Caregiver & Nanny Immigration Programs

The Work That Canada Cannot Do Without

Canada has more than 780,000 children who need full-time childcare. It has over 7 million seniors, a number that grows every year as the Baby Boom generation ages into dependency. Behind every family managing that reality is a caregiver — someone who shows up before the parents leave for work, who sits with an elderly person through the night, who notices when something is wrong and knows what to do. Often from the Philippines. Often on a temporary permit. Often waiting for years to make their status in Canada permanent.

Canada knows it needs these workers. The government has said so repeatedly. The 2025 Home Care Worker Immigration Pilots — the clearest, most direct pathway to permanent residence that caregivers had ever been offered in this country — were designed to honour that acknowledgement.

And then the portal opened on March 31, 2025, and both programs hit their caps within hours. Not weeks. Hours. The portal crashed. People who were ready, document-complete, sitting at their computers at 10 AM EST, were shut out. On December 19, 2025, IRCC confirmed: the pilots will not reopen in March 2026. No new applications until further notice.

What the Home Care Worker Immigration Pilots Were

The Home Care Worker Immigration Pilots — one for child care (NOC 44100) and one for home support (NOC 44101) — launched on March 31, 2025. They represented the most significant improvement in Canada's caregiver immigration system in decades.

The key changes from every previous caregiver program: permanent residence on arrival, with no requirement to work years in Canada before being eligible to apply. No live-in requirement. No LMIA required from the employer. Eligible to work for agencies, families, and care organisations. Accompanying family members could arrive with you on day one.

Program Details (For Applications Already Submitted)

If you submitted an application before the intake closed, these are the requirements your file is being evaluated against.

The Two Streams: Child Care vs Home Support

The two streams target different roles in the caregiving sector. Your NOC code is not just administrative — it defines which stream you qualify for and, critically, which work experience counts toward your PR.

• NOC 44100 (Home Child Care Provider) covers: nannies, babysitters in private homes, home child care providers. It does not cover positions in institutional daycares or roles as foster parents. The job must be in a private home setting.
• NOC 44101 (Home Support Worker) covers: personal care attendants, live-in caregivers for seniors, personal support workers providing support in a private home. It includes support for seniors, people with disabilities, and those recovering from illness or injury.

If Your Application Is Already In: The Occupation-Restricted Open Work Permit (OROWP)

For caregivers with an active application under the Home Care Worker Immigration Pilots, the most important document you need while waiting for your PR decision is the Occupation-Restricted Open Work Permit (OROWP).

The OROWP is LMIA-exempt. It is open, meaning you are not tied to a single employer — you can change families or care organisations if your employment situation changes. The one restriction is that you must work within your designated NOC code (44100 or 44101). The OROWP keeps you legally working in Canada throughout the PR processing period, which can take 12 to 18 months or longer given current IRCC inventory.

If You Applied Under the Older Caregiver Pilots

The original Home Child Care Provider Pilot and Home Support Worker Pilot — the five-year pilot programs that preceded the 2025 HCWIP — closed on June 17, 2024. IRCC continues to process applications submitted on or before that date.

Under the older pilots, the pathway required Canadian work experience to be accumulated before applying for PR — the two-step model that the 2025 pilots replaced. If your file is under the older program, your work experience requirement was 6 months of eligible Canadian experience. The June 2024 amendment reduced this from 12 months and clarified that experience gained outside Canada is also accepted.

What Caregivers Can Do in 2026

The closure of the federal pilots does not close every door. Several provinces are actively recruiting caregivers, and LMIA-based work permits remain a valid route for getting to Canada in the first place. Here is an honest map of what is currently accessible.

1. LMIA-Based Work Permit Through the Temporary Foreign Worker Program

If you are outside Canada and have a Canadian employer who wants to hire you, they can apply for a Labour Market Impact Assessment (LMIA) under the Temporary Foreign Worker Program. A positive LMIA allows the employer to sponsor your work permit. Once in Canada and working, you begin accumulating Canadian experience that will count toward future PR pathways — either through the next intake of the caregiver pilots when they reopen, or through PNP streams.

The LMIA route takes longer and costs more than the pilot programs, but for caregivers who cannot access the pilots, it remains a legitimate path to legal work status in Canada and a foundation for PR.

2. Provincial Nominee Programs (PNPs)

Several provinces have shown a consistent appetite for caregivers and personal support workers through their PNP streams. These vary significantly by province but represent real, actively-running pathways.

• Manitoba has been particularly notable: in 2025, the Manitoba PNP issued 1,247 invitations to candidates in NOC 44101 (home child care providers) through its Skilled Worker Overseas stream. Manitoba requires CLB 5 language — lower than the CLB 7 threshold in many federal streams. For caregivers with a Manitoba connection or employer, this is one of the most accessible PNP routes available.
• Ontario's In-Demand Skills stream invites Personal Support Workers (NOC 33102) every six to eight weeks with a strong approval rate. Note that NOC 33102 (Nurse Aides, Orderlies, and Patient Service Associates) is a TEER 3 occupation, which gives it access to streams that NOC 44100/44101 (TEER 4) cannot reach. Caregivers who can broaden their experience into NOC 33102 roles open significantly more immigration doors.
• British Columbia's Healthcare Professional stream recruits home support workers and personal care attendants with monthly draws.
• Atlantic Canada's AIP designates employers in healthcare and support services across all four Atlantic provinces, with lower competition than Ontario or BC.

3. Express Entry — for Caregivers in NOC 33102

If your role is as a Nurse Aide, Orderly, or Patient Service Associate (NOC 33102), you are in a TEER 3 occupation. This makes you eligible for Express Entry through the federal Canadian Experience Class after one year of Canadian experience, and potentially for healthcare category draws, which have cleared at CRS scores well below the general draw threshold in 2026. This is a meaningful pathway for caregivers whose role is institutional (hospital, long-term care, assisted living) rather than private-home-based.

4. Atlantic Immigration Program (AIP)

Atlantic Canada's AIP is an employer-driven PR pathway that does not require a CRS score. Designated employers in all four Atlantic provinces can sponsor caregivers and personal support workers directly. Healthcare and community support roles are consistently among the priority sectors in AIP draws. Nova Scotia, New Brunswick, and Newfoundland all have significant demand for home support workers and personal care aides.

What Is Coming Next

IRCC has stated that the pause on caregiver pilot intake is intended to allow the department to process existing applications and to "redesign a caregiver pathway that better balances labour demand and immigration sustainability." That language is careful, and it does not come with a date.

Based on IRCC's communication pattern and the regulatory cycle, the most credible expectation is a redesigned caregiver program in late 2027 or early 2028. This is not confirmed. It is the government's stated direction, without a committed timeline.

How Our Team Works With You

Caregiver immigration is one of the areas where the gap between having information and being properly guided is most consequential. The NOC code you work under, the way your employment is structured, whether you are working inside or outside the designated occupation, the timing of your OROWP renewal — these details do not just affect your application. They affect whether your Canadian work experience counts at all.

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I am a CICC-licensed Regulated Canadian Immigration Consultant based in Mississauga, Ontario. My team has helped business owners from 75+ countries navigate C11, BC PNP, Alberta AAIP, and Manitoba MPNP. We speak your language, understand your business culture, and build applications that IRCC approves. No ghost consultants, no false promises.