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In most cases, you should contact your administrator 3 to 6 months before the expected date of arrival of the trainee. It takes time to verify the trainee’s eligibility, process their enrolment, issue the proper invitation letters, and for their work permit and/or visa application to be processed.

For trainees applying for a work permit in Nigeria, Singapore, Thailand, Pakistan, Qatar, United Arab Emirates, you should contact your administrator 6 to 12 months before the expected date of arrival of your trainee.

You can contact your administrator earlier to verify whether the traineeship will be possible.

• The trainee will need to meet the requirements to be enrolled as a research trainee.
• The situation will need to correspond to either a work permit exemption or to an LMIA-exempt work permit. Some situations are more straightforward than others and some simply do not correspond to any exemption category.
• There needs to be enough time for the immigration application to be processed.

The following is a brief summary of the most common, straightforward situations for research trainees in terms of immigration. There are other categories allowing a research trainee to come to Canada. In every case, please contact your administrator to verify eligibility before issuing an invitation.

No work permit required

• Trainees who will do research for a period of up to 120 days. They must have a significant role to play or value to add to the project. This exemption can only be used once per year.

Work permit

• Trainees from any country coming with their own academic research award
• American, Mexican or Chilean citizens who hold a baccalaureate degree
• Citizens from certain countries participating in the International Coop program through International Experience Canada. The trainee should verify beforehand that
  • they meet (these criteria vary according to country of citizenship) AND
  • there are in the program (there is a specific number of spots awarded yearly to each country – once those spots are taken, it will not be possible to come through that program)

• The Request for Immigration Assessment filled out by you and the research trainee
• The trainee will also need to submit documents required for Enrollment as a Research Trainee:
  • Graduate Research Trainee​
  • Undergraduate Research Trainee

Unless a work permit exemption applies, you are required to pay the Employer Compliance Fee.

No, the fee must be paid by the employer.

Most research trainees need a work permit, even if they do not receive any financial compensation from ³ÉÈËVRÊÓƵ. While there are some situations where a work permit will not be needed, you administrator will first need to verify whether that is the case.