Status Extension

If you are already in Canada on a temporary permit or as a visitor, extending is an application made from inside the country. It is a different application from the one that brought you here, with different forms, a different fee and — usually — a different processing time.

Apply before your current status expires

This is the part worth getting right, and it is the part that decides everything else.

If you apply to extend before your current permit or authorised stay expires, you keep what is called maintained status — it used to be called implied status. You may stay in Canada, and continue working or studying under the conditions of your existing permit, until IRCC decides. It does not matter that your old permit's expiry date passes while you wait. The figures further down this page are how long a decision is taking, not how long you have.

If you apply after it expires, you have no status. You may be able to apply to restore it within ninety days, but restoration is a separate application, it costs more, you may not work or study while it is pending, and it is not guaranteed. Past ninety days, the route is to leave.

Apply early. Thirty days before expiry is comfortable; the day before is not, and the day after is a different and worse problem.

Maintained status does not travel

A trap worth knowing about. Maintained status only holds while you are in Canada. If you leave the country while the extension is pending, you lose it — and to come back you need a valid visa or eTA, and you would return as a visitor rather than under your old permit's conditions, so you could not work or study until the new permit was issued. If you have to travel while an extension is in progress, that is worth a conversation first.

What can be extended

Work permits, study permits and visitor status all have their own applications. So does a visitor record, which is the document a visitor uses to stay longer than the six months they were admitted for — it is not a visa, and it does not let you re-enter.

Extending is not the same as changing. Moving from a study permit to a work permit, or from visitor to worker, is a change of status rather than an extension, and the rules about who may do that from inside Canada are narrower. Say which one you actually need before you pay a fee.

Where Skylam comes in

Most extensions are straightforward and people file them themselves, which is fine. The ones worth help are the awkward ones: a permit that has already expired, an employer or programme that has changed since the permit was issued, a permit tied to a job you are leaving, or a plan to travel while the application sits with IRCC. Those are the situations where a decision made quickly and alone becomes expensive.

Requirements

Who qualifies

What an extension asks for depends on which status you are extending, but the shape is the same.

Every extension

Apply before your current status expires. Everything else is easier if this is true and harder if it is not.
You still meet the conditions you were admitted under, and you have complied with them — a study permit holder who stopped attending, or a worker who left the employer named on a closed permit, is not simply extending.
A valid passport covering the period you are asking for. IRCC will not issue a permit that outlasts your passport, so a passport expiring next year caps the extension at next year.
Proof you can support yourself for the extended stay.
Applied for online, in almost all cases, through an IRCC secure account.

Work permit extension

A closed permit tied to one employer usually needs a new or valid LMIA, or proof that the job is LMIA-exempt.
An open permit does not name an employer, so an extension turns on your own continuing eligibility rather than on a job offer.
A medical examination may be required again, depending on your work and how long since the last one.

Study permit extension

A letter from your designated learning institution confirming you are enrolled and in good standing.
Proof of funds for tuition and living costs over the extended period.
Apply before expiry even if your new letter has not arrived — a late application cannot be fixed by good documents.

Visitor record

Your reason for staying longer, and evidence of it.
Funds for the extra time and evidence you will leave at the end of it.
Note that a visitor record is not a visa. If you leave Canada you need a valid visitor visa or eTA to return.

If your status has already expired

You have ninety days from the expiry to apply for restoration. During that time you must stop working or studying, you remain in Canada without status, and the application costs the restoration fee on top of the permit fee. It is discretionary. Past ninety days there is no restoration to apply for — get advice rather than waiting to see what happens.

Requirements change without notice. Check IRCC’s own page

Every case turns on its own facts. Book a consultation and a licensed consultant will tell you where you stand on Status Extension.

Book a Consultation

Last updated 22 September 2026

What has changed recently

Current processing time

Work permit extension: 15 weeks
Study permit extension: 8 weeks

Published by IRCC and last revised 1 October 2026. These are averages over applications IRCC has already decided, not a promise about yours.

These are IRCC's current times for applications made from inside Canada. Applying for a first permit from outside Canada is a different application with a different time. If you applied before your current permit expired you keep maintained status while you wait, whatever the figure says.

Published by Immigration, Refugees and Citizenship Canada · last checked 2 October 2026. These figures describe decisions IRCC has already made — a consultation is where you find out what Status Extension means for your own case.

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