5 |
| One-week stay to complete investment formalities | 2 |
| Previous trip to Quebec of at least two weeks | 1 |
| Previous trip to Quebec of at least three months | 2 |
| Relatives in Quebec (parents, children, siblings) | 3 |
On top of the factors above, signing the investment agreement itself is worth 25 points on the grid.
Quebec assesses investor applications against its own selection criteria, which include at least two years of management experience in the five years before you apply. Those criteria, and any pass mark, are set by Quebec’s immigration ministry and can be revised, so check the programme conditions before you apply. From there the work is documentary: assemble the file against Quebec’s checklist and file it while intake is open.
The documents that carry the most weight are:
With the checklist complete, the forms are signed, the file is submitted and the government fees are paid. Biometrics follow.
The 10-year biometrics exemption applies to temporary residence applications only. Permanent residence applicants have to give biometrics again even if they were collected recently, so budget the fee and an appointment for every family member included in the application.
| Government service | Fee in Canadian dollars |
|---|---|
| Application processing, per person | CAD 1,590 |
| Right of permanent residence fee | CAD 600 |
| Application processing, excluding right of permanent residence | CAD 990 |
| Spouse or partner, with permanent residence | CAD 1,590 |
| Spouse or partner, without permanent residence | CAD 990 |
| Each dependent child | CAD 270 |
| Biometrics, per person | CAD 85 |
| Biometrics, family of two | CAD 170 |
All amounts are in Canadian dollars and reflect the published Quebec and IRCC tariffs as of spring 2026. Both are indexed periodically and can change. The intermediary’s charges, legal fees and translation costs sit on top of these figures.
Quebec officers review the whole file: eligibility, completeness, and above all the origin of the money. Gaps, inconsistencies or documents that cannot be verified lead to refusal, and misrepresentation carries a five-year bar under section 40 of the Immigration and Refugee Protection Act.
If the file holds up, Quebec may invite you to an interview. It is not a test of business ideas. Officers use it to understand your career, your assets, how you built them and what you intend to do in Quebec. Preparation is simple in principle: know your own numbers and be able to explain every transfer.
A successful interview leads to conditional selection. You then sign the investment agreement with a financial intermediary authorised by Quebec and transfer the funds by the deadline in your letter. The investment is held for five years.
Once the money is in place and confirmed, Quebec issues the acceptance certificate that supports a work permit application, and you and your spouse move to the province. After living in Quebec for at least 12 of the preceding 24 months, you apply for the Certificat de sélection du Québec. The CSQ is Quebec’s selection decision; it is not permanent residence in itself. The permanent residence application then goes to IRCC, which decides medical, criminal and security admissibility.
Beyond the residence itself, this route suits investors who want a defined process rather than an open-ended commitment to operate a business abroad. The main advantages:
Among the business routes to Canada, the Quebec Investor Program is the most predictable in structure: fixed amounts, published criteria and a staged path. It is also the most capital-intensive, and CAD 200,000 of what you pay is never returned. No one can promise the result. Selection rests with Quebec and admissibility with IRCC.
If the numbers work for you, contact us for an assessment of your profile against the current grid, a realistic timeline and a written view of the weak points before you commit any money. Hadi Imani is a Regulated Canadian Immigration Consultant, RCIC #R522575, regulated by the CICC, and advises on Canadian immigration matters only.
