working & staying after study
Canada has the clearest study-to-permanent-residency route of any major English destination. Clearest is not the same as easy — and the gap between the two is where most plans break.
The Post-Graduation Work Permit is an open work permit — any employer, any location, no sponsorship. It is the bridge between your degree and permanent residency, and almost everything downstream depends on getting it.
Length: matched to programme length, from 8 months up to 3 years
The standout rule: most master's graduates qualify for a 3-year PGWP regardless of programme length
You must apply within 180 days of completing your programme
Programme length minimum: at least 8 months full-time — or 900 hours in Quebec
Apply online — flagpoling is no longer permitted. And note that the separate co-op work permit was eliminated on 1 April 2026; it is now bundled, with no separate application needed.
Two PGWP rules have been added recently, and both can disqualify you after you have already paid for the degree.
Language, since 1 November 2024: CLB/NCLC 7 for university degree graduates, CLB 5 for college graduates, via an accepted test
Field-of-study restriction: applies to college and other non-degree graduates only — 1,107 eligible programmes, frozen for the rest of 2026. Bachelor's, master's and doctoral graduates are exempt.
If your college programme is not on the eligible-fields list, or the institution arrangement is not PGWP-eligible, you can finish your studies and not qualify for a PGWP at all.
The practical rule: if you are choosing a college diploma, verify the programme is on IRCC's eligible-fields list and that the DLI arrangement is PGWP-eligible, in writing, before you pay anything. If you are choosing a degree, you are exempt from the field restriction — which is a quietly significant argument for the university route.
The standard path is PGWP → skilled Canadian work experience → permanent residency via the Canadian Experience Class under Express Entry. That route is real and documented. Here is what it actually requires.
Canadian Experience Class needs at least 1 year of skilled (TEER 0/1/2/3) Canadian work experience within 3 years, plus language
Recent CEC Express Entry cut-offs: roughly 507–518 in early-to-mid 2026
A general Canadian Experience Class draw is not an easy threshold for a fresh graduate. Treat a general-draw invitation as the unlikely outcome, not the plan.
General draws are brutal. But Canada runs targeted draws where the threshold is dramatically lower — and this is the single most actionable thing on this page.
Recent category-based cut-offs: ~462 education, ~467 healthcare, ~393 French-speaking, and a record 169 for physicians
A provincial nomination adds 600 CRS points — effectively guaranteeing an invitation
For Nepali nationals specifically: PNP appears to be the most-used economic PR route — one cited figure is ~1,620 of ~4,335 Nepalese granted economic PR between Jan 2023 and Mar 2025
So your occupation and your French ability materially change the arithmetic — often more than your grades do. A healthcare or education pathway, or functional French, can move you from an impossible threshold to a realistic one. If PR is genuinely your goal, choose your field with this in mind at the start, not after graduating.
Express Entry categories now generally require 12 months of Canadian work experience, up from 6 in 2025
Under review: IRCC has signalled it may reduce or remove the CRS bonus points for studying in Canada and for foreign credentials
Quebec runs its own system — the CSQ and PEQ, with the Quebec Experience Program set to reopen on 2 July 2026
The honest position: the labour market has cooled, unemployment has risen, and living costs in Toronto and Vancouver are high
The gap that breaks most plans is not getting a PGWP — it is getting skilled work that counts for the Canadian Experience Class at a high enough CRS. Any job pays rent; only TEER 0/1/2/3 work builds your PR case. Students who take whatever is available and hope to switch later frequently run out of permit before they run out of hope.
None of this means Canada is a bad choice. It still offers the clearest Tier-A pathway there is. It means the pathway rewards people who plan it from day one — field, province, language, and job type — rather than treating PR as something that happens after graduation.