Work Permit Expiring, LMIA Pending? IRCC Now Gives 90 Days

IRCC now allows 90 days from the date you submit an in-Canada work permit application for you to provide the positive LMIA, according to canada.ca's program delivery instructions titled "Labour Market Impact Assessment Review, Temporary Foreign Worker Program." CIC News reported that the change took effect on August 21, 2026 and that the window used to be 60 days.

Canada.ca does not itself mention a previous 60 day window, so the size of the change rests on CIC News, but the date is checkable on the government page itself: those program delivery instructions carry a modified date of August 21, 2026 in their own page metadata. If the 60 day figure is right, that is 30 extra days for one specific person: the foreign worker whose permit is about to expire while the employer's LMIA is still sitting at Service Canada. Canada.ca is explicit about why the window exists, in its own words: to ensure that foreign nationals do not fall out of status.

Can I apply to extend my work permit if my LMIA is not ready?

Yes, in a narrow set of circumstances, and canada.ca calls it concurrent processing. According to canada.ca's page on how to extend or change the conditions of your work permit, you may be able to submit your work permit extension application while your employer's LMIA application is still being processed, and you then have 90 days from the day you submit to supply the required documents.

Canada.ca is equally clear about the downside. If you do not submit the LMIA within 90 days, it says your application may be refused for being incomplete. The program delivery instructions describe the mechanics from the officer's side: the application is promoted, the processing fee is allocated, and the application is held by IRCC for 90 days, after which a final determination regarding the work permit will be made.

The default rule has not changed. Canada.ca still says that in most cases you should wait to apply for a work permit extension until your employer gives you a positive LMIA decision letter. Concurrent processing is the exception, not the normal route.

Who qualifies for concurrent processing?

Three conditions, all of them, per canada.ca's program delivery instructions. Your work permit expires in 2 weeks or less. Your prospective employer has submitted a complete LMIA application with sufficient lead time to have the LMIA processed, which canada.ca defines as far enough in advance of the published processing times that a decision could be made. And no decision on the LMIA application has been made.

Two things about that table are worth knowing. The applicant facing page on canada.ca lists a shorter set: your work permit expires in two weeks or less, your employer submitted a complete LMIA application, and you submit all required documents within 90 days. The lead time and the no decision conditions appear only in the program delivery instructions written for officers. And those instructions do not merely ask you to meet the conditions, they ask you to provide proof of them.

There is one warning on the canada.ca instructions that deserves reading twice, because it is aimed squarely at employers who leave it late. Canada.ca states that employers should not submit the LMIA application immediately prior to the work permit application and expect that IRCC will allow for concurrent processing, and that such requests will be assessed on an exceptional basis. An LMIA filed the week before your permit expires is not a plan, it is a request for an exception.

How long do LMIAs actually take in 2026?

Long enough that 90 days may not cover it on several streams. The figures below are the average processing times in business days for July 2026, published by Employment and Social Development Canada on canada.ca and updated monthly.

Source: Employment and Social Development Canada, "Labour Market Impact Assessment application processing times," canada.ca. The page states these figures are updated monthly and can vary significantly from month to month based on application volumes.

Read those numbers carefully before you plan around them, and note one gap: canada.ca does not say whether the 90 days are calendar days or business days. It says only 90 days from the date of submission. ESDC, by contrast, is explicit that its LMIA figures are business days. If the 90 days are calendar days, which is the ordinary reading, then 88 business days is roughly 18 calendar weeks and the July 2026 averages on the high-wage, permanent resident and low-wage streams all run past the window. Read as business days instead, all three sit inside it. That ambiguity is worth raising with your representative rather than assuming the generous reading.

Either way the averages are not the whole wait. Canada.ca says the advertising your employer must complete first runs 14 days to 8 weeks depending on the stream, and that this time is not factored into the processing times.

Canada.ca's own advice to employers on that same page is to apply as soon as possible and up to 6 months before the expected job start date. Its advice to workers on the same page is to apply for the work permit after the employer receives a positive LMIA, or within 2 weeks of the permit's expiry.

What do I have to put on the application?

Canada.ca gives a specific instruction that most people miss: type the code CPTS2026 in the Job Title field of the IMM 5710 form. It also asks you to include proof that you have a valid job offer, and either a copy of the LMIA receipt confirmation number if your employer applied online, or a copy of the application sent to Service Canada if your employer applied on paper.

In the "Details of intended work in Canada" section, canada.ca asks you to indicate the date the LMIA request was sent, the office it was sent to, the employer's name, and the confirmation number for the submission if available.

One qualifier is worth stating plainly, because a lot of commentary treats that code as magic. The canada.ca program delivery instructions say the code is for tracking purposes only, and that the officer's decision should not be affected by whether or not this code appears. Use it, because canada.ca instructs you to and it lets IRCC track the file, but the code is not what makes you eligible. The three conditions are.

Can I keep working while I wait?

Only if IRCC receives your application before your current work permit expires. Canada.ca states that if you apply to extend your work permit before it expires, you have maintained status, meaning authorization to work without a permit until a decision is made on your application, as long as you stay in Canada. That is the entire reason concurrent processing exists, and it is why the filing date is the one deadline you cannot recover from. It does not make completeness optional: canada.ca still says your application may be refused if you are missing documents or other required information.

Timing is unforgiving here. Canada.ca says that if you apply online you must submit before midnight Coordinated Universal Time on the day your work permit expires, and that its online system runs on UTC rather than your local time. For paper applications received after expiry, canada.ca says IRCC counts back 7 days and uses that as the date received. Canada.ca describes no equivalent rule for online applications. I have written separately about how maintained status works when your work permit expires in Canada.

Maintained status also comes with restrictions people discover at the worst moment. Canada.ca says you must keep working under the same conditions as your current work permit, which on an employer specific permit means the same employer, the same job and the same work location. It also says that while you are on maintained status you usually will not be able to renew documents issued by your province or territory, such as a driver's licence or a health card, so renew those before your permit expires. On the SIN, canada.ca says your number expires on the same date as your work permit, that you can continue working with an expired SIN until IRCC decides, and that you can only update it once you receive the new permit.

And here is the trap that catches concurrent processing applicants specifically. The canada.ca instructions describe the LMIA as coming from your prospective employer, which means most people using this route are moving to a new job. Canada.ca addresses that case separately: if you applied to change either your employer or your job on an employer specific work permit and your permit then expires, you must keep working for the employer named on your original work permit until IRCC makes a decision, and you cannot start working with a new employer or in a new job until the application is approved, or unless you request and receive an authorization to work while it is being processed. Maintained status keeps your old job alive. It does not start the new one.

What should I do right now?

Put two dates side by side: the expiry date on your work permit, and the date your employer submitted the LMIA. If the LMIA went in months ago and your permit expires within two weeks, you are in concurrent processing territory and the job is to file before expiry. If your employer has not filed the LMIA at all, concurrent processing is not available to you, and the conversation to have today is with the employer, not with IRCC.

If your permanent residence application is already in and you are only trying to bridge the gap until a decision, the better instrument may not be an LMIA based extension at all. That is what the bridging open work permit and its CAN$255 in IRCC processing fees is for. And if the LMIA is part of a longer plan to score points and reach permanent residence, how Express Entry and the CRS decide who gets invited is where that plan should start.

Nothing here is advice on your specific file, and canada.ca's wording on concurrent processing has already changed once this month. Alisa Osipovich, RCIC-IRB R1055424, reviews the dates, confirms whether your file actually meets all three conditions, and tells you plainly whether filing now protects your right to keep working.