Visa information

Canada offers three named routes in the 2026 guide — Express Entry for skilled workers, Provincial Nominee Programmes, and study permits with post-graduation work permits — plus a Start-up Visa in its schemes list. It scores only 58/100 for visa and bureaucracy, and it is explicit about the gap many movers hope for: there is no retirement visa.

The routes the guide names

Express Entry — described in the guide as skilled workers, points based.

Provincial Nominee Programmes — the provincial route, listed without province-by-province detail.

Study permits with post-graduation work permits — the study-to-work route.

The guide's schemes list adds a fourth entry point, the Start-up Visa, and a benefit rather than a visa: public healthcare once resident. There is no retirement visa — see the Retirement page for the Super Visa alternative the guide describes.

Thresholds and the routes the guide does not quantify

The guide gives no income threshold, points cut-off or salary floor for Express Entry, the Provincial Nominee Programmes or any other route. It describes Express Entry only as points based, so this page does not invent a points score or a dollar figure.

The one long-stay figure the guide does print is about the Super Visa: it lets parents and grandparents of residents stay up to five years at a time — a family route described under retiring, not a general retirement visa. For remote workers, the guide says work for a foreign employer is allowed as a visitor up to 6 months, and names the Tech Talent Strategy without giving its terms.

What the paperwork costs — plan budgets, not government fees

The guide does not list individual government visa fees separately. What it gives is a bundled “Visa, permits & translations” line in each move plan — described as government fees, apostilles and translations, with the Luxury tier adding an immigration lawyer — and those lines are the only sourced cost figures for the application itself:

• $1,100 — Affordable plan (you file yourself)
• $1,550 — Mid-range plan
• $1,550 — Retirement plan
• $3,750 — Luxury plan (the plan notes the luxury tier adds an immigration lawyer)

The Retirement plan carries one further, separate line: $2,900 for “Retirement visa, lawyer & pension certification”, covering an immigration lawyer, apostilled pension letters, medicals and translations.

Application steps and timelines, by tier

The guide builds the application into each plan's timeline rather than printing a single step list. The common sequence across the plans and checklists is:

• Choose the route first and print its requirements; the Affordable checklist starts with “Visa route chosen and requirements printed.”
• Gather and legalise documents — apostilles and translations are named in every tier; the Retirement paperwork stage adds pension or income letters certified and apostilled, a police certificate, a medical, and birth and marriage certificates translated.
• Check your passport — the Affordable checklist requires a passport valid 18+ months.
• Arrange health insurance before you file (see the Hospitals page for the guide's first-year insurance budgets).
• File — yourself on the Affordable tier, or with a lawyer or agent on the Mid-range, Luxury and Retirement tiers.

Paperwork-stage durations in the guide: ~10 weeks filing yourself (Affordable), ~8 weeks with a lawyer or agent filing (Mid-range), ~6 weeks with a lawyer filing everything (Luxury), and ~14 weeks for the Retirement paperwork stage. After the move, the settle stage includes registering your address and opening a bank account.

Renewals and the path to residency — the honest limit of the guide

Neither the guide nor the site data gives renewal intervals, years to permanent residency or citizenship, or absence limits for any Canadian route, so this page states none. The routes are confirmed as named routes; their timetables are a question for an immigration lawyer or the official source below — the Retirement plan's lawyer line exists for exactly this kind of question.

Frequently asked questions