Most Venezuelans who recently became permanent residents of Canada did so as refugees or on humanitarian grounds, according to admissions data from IRCC, Canada's immigration department; a guide to those routes explains them. IRCC's family-based humanitarian programme for Venezuelans, Colombians and Haitians with relatives in Canada is closed, as enough applications arrived to fill its places. For someone choosing to move, the usual economic routes are Express Entry, the online system where skilled workers build a profile and IRCC invites those with the most points to apply for permanent residence, and nomination by a province that needs your skills. Within Express Entry, the Federal Skilled Worker Program is for skilled workers with work experience gained abroad.

Gather what must come from Venezuela early. The police certificate, the certificado de antecedentes penales, is requested online from the Ministry of Interior, Justice and Peace, in Spanish and with your cédula (identity card) number, wherever you live; Venezuelan embassies and consulates can no longer help. For the educational credential assessment, a report on what your degree equals in Canada, WES, an assessor IRCC designates, accepts your transcript only in an envelope your university has sealed and signed or stamped across the flap.

The mistake to avoid is entering the expiry date printed in an expired Venezuelan passport. IRCC recognizes the decree that extended Venezuelan passports' validity by five years (provisional passports excepted), and for Express Entry asks you to add five years to the printed date, enter that date and include a letter of explanation stating that your passport has been extended. A passport still expired after those five years cannot be used to create a profile or apply, so check the extended date first.