Immigration, Refugees and Citizenship Canada (IRCC) has quietly fixed a long-standing gap in its rules by issuing a temporary public policy that lets any foreign national who already holds a valid Canadian work permit enrol in a course or training program of six months or less without also applying for a study permit. The measure took effect on September 4 2026, was published on September 9 and was confirmed in an IRCC operational bulletin reviewed on October 12. It will run until 31 December 2027 unless revoked earlier. Before the change, section 188(1)(c) of the Immigration and Refugee Protection Regulations allowed short-term study only if the program finished before the period of stay originally authorised at the port of entry. Workers who later renewed their permits from inside Canada routinely fell outside that window and had to file a second application — a friction point for employers that wanted to upskill staff quickly. IRCC says the policy is aimed at occupations facing acute shortages, naming nurses, laboratory technicians, construction trades and early-childhood educators. Because no separate application is required, the exemption removes both direct government fees and several weeks of processing time. The department has started emailing eligible work-permit holders to explain the limits: the course must finish within six months; the exemption lapses when the work permit expires; and full-time study undertaken without a study permit will not count toward most permanent-residence programs. For employers, the change offers an inexpensive way to send foreign workers on short licensing or bridging courses that were previously off-limits without advance paperwork. For employees, it is a chance to pick up Canadian credentials or mandatory provincial certification — for example, Red Seal exam preparation for tradespeople — while keeping their income stream. Immigration lawyers nonetheless warn that anyone eyeing permanent residence should confirm that the hours spent studying do not reduce the amount of qualifying full-time Canadian work experience on record. The new rule does not open the door to study-first immigration strategies: foreign nationals who are outside Canada still need a study permit if education is their primary purpose, and programs longer than six months continue to require full study-permit processing. Still, the tweak removes an administrative hurdle for roughly 770,000 temporary foreign workers now in Canada and aligns federal policy with provincial calls for faster skills upgrading in critical sectors.
Source: IRCC.com
