Restore Status in Canada: The 90-Day Rule (2026)

You have 90 days from the day your temporary resident status expires to apply to restore it, and according to IRCC's published fee list the restoration fee alone is $246.25 before any permit fee is added. That is the whole rule in one sentence, and it is the number that decides whether the next chapter of your life happens in Canada or somewhere else.

Canada.ca puts the deadline in absolute terms on its page about restoring status and getting a work permit: "We must receive your application to restore your status no more than 90 days after your status expired." Not sent within 90 days. Received. The government rules quoted below come from that page, from canada.ca's study permit expiry page, from the IRCC Help Centre answer for visitors, and from IRCC's published fee list. Where I go beyond what those pages say, I say so.

How long do I have to restore my status in Canada?

Ninety days from the day you lost your status, and canada.ca is explicit that the date IRCC receives the application is what counts. If you apply online, canada.ca says you must submit before midnight UTC no more than 90 days after your status and permit expired, and it warns that the online system runs on coordinated universal time, so you need to know the difference between UTC and your local time. Canada.ca publishes no local clock time and no worked conversion, and this is not a place to do your own arithmetic under pressure: Toronto runs four or five hours behind UTC depending on the season, and a UTC midnight falls on the evening of the previous Toronto day, so it is easy to be a full day out. File days early rather than trying to land on the boundary.

Paper applications are stamped the day they arrive at the case processing centre. There is one further rule that almost nobody knows about, and canada.ca states it plainly: if IRCC receives an application after the 90 day period is over, "we'll count back 7 days and use that as the date received." Canada.ca gives no reason for that rule and does not describe it as an extension of the deadline, so do not plan around it.

Canada.ca's work permit restoration page lists four conditions for applying, and they are worth reading as written rather than paraphrased. You apply within 90 days of losing your status. You met the requirements for your stay, and canada.ca gives working illegally as its example. You met all the conditions listed on your expired permit before it expired. And you are not a temporary resident permit holder. The wording on the other pages is looser. Canada.ca's study page says that if your permit expires but you keep meeting the requirements of your stay and you respect the conditions of your study permit, you may apply. The IRCC Help Centre answer for visitors opens with "In some cases, if it's been less than 90 days since your visitor status expired, you can apply to restore it." In some cases is doing real work in that sentence.

Can I work or study while my restoration application is being processed?

Not in the normal case. Canada.ca states that if you lose your status you must stop working, and that normally you are not allowed to work until your status has been restored and your new work permit issued. That word normally is canada.ca's own and I am keeping it, because the page does not promise an absolute. The study page is stricter and carries no such qualifier: once you lose your status you cannot study in Canada until IRCC has restored your status as a student, and canada.ca adds that if you apply after your permit expires you can stay in Canada but cannot study until your status has been restored and you have received your new study permit.

This is the single most damaging misunderstanding in this area, and it is easy to see how it happens. Maintained status and restoration sound like the same thing and are not. If you applied to extend or change the conditions of the same permit before it expired, you may be able to keep working or studying under the conditions of the old permit while IRCC decides. That right comes from the Immigration and Refugee Protection Regulations rather than from any of the pages quoted here, it depends on what you applied for, and it does not follow you if you applied for something else instead. I have set out that detail, including who loses it, in my article on maintained status. Canada.ca's study page confirms only the narrow half of it, that you are legally allowed to stay in Canada while IRCC processes the application, and it adds a warning of its own: while you are on maintained status you cannot renew provincially issued documents such as a driver's licence or health card, and you cannot get a social insurance number card. If your permit expires first, you are restoring rather than maintaining, and the right to work or study stops on the expiry date and does not normally come back until the new permit is issued. Working during that gap is not a technicality. Canada.ca lists "met the requirements for your stay (for example, you didn't work illegally)" as one of its conditions for restoration, so in my experience working without authorization is the fastest way to put that condition at risk. Canada.ca also notes separately that temporary resident permit applicants do not benefit from maintained status.

You may stay in Canada while IRCC makes its decision. That much canada.ca does confirm. But be clear about what you are during that period: your status has expired and has not yet been restored, so you are staying while an application is pending, not on a valid permit. Staying is not the same as working.

How much does it cost to restore your status in Canada?

The restoration fee is $246.25 in each of the three categories below, and what you add on top depends on which permit you need back. IRCC's published fee list sets out the totals below.

Two costs sit outside that table and catch people out. Canada.ca's work permit restoration page lists an open work permit holder fee of $100 if you are applying for an open work permit, and a biometrics fee of $85 where biometrics are required. And on the family side, canada.ca is unambiguous: if your spouse, common law partner or dependent children came with you to Canada, they may also need to restore their status, they must each apply separately, and each family member must pay the restoration fee for their application. A family of four is not one $246.25 problem.

