• Posted 03-Jan-2021

PGWP post graduate work permit Eligibility facts

Some interesting factors of the post graduate work permit today

What is a post graduate work permit?
It is an opportunity that international students get after finishing the program of study in Canada which allows them to have a work permit anywhere from the length of eight months to three years it is an open work permit which means they can work for any employer in Canada full-time.

This work experience that they gain on the postgraduate work permit can be used for various Immigration Programs in Canada to apply permanent residency including federal and provincial programs.

What are the eligibility requirements of post graduate work permit? 

First and most important fact is Student must study at an eligible DLI which is designated learning institute in Canada.

Student must maintain their full-time status during each  academic session of program or programs in Canada which is three courses or nine credits. 

Exceptions can be made in special cases like final academic session-  so if a student  register part time only in the final academic session which is less than 3 courses 9 credits,  they will still be considered eligible for post graduate work permit

Second exception is a leave from studies Now , this is a very interesting topic when it comes to leave even though a leave is  an exception it doesn’t mean that you can take leave anytime you want from your studies. Leave can adversely impact your post graduate work permit application . Real suggestion for all international students out there is try not to take any leave if possible during your studies unless you have finished one program of study and you’re switching to a new one and the new program is not starting until the next semester. Even in that case leave must not be more than 150 days.

Another example of leave that does not impact your eligibility of post graduate work permit is , if your Institute is on strike but you are available to study which means its out of your hands. 

Apart from these exceptions if you think that in any other way you became part time during your studies or your grades were lower consistently or you see other components in your official transcript that might impact your post graduate work permit eligibility like you dropped one or more semester for any reason , Then you should put a very good explanation with your application along with the supporting documents to prove to the officer that you had no choice except from becoming part time or drop the semester or whatever your situation was. Still it will be officers discretion if he or she would want to approve or refuse your application

Now let’s talk about the length of the post graduate work permit .

Length of a post graduate work permit depends on the length of your program for an example if you finish a program of eight months you might get a work permit of 8 months or one year. So, lets take a scenario that the actual length of the program is one year which is three semesters but you have finished it accelerated which is in eight months you still might get 1 years work permit. On the other hand if the official length of the program is 8 month and you have also finished it in eight months you might get only eight months work permit. Again every individual case can be different but this is just an example to explain this.

Some institutes allow you to accelerate your studies for an example sometimes the official length of the program is two years and student finishes it in 1 1/2 years still they will get a completion letter of two years in those cases student may get three years work permit even if they have studied one and a half year.

Another points that I would like to highlight is if you are studying two different programs in Canada try to finish those two programs in two years and both programs must be Pgwp eligible. And you must meet all of the requirements of bg WP eligibility during the entire term of both programs. For example if you were part time in just one of the semesters in the middle of your first or second program that can make you ineligible for pgwp.