LMIA Processing Centres: Temporary Foreign Worker Program

Call the Employer Contact Centre from Monday to Friday, between 7:00 am and 8:00 pm, Eastern Time, to get more information about:

• the Temporary Foreign Worker Program (TFWP), and
• Labour Market Impact Assessment (LMIA) applications

What you need before you call:

• your business number (BN), or the BN of the business you are calling about
• the postal code associated with the BN (as registered with CRA)

Canada and the United States:

• toll-free: 1-800-367-5693
• teletypewriter (TTY): 1-855-881-9874

Outside Canada and the United States: 506-546-7569 (collect calls accepted)

Note:

Post Office (PO) Boxes can only receive mail items sent through Canada Post. Courier delivery services may not deliver to a PO Box and it’s your responsibility to verify with your courier provider.

Note:

For more efficient LMIA application process, Service Canada strongly recommends that you submit your applications electronically using the LMIA Online portal.

To access LMIA Online, an employer and a third party (if applicable) must have a valid Job Bank user account for authentication purposes. If you have not yet completed the one time registration in Job Bank for Employers, we invite you to do so by clicking on the link below and following the “Don’t have an account? Sign up now.” button. The registration process will take approximately 10 minutes. Once your Job Bank account(s) is/are created, you will be able to complete an LMIA application via the LMIA Online Portal.

Note:

Until further notice, you can also submit your LMIA applications and any documents specific to an LMIA application to our processing centres via email to the email addresses listed below. Documents must be in PDF, RTF, TXT or in JPG format and must not be over 4MB in size. Please ensure that you email your application or documents to the appropriate address based on your stream and job location. Please note the email addresses below are for LMIA applications and TFW Program document submissions only. We will not respond to, or forward, any other inquiries. For more information, please contact the Employer Contact Centre at one of the numbers listed above.

Processing centres

LMIA applications are processed in different locations across Canada, depending on the stream or job location. It’s important that employers e-mail or fax their applications to the appropriate office, to avoid processing delays.

• British Columbia, Saskatchewan, Manitoba and Yukon
• Alberta, Northwest Territories and Nunavut
• Ontario
• Quebec
• Atlantic Provinces

Centres of specialization process the following occupations and program specific applications:

• National Occupational Classification (NOC) Training, Education, Experience and Responsibilities (TEER) 0/1/2/3 positions supporting Permanency Residency (under Federal Skilled Worker Program, Federal Skilled Trades Program, Canadian Experience Class)
• Academics (university professors), medical doctors/specialists or registered nurses
• In-home Caregiver Program
• Seasonal Agricultural Worker Program
• Other Primary Agriculture positions (including positions under Agricultural Stream and non-National Commodity List positions under High-wage and Low-wage Streams)
• Pilot for two-year employment duration for eligible meat processor employers
• Global Talent Stream

British Columbia, Saskatchewan, Manitoba and Yukon

Until further notice, all Primary Agriculture applications (National Commodity List and non-National Commodity List positions) must be sent to the Ontario processing centre.

You can only hire a temporary foreign agricultural worker in occupations and activities related to primary agriculture.

Primary agriculture

Primary agriculture is defined as work duties that must:

• be performed within the boundaries of a farm, nursery or greenhouse
• involve at least one activity, such as:
  • operation of agricultural machinery
  • boarding, care, breeding, sanitation or other handling of animals, other than fish, for the purpose of obtaining raw animal products for market, or activities relating to the collection, handling and assessment of those raw products, or
  • planting, care, harvesting or preparation of crops, trees, sod or other plants for market
• be consistent with one of these National Occupational Classification codes: 80020, 80021, 82030, 82031, 84120, 85100, 85101 and 85103.

Hire a temporary foreign agricultural worker

You can hire a temporary foreign agricultural worker under one of the following streams:

Seasonal Agricultural Worker Program

• temporary foreign worker must be from Mexico or the participating Caribbean countries
• production must be included on the National Commodities List

Agricultural stream

• temporary foreign worker can be from any country
• production must be included on the National Commodities List

Stream for high-wage positions

• production is not included on the National Commodities List
• temporary foreign worker can be hired for any high-wage agricultural position

Stream for low-wage positions

• production is not included on the National Commodities List
• temporary foreign worker can be hired for a low-wage agricultural position

National Occupational Classification (NOC) Migration