Canada: IRCC Clarifies New Language and Study Requirements and Other Eligibility Criteria for Post-Graduation Work Permits

Update - July 8, 2025: IRCC has temporarily reinstated the 178 study programs that were removed from PGWP eligibility in June 2025. These programs will now remain eligible until the next update in early 2026. As a result, students who applied for a study permit between June 25 and July 4, 2025, when those programs were briefly excluded, will still qualify for a PGWP, since the reinstatement applies retroactively.

Update – June 26, 2025: The list of eligible fields of study for the PGWP has been revised to align with the 2025 Express Entry priorities. As part of this update, 119 new fields of study, particularly in high-demand sectors such as health care, social services, education, and skilled trades, have been added. Concurrently, 178 fields no longer tied to occupations experiencing long-term labour shortages have been removed. Following these adjustments, a total of 920 fields of study are now eligible for PGWP. Students who applied for a study permit before June 25, 2025, remain eligible for a PGWP if their field of study was on the eligibility list at the time of application, even if it has subsequently been removed.

October 4, 2024: Immigration, Refugees and Citizenship Canada has published further details on the new language requirements for the Post-Graduation Work Permit (PGWP) Program that will become effective on November 1, 2024. Applicants who graduate from a bachelor’s, master’s, or doctoral degree program must demonstrate either (a) a minimum language proficiency in English at a Canadian Language Benchmark (CLB) or (b) French at a Niveaux de competence linguistique canadiens (NCLC) level 7 in four language areas (reading, writing, listening and speaking). Those who graduate from any other university program are subject to the same language requirements but must have additionally graduated from an eligible field of study to be eligible for a PGWP. Those who graduate from a college program (or any other program not listed above) must demonstrate a minimum language proficiency in English or French at a CLB or NCLC level 5 in the four language areas and must have also graduated from an eligible field of study to be eligible for a PGWP. Additionally, IRCC has clarified that it will only accept language test results that are less than two years old at the time of the application. More details on eligibility criteria, acceptable language tests and eligible fields of study (which will be those linked to certain occupations in long-term shortage in Canada) can be found here.