If you apply to extend your work permit, study permit or visitor stay before it expires, you can stay in Canada until Immigration, Refugees and Citizenship Canada (IRCC), the federal immigration department, decides. This is called maintained status, and it "used to be known as 'implied status'" (IRCC: glossary, maintained status). What you may do while you wait depends on what you applied for.

Who this is for

You are in Canada as a temporary resident, someone allowed to be here for a limited time as a visitor, student or worker (IRCC: glossary, temporary resident). Your permit or visitor stay ends soon, or its date has passed while an application waits, and you want to know where you stand.

If you hold a post-graduation work permit (PGWP), the work permit some graduates of Canadian schools get after they finish, our guide to what to do when your PGWP is ending covers what can come after it. This guide explains the rule those next steps rely on.

What maintained status is

IRCC describes it as a legal extension of your status that lets you stay while it processes your application (IRCC: glossary, maintained status). The rule is in Canada's immigration regulations: if you applied to extend your stay and no decision has come by the day your stay was due to end, your stay is extended until IRCC decides, and you keep your status in the meantime (Justice Laws: Immigration and Refugee Protection Regulations, section 183).

You have it when both of these are true:

• you applied to extend your permit or stay, or to change its conditions, before it expired (IRCC: if your work permit expires; IRCC: visitor record, after you apply);
• the application was complete. IRCC's guide for workers says an application returned as incomplete counts as never submitted, so it gives you no maintained status (IRCC: Guide 5553, applying for a work permit inside Canada).

It does not apply while you wait on a temporary resident permit, a permit IRCC may grant in exceptional cases to someone who does not meet the usual requirements (IRCC: if your work permit expires; IRCC: glossary).

Mind the deadline. IRCC must receive a work permit application before your permit expires. Online, the last moment is midnight Coordinated Universal Time (UTC) on the expiry day (IRCC: extend your work permit, how to apply), which in Canada falls in the afternoon or evening of that day, not at local midnight. For any permit, IRCC advises applying at least 30 days before your status expires (IRCC: Guide 5553).

What you can do while you wait

It depends on what you applied for.

• To extend your work permit or change its conditions. You can keep working under your current permit's conditions as long as you stay in Canada. On an employer-specific permit, the kind tied to one job offer, that means the same employer, job and work location. An open permit holder can usually change employer (IRCC: if your work permit expires).
• For a new employer-specific permit, to change job or employer. You can keep working only for the employer on your current permit until the new one is approved, unless you ask IRCC, through its web form, for permission to start the new job while it decides, and it agrees (IRCC: changing jobs or employers).
• For a study permit or visitor record, while you hold a work permit. You can work only until your work permit's own expiry date, and not after it while you wait (IRCC: if your work permit expires).
• To extend your study permit. You can keep studying under your current study permit's conditions (IRCC: can I stay after my study permit expires?).
• For a work permit, such as a PGWP, as your studies end. You can work full-time while you wait if you were already allowed to work off campus during your studies and applied before your study permit expired (same page).
• To extend a visitor stay. You can stay in Canada until the decision (IRCC: visitor record, after you apply).

Two limits catch people out. While on maintained status you usually cannot renew documents your province or territory issues, such as a driver's licence or health card, so renew them before your permit ends. And your Social Insurance Number (SIN), the 9-digit number you need to work in Canada (Service Canada: Social Insurance Number), expires on the same day as your work permit, but you can keep working with an expired SIN until IRCC decides (IRCC: if your work permit expires).

How do you show your employer you can keep working?

• If you applied online to extend or change your work permit, IRCC sends a letter to your account that you can show as proof you are allowed to keep working, if you are eligible. The letter carries an expiry date 365 days after IRCC received your application, and if no decision has come by then, you can still keep working until it does (IRCC: after you apply to extend your work permit).
• If you applied on paper, there is no letter. You can show a copy of your application, proof that you paid the fees, or the postal or courier tracking record (same page).

Can you travel outside Canada?

You can leave and come back, but leaving changes what you may do on your return. If your work permit application is still in process, you may be let back in only as a visitor, and you cannot work until the permit is approved (IRCC: if you want to travel outside Canada). The same goes for students: back in as a visitor, you cannot study until the study permit is extended (IRCC: can I travel after applying to extend my study permit?).

A work permit is not a travel document. Depending on your passport, you may need a visitor visa or an electronic travel authorization (eTA), an online entry approval, to return, and neither guarantees you will be let back in (IRCC: if you want to travel outside Canada).

What if IRCC says no, or you applied too late?

A refusal ends your extended stay on the day of the decision (Justice Laws: section 183). If your permit's own date has already passed, you then have no status: IRCC's guide for workers says that after a refusal you can stay only until your current status expires (IRCC: Guide 5553), and its page for students says that after a refused work or study permit application you must stop working and leave Canada (IRCC: work off campus as an international student).

Applying after your permit expired gives you no maintained status at all.

Either way, you may be able to restore your status, meaning get it back: a visitor, worker or student who loses status can apply to restore it within 90 days (IRCC: glossary, restoration of status). A worker restoring status must stop working and normally cannot work again until the status is restored and a new permit issued, pays a restoration fee on top of the permit fees, and has no guarantee of approval (IRCC: restore your status and get a work permit). Our PGWP guide covers what happens after the 90 days and the one exception IRCC names.

Which later applications count it?

Maintained status counts as status for some applications you may make next. A bridging open work permit, which can keep you working while you wait for a permanent residence decision, accepts a worker who kept their status this way (IRCC: bridging open work permit). So does the open work permit for a partner being sponsored from inside Canada (IRCC: open work permit for a sponsored spouse or partner), which our spouse and partner sponsorship guide explains.

Next step

If you are working out what can come after your current permit, the free questionnaire checks the Canada routes our report covers against your answers.