Public Policy To Allow Restoration of Temporary Status Beyond 90 Days Extended To August 2021

Restoration of Status Beyond the Usual 90 Day Period

Due to the continued impact of covid-19 on temporary residents in Canada, including workers, students, and visitors, IRCC has extended its mandate from July 14, 2020 to exempt temporary residents in Canada from certain requirements.

Workers, students, and visitors continue to be exempt from the requirement to restore their status within 90 days of their expiry, and will be allowed to restore their status if they have already expired until August 31, 2021 (this year).

In order to be able to restore to valid status, the applicant must:

• Have held valid status as a worker, student, or visitor on or after January 30, 2020 (last year)
• Have had their status expire between January 31, 2020 (last year) and May 31, 2021 (this year)
• Not have left Canada since their status expired

This mandate was set to expire on December 31, 2020 (yesterday) and has now been extended to August 31, 2021 (this year).

This means that if your temporary status expires any time between January 31, 2020 (last year) and May 31, 2021 (this year), then you will have until August 31, 2021 (this year) to restore your temporary status.

Authorization to Work

This public policy also allowed those who previously held temporary status which expired between January 31, 2020 (last year) and May 31, 2021 (this year) to work while their application for restoration of status as a worker is processed.

In order to be eligible to work while the application to restore status as a worker is in process, the applicant must:

• Have held a valid work permit in the 12 months prior to their application AND
• Have a valid job offer AND
• Have applied for an LMIA-based work permit OR have applied an LMIA-exempt work permit
• Have submitted a request to IRCC, and received authorization, to work while the application is in process