Hire an In-Home Caregiver – Wages, Working Conditions and Occupations
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1. Overview
Families can hire a foreign caregiver to provide care, in a private residence, to children, seniors or persons with certified medical needs, when Canadians and permanent residents are not available.
Under the Temporary Foreign Worker Program (TFWP), families can hire foreign caregivers. However, the caregivers must:
- provide care on a full-time basis (minimum 30 hours per week)
- work in the private household where the care is being provided
- meet the requirements set Employment and Social Development Canada (ESDC)/Service Immigration, Refugees and Citizenship Canada (IRCC)
These families or private household employers will be able to hire foreign workers, on a live-in or live out basis, for 2 categories of in-home workers, which include:
1. Caregivers for children
- Children under 18 years of age
This category could include positions such as:
- Child care provider, live-in caregiver, nanny (NOC 4411)
2. Caregivers for people with high medical needs
- elderly persons, 65 years of age or over
- people with disabilities, a chronic or terminal illness.
This category could include positions such as:
- Registered nurse or registered psychiatric nurse (NOC 3012)
- Licensed practical nurse (NOC 3233)
- Attendant for persons with disabilities, home support worker, live-in caregiver, personal care attendant (NOC 4412)
Note: Foreign caregivers working in Canada may be eligible for permanent residency, provided they meet IRCC requirements. For more information on the pathways to permanent residence for caregivers, and the specific occupations that are eligible, visit IRCC.
Employers must meet the program requirements for the Streams for high-wage or Low-wage positions including paying the prevailing wage for the occupation in the location where the work will be performed, and conducting the necessary recruitment and advertisement requirements for the stream.
2. Program requirements
Processing fee
Employers must pay $1,000 for each position requested to cover the cost of processing a Labour Market Impact Assessment (LMIA) application.
The processing fee payment (in Canadian dollars) can be made by:
- Visa
- MasterCard
- American Express
- Certified cheque (shall be made payable to the Receiver General for Canada)
- Money Order (shall be made payable to the Receiver General for Canada)
- Bank draft (shall be made payable to the Receiver General for Canada)
Families or individuals seeking to hire a foreign caregiver to provide home care for individuals requiring assistance with medical needs are exempt from paying the Labour Market Impact Assessment application processing fee.
Families or individuals with a gross annual income of $150,000 or less, seeking to hire a foreign caregiver to provide childcare in their home to a child under 13 years of age, also qualify for the processing fee exemption.
There will be no refund in the event of a negative LMIA, or if the application is withdrawn or cancelled by the employer since the fee covers the assessment process and not the outcome. In addition, if a live-in requirement is found during the assessment of the LMIA application, there will be no refund.
Refunds will only be available if a fee was collected in error (for example, an incorrect fee amount was processed).
Employers must be aware that Employment and Social Development Canada (ESDC), has a policy that prohibits employers and third-party representatives from recovering the LMIA processing fee from temporary foreign workers (TFW).
Language restriction
A distinct language assessment factor has been introduced as subsection 203 (1.01) of the Immigration and Refugee Protection Regulations (IRPR). As a result, English and French are the only languages that can be identified as a job requirement both in LMIA applications and in job advertisements by employers, unless they can demonstrate that another language is essential for the job.
Language proficiency
Employers must ensure that the caregiver being hired speaks, reads and understands at least 1 of Canada’s official languages (English or French). Caregivers must have a level of fluency that enables them to communicate effectively and independently in an unsupervised setting.
Education, training or experience
Employers are responsible for ensuring that the TFWs being hired have all the training, qualifications and experience required to successfully and safely perform the job duties of the position for which they are hired. TFWs being hired for:
- lower-skilled occupations may require a certain amount of experience, short work demonstrations, on-the-job training, or no formal educational requirements; and
- higher-skilled occupations may require a post-secondary education (for example, university degree, college diploma).
Regulated occupations
Employers hiring a TFW in regulated occupations in Canada must ensure that arrangements are made with the appropriate regulatory body for the certification, registration or licensing of the TFW. A “regulated” occupation is one where a professional or regulatory body has the authority to set entry requirements and standards of practice that lead to a certification, registration or licence (for example, doctors, nurses, with compulsory certification).
