Canada’s New Digital Nomad Visa and the Top Things to Know
As a historically digital nomad export country, Canada has recently joined the rank of countries issuing digital nomad visas to attract incoming nomads and remote workers to test-drive the Canadian life.
Skyline Trail, Cape Breton, Nova Scotia, Canada
As a Canadian digital nomad, I’m thrilled to hear the news. Even though it’s not applicable for my situation, as a remote work advocate, I’m happy to see actions taken towards supporting the remote work movement in Canada. Last year, during an interview with Canada’s Information and Communications Technology Council (ICTC), I shared some thoughts about how Canada can embrace and capitalize on the location-independent movement:
“I think instead of restricting people to work and live in one place while realistically they can perform the same remote work elsewhere, we should start to explore a framework where people work and live in a safe and secure global mobility ecosystem, instead of forcing people to think about how to move to countries with favorable digital nomad visa offers.”
I’m glad that the Canadian government is taking steps forward, and you can review that article below.
How to Design a Location-Independent Life - Ariel on Becoming a Digital Nomad
Arches Provincial Park, Newfoundland, Canada
The Reasons Behind Launching a Digital Nomad Visa in Canada
Similar to many western countries, Canada has a long standing issue of slow population growth to fuel economic process. For years, the government has been focusing on developing various immigration programs to attract skilled workers coming to Canada. This has proved effective for a long time, and many skilled immigrants have received equitable opportunities to develop their careers in Canada and contributing to building the Canadian economy, including myself, but depending on the profession and one’s English proficiency, some skilled foreign workers including doctors were forced to switch careers or even drive Uber in Canada, due to high barriers of entry for certain specialized professions in Canada and the “Canadian experience only” sentiment in the job market. As a reference point, Toronto has the highest density of CFAs (Chartered Financial Analyst) in the world.
Coupled with limited economies of scale, increasing cost of living, high tax rates, bad weather, heavy regulations on everything, and a lack of hospitable social dynamic in Canada, some Canadians had to resort to other countries as better options. Some Canadians consider moving south as a symbol of “making it”. Randstad Canada reports that approximately 0.7% of Canada's population migrates to the United States each year.
Harbourfront Center, Toronto, Canada
The Canadian government’s goal of launching the digital nomad visa is primarily to attract more talents in STEM (science, technology, engineering, and mathematics) fields in order to boost the tech industry. The idea is to invite the eligible digital nomads coming to work remotely for their own foreign employers for up to six months. In addition to that, if these digital nomads end up receiving job offers from a Canadian employer while in the country, they will be allowed to continue working in Canada with up to three years of work permit, from where they can easily apply for the Canadian permanent residency and citizenship. So offering a digital nomad visa to give remote workers a test-drive of the Canadian life is a good move to attract more talents who are interested in establishing ties with Canada which has a reputation of being liberal, safe and peaceful.
Who Can Apply for Canada’s Digital Nomads Visa
Unlike some countries that impose job category and salary requirements, there are no further specific requirements to apply for Canada’s Digital Nomad Visa, other than the below two requirements (up until the time of publishing this article):
Work for an employer outside of Canada
Job can be performed remotely
The Canadian government has clarified that “Digital nomads don’t need a work visa to work remotely from Canada. You can visit Canada for up to 6 months at a time.”
You can apply for Canada’s Digital Nomad visa through Immigration, Refugees and Citizenship Canada (IRCC)’s website here, and expect the processing time of up to 2 months.
Moncton, New Brunswick, Canada
