Business Class

Business immigration
(Business Class)

The peculiarity of this class is that people who pass in this category, do business and do not plan to get a job in Canada – they plan to run their own business. This class includes three categories:

• Investors (“investors”). Those passing through this category must have significant cash (at least $1,600,000 CAD) and are willing to invest at least $800,000 cad in Canada’s economy. This class applies only to the province of quebec. All other provinces have their own investment programmes.

• Entrepreneurs.” Those in this category must have business experience, have enough money and skills to set up a new business or buy a ready-to-do business in Canada and manage it. All provinces have their own business programs.

• Self-employed. Those in this category must have sufficient professional skills to begin to provide professional services as a private entrepreneur. The peculiarity of this class is that it can be held only by people of art, athletes and farmers who can contribute to the development of art in Canada, sports or agriculture.

Entrepreneurs
This category provides an excellent opportunity to iminize to Canada those who have a successful business experience and sufficient funds to purchase an existing company or organization in Canada. The main requirement for immigrant entrepreneurs is to create new or maintain existing jobs.

Requirements for an entrepreneur:

• It must show a successful business experience as an owner or manager;
• it must show the availability of its own cash worth at least 150,000 Canadian dollars;
• he must sign the obligations to comply within the first three years after entering Canada with the conditions of granting him an immigrant visa.

The peculiarity of this category is that the visa to entrepreneurs is issued conditionally. In order to remove the conditionality of his visa, the entrepreneur must meet the following basic requirements:

• to set up a new business or buy an existing business. At the same time, the share of ownership of this business should be at least 33 1/3%;
• Actively participate in business management; create a minimum of one workplace for a Canadian citizen or permanent resident (not a member of the businessman’s family). At the same time, the businessman must pay the salary of the hired employee at hourly rates not lower than the minimum set in Canada, on the basis of paid at least 1950 hours (one year).

A conditional visa is issued for three years. At the end of this period, the entrepreneur must show that for at least one year he met the conditions under which he was issued a visa. In addition, between 18 and 24 months after arriving in Canada, he must report to the immigration authorities what he has done to meet the conditions under which he was granted a visa. If they do not get anything out of what he was supposed to do in three years after entering Canada, he may be stripped of his immigrant visa. Usually, in practice, the immigration authorities are quite loyal to those who have passed in this category, and the main criterion by which they decide to confirm a visa is to start a new business and hiring one employee. It is fair to say that not all immigrants under the “entrepreneur” category comply with the terms of a conditional visa, but cases of expulsion from the country due to non-compliance with visa conditions are extremely rare.

It should be noted that you will need to prove to Canadian authorities the legality of the sources of your savings and the fact that they belong to you and not to any other person. The financial situation must be confirmed by the relevant documents – records of income taxes (personal and corporate), independent assessment of real estate owned by the entrepreneur, certificates of financial condition, etc. In order to go through the immigration process in this category, it is almost always necessary to apply for the services of immigration professionals.

Theoretically, those passing under the category of “entrepreneurs” can get an unconditional visa. Unconditional immigrant visa means that a permanent residence permit is issued to the entrepreneur without any conditions for opening a business by an entrepreneur. As a rule, an unconditional immigrant visa is issued only if the immigrating in this category already had a successful business in Canada before he applied for immigration. Typically, a business is required to exist for at least one year. In practice, this type of visa is extremely rare.