What if it has been more than 90 days?

In the ordinary case you must leave. Canada.ca states that if you lost your status more than 90 days ago and have not applied to restore it, you need to leave Canada and reapply from outside Canada if you want to work in Canada again. Canada.ca publishes one exception on that same page.

That exception is worth knowing, because most summaries of this topic never mention it. Canada.ca sets out a carve out for a foreign worker who is applying for an open work permit and who holds an open work permit support letter from a participating province or territory confirming they have been placed in that province's Expression of Interest pool or application inventory process under the Provincial Nominee Program. Canada.ca says such an applicant is exempt from three conditions that usually apply to restoration applicants: they do not have to apply within 90 days of losing their status, and canada.ca adds under that same point that they can apply even if they lost it more than 90 days ago; they do not have to meet the requirements of their stay listed on the expired permit; and they do not have to meet the conditions on the expired work permit prior to expiry. Canada.ca does not list the temporary resident permit holder bar among the exemptions. That is a narrow door, tied to a specific letter from a specific province, and it is not a general amnesty. But if you are sitting past day 90 with a provincial nomination process underway, it is the first thing to check.

If you are past the window and none of that applies, the question stops being restoration and starts being whether there is another lawful basis to stay. That is the territory of humanitarian and compassionate applications and other ways to stay in Canada, and it is a different analysis with a different standard.

Is restoration guaranteed if I apply in time?

No, and the warning appears on all three pages. Canada.ca's work permit page states there is no guarantee IRCC will approve your application to restore your status or your application for a new work permit, and that if your application is refused you will have to leave Canada. The IRCC Help Centre answer for visitors ends with the same warning: there is no guarantee that your application will be approved. Canada.ca's study page repeats it a third time.

What you control is the quality of what you file. Canada.ca tells you exactly what it wants. On form IMM 5710 for workers you must select "Restore my status as a worker" under question 3, and on a separate page give details of your situation and clearly explain why you stayed in Canada longer than allowed. Visitors use IMM 5708 and select "Restore my status as a visitor," and the IRCC Help Centre says to give details of your situation and the reason you stayed longer than allowed under section 2 of the background information. Students select "Restore my status" under section 3 and, in canada.ca's words, "include a note explaining the reason you need to extend your stay," which is a narrower request than the one put to workers and visitors. For visitors the form itself carries the question that decides the file. For workers canada.ca puts it on a separate page uploaded with the application rather than on the form. Either way the question is the same, which is why you let your status lapse, and that answer is not a formality. It is the application.

What should I do now?

Find your real expiry date first, and read your permit carefully rather than from memory. Canada.ca states that the expiry date on your work permit is the date you must stop working in Canada, and that in most cases it is also the date your temporary resident status expires. It then warns that if there is a "Must leave Canada by" date on the permit, your status expires on that date even if it is later. Where the two dates differ, the difference matters: work stops on the permit expiry date, while status runs to the "Must leave Canada by" date. Do not read the later date as permission to keep working. Count 90 days forward from the correct status date and write that deadline down.

If you are a worker, check the employer side before you file anything. Canada.ca opens its instructions on how to apply with a direction to make sure your employer has completed all the required steps first.

Then stop working or studying immediately if you have not already, because continuing is what puts that second eligibility condition at risk. Related situations that often sit underneath a lapsed permit are covered separately in my articles on what to do when your work permit has expired and on how to legally stay longer when your visitor status is expiring.

Then write the explanation before you touch the forms. Canada.ca asks you to "give details of your situation and clearly explain why you stayed in Canada longer than allowed," and a vague paragraph produced in a panic on day 88 is a weaker document than a clear one written on day 10. There is also a sequencing rule people miss: canada.ca states that if your permit and status have expired, you must restore your initial permit and status first, and after that you can apply for a different permit. That does not always mean two separate filings months apart. Canada.ca's worked example for an expired work permit says you can, if you are eligible for one, apply for a study permit at the same time, and that the online system will give you the study permit form. Its post graduation work permit example is different: canada.ca says you can restore your status as a student and apply for the post graduation work permit if you are eligible, then sends you to a separate set of instructions, so do not assume the same one submission route.

None of this is advice on your particular file, and restoration cases turn on details that only surface when someone reads your permit, your dates and your reasons together. Alisa Osipovich, RCIC-IRB R1055424, does that review and tells you plainly whether the 90 days are still on your side.