BlogBusiness ImmigrationCanadian Immigration ProgramsImmigration Minister implements dramatic changes to Canada’s Business Immigration programs
On Monday April 29, 2024 Canada’s Minister of Immigration, Refugees and Citizenship Canada (IRCC), Marc Miller, introduced dramatic changes to Canada’s two federal business immigration programs effective the next day, April 30, 2024. These changes limit the processing of Start-Up Visa (SUV) cases to a total of 10 start-ups per designated organization per year. Further, the Self-Employed (SE) category is completely suspended until the end of 2026 with no further applications being accepted while IRCC clears out the backlog of pending applications and determines how to re-vamp the program. Immigration professionals are scrambling to understand the rationale for such drastic and immediate changes. Let’s take a closer look at Canada’s two business programs - the SUV and the SE.