Photo by Redd Francisco on Unsplash
The Temporary Foreign Worker Program splits Labour Market Impact Assessment applications in two, and the split is decided by one number: the hourly wage the employer is offering, measured against a published threshold for the province or territory where the work happens.
People treat this as a technicality. It is not. The two streams have different advertising periods, different maximum durations, different obligations on the employer, and one is subject to both a cap and a rule that stops some applications being assessed at all. A job that lands a dollar on the wrong side of the line is a different application.
Where the line is drawn
Employment and Social Development Canada states the rule in one sentence: "The hourly wage threshold is the applicable provincial or territorial median hourly wage plus (+) 20%."
Read that carefully, because it is the change most commentary still gets wrong. The threshold is not the median wage. It is the median plus a fifth. A job paying exactly the provincial median is a low-wage position under this program, which surprises employers who think of median pay as ordinary pay.
From there the classification is mechanical. ESDC states that if the offered wage is at or above the threshold the employer applies under the stream for high-wage positions, and if it is below the threshold they apply under the stream for low-wage positions.
The current thresholds
ESDC publishes the thresholds by province and territory and updates them. The current set took effect for applications received on or after 17 July 2026. These are government-published labour market figures and an eligibility threshold the employer must meet, so they are worth quoting exactly.
| Province or territory | Hourly wage threshold as of 17 July 2026 |
|---|---|
| Alberta | $37.50 |
| British Columbia | $38.40 |
| Manitoba | $31.33 |
| New Brunswick | $31.73 |
| Newfoundland and Labrador | $33.60 |
| Northwest Territories | $48.00 |
| Nova Scotia | $31.96 |
| Nunavut | $45.00 |
| Ontario | $36.92 |
| Prince Edward Island | $31.20 |
| Quebec | $36.00 |
| Saskatchewan | $34.62 |
| Yukon | $45.60 |
These figures move. ESDC has revised them more than once, and the page carries a separate column for the previous period. Check the live page, not a number you read last year.
Working out which stream your job is in
Take the hourly rate the employer is actually guaranteeing and compare it with the threshold for the province or territory of the work location, not where the head office is. If the rate is at or above it, the job is high-wage. Below it, low-wage.
Two things distort this calculation more than anything else. The first is compensation that is not guaranteed. ESDC excludes overtime, tips, benefits, profit