Two real LMIA changes landed in Canada in August 2026: ESDC now calculates the low-wage cap per work location instead of company-wide, giving small multi-location employers real room to hire — and IRCC extended the work-permit grace period for a pending LMIA from 60 to 90 days. We verified both directly against the official ESDC and IRCC pages.
Two real changes to the Labour Market Impact Assessment (LMIA) system took effect within days of each other in August 2026 — one from Employment and Social Development Canada (ESDC), one from Immigration, Refugees and Citizenship Canada (IRCC). Neither is a headline-grabbing overhaul, but both change real outcomes: the first gives small employers with multiple locations meaningfully more room to hire temporary foreign workers, and the second gives workers already in Canada on an expiring work permit 50% more breathing room while their employer's LMIA is still pending. We verified both directly on canada.ca before writing this — the ESDC page carries an explicit "Updated: August 18, 2026" tag on the relevant section, and the IRCC officer instructions match, word for word, what is described below.
Rule 1: The Low-Wage Cap Is Now Calculated Per Location, Not Per Company
The Temporary Foreign Worker Program caps the proportion of low-wage positions an employer can fill with temporary foreign workers at a given work location — normally 10%, or 20% in construction, food manufacturing, hospitals, nursing and residential care, and a handful of specific in-home caregiver occupations. Employers with fewer than 10 employees get a variation: for cap-calculation purposes, Service Canada treats their workforce as 10 people, which works out to a maximum of 1 low-wage TFW under the 10% cap or 2 under the 20% cap. As of August 18, 2026, ESDC applies that "fewer than 10 employees" test at each individual work location, not to the employer's workforce as a whole.
Why This Actually Matters
Under the old rule, a business with several small locations was judged on its total national headcount. A cleaning company with three Ontario locations and seven employees at each one — 21 people company-wide — did not qualify for the small-employer variation anywhere, because 21 is well above 10. Under the new rule, each of those three locations is assessed on its own headcount. Since each location has fewer than 10 employees, each one independently qualifies, and the company could now apply for one low-wage TFW at each site under the standard 10% cap — three in total instead of zero. In a 20% cap sector, the same three-location employer could potentially support up to six low-wage positions across the company.
- The workforce count includes full-time staff (30+ hours/week), part-time staff (under 30 hours/week, counted as 0.5 each), and vacant or not-yet-started TFW positions
- Cap-exempt categories are unaffected: on-farm primary agriculture, certain caregiving positions, short-duration positions of 120 days or less, and seasonal positions up to 270 days
- Employers must complete the "Cap for low-wage positions" section of the LMIA application and may be asked for payroll records to support the headcount claimed at a specific location
Rule 2: The LMIA-Pending Work Permit Grace Period Grew From 60 to 90 Days
Concurrent processing lets a foreign national already inside Canada submit a work permit application before their employer's LMIA has been decided — useful when a current work permit is about to expire and the LMIA is taking longer than hoped. As of August 21, 2026, IRCC extended the hold period from 60 to 90 days. All of the underlying eligibility conditions stay the same:
- The applicant's current work permit must expire in 2 weeks or less at the time they apply
- The employer must have already submitted a complete LMIA application to ESDC
- That LMIA must have been filed with enough lead time that a decision could reasonably have been made by the time the work permit application is submitted
- No decision on the LMIA can have been made yet
IRCC is explicit that this is not a way to game the system: filing the LMIA at the last minute, right before the work permit application, will only be considered on an exceptional basis, not treated as a normal case. If the 90 days pass without a positive LMIA on file, the officer decides the work permit application on whatever documentation exists at that point — which, since a positive LMIA is a mandatory supporting document under the Immigration and Refugee Protection Regulations, will typically mean a refusal. The extra 30 days matter most in exactly the situation ESDC and IRCC both describe: LMIA processing times have been trending upward, and a worker whose case would have run out of runway under the old 60-day window now has a real chance of the LMIA clearing in time.
The Common Thread: Where You Work Now Carries More Weight Than Ever
Both changes point in the same direction. The low-wage cap is calculated per work location. Business legitimacy reviews look closely at the specific address on the LMIA application, the workforce actually present there, and whether the employer is genuinely operating and providing goods or services from that location — not just naming it on a form. Employers should be ready to substantiate where the work actually happens and who works there, including payroll records if asked, before relying on either of these rules.
If you're an employer trying to work out whether the new per-location cap changes what you can apply for, or a worker whose current permit is close to expiring while your employer's LMIA is still pending, the details matter — and getting the timing wrong is exactly the kind of mistake that turns into a refusal. Our licensed RCICs can review your specific situation against these current rules.
