Canada offers (literally) more than a hundred ways to immigrate. Many of these Canadian immigration programs, however, are province-specific, and are similar to other programs offered in other provinces.
The best pathway for you will depend on your own immigration profile, as well as any family ties you may have in Canada. Fair enough, no immigration process is simple, even though it is worthwhile. It is a slow process.
That being said, some options are more challenging than others.
From a broad perspective, you have three options that allow for (relatively) easy access:
3 Easy pathways to permanent residency in Canada:
A – The Express Entry program
For skilled workers and professionals, this is the fastest Canadian immigration program – and unsurprisingly, the most popular. Successful applicants are able to obtain permanent residency is as little as six months.
Right now, Canada is working hard to increase its skilled work-force by inviting people from abroad. Most of these are expected to enter into Express Entry programs, through one of the following streams:
Federal Skilled Worker (FSW)
Canadian Experience Class (CEC)
Federal Skilled Trades (FST)
Canada has what it refers to as its Comprehensive Ranking System (CRS). Every year, people who are eligible to apply for one of the above three program streams, submit Express Entry Profiles online. The database of candidates is then arranged by descending score.
Depending on how many spots are available for each of the three streams, the appropriate number of candidates (from the top of each list) are then invited to apply.
For those eligible to submit a profile, the Express Entry program may provide the easiest route to permanent residency in Canada.
For those who fail to obtain applications, the individual provinces may hold the key. Just by being in the database, any profile can be nominated for permanent residency by any province interested in their skills.
B – The Provincial Nominee Programs
Across all of the Canadian provinces there are a multitude of Provincial Nominee Programs. These differ in terms of requirements, numbers, and skills focus, depending on the needs of each individual province.
In some cases, a connection to the province is required – but in other cases, nominations come down to whether your skill set will serve the province’s needs.
Aside from having province-specific programs, processing times for applications vary from one province to the next. How long it takes will partly depend on whether the province in question uses the Express Entry system or not.
Once nominated by the province, you will still have to apply for permanent residency via the federal government. It does however become easier once you have the support of a provincial administration.
Depending on the province, there may or may not be an additional processing fee for your PNP application.
C – Sponsorship
If any qualifying member of your family is a permanent resident – or citizen – of Canada, it could also provide an easy route to permanent residency.
There are several Canadian immigration programs that enable citizens and permanent residents to bring family members into the country. Currently, Canada aims to welcome more than 100,000 new permanent residents each year by means of the family sponsorship programs.
The program makes provision for blood relations, spouses and common-law partners.
Depending on the province you want to immigrate to, there may be a fee from the provincial administration on top of our processing fee.
The processing time varies, and often depends on the family member (and their relation to you) who sponsors you. In the case of spouses and common-law partners, the process usually takes around a year to complete.
In conclusion
There are many ways to obtain permanent residency in Canada. Your options depend on various factors.
To see if you are eligible to immigrate, and which options are open to you, please complete the online Immigration Assessment form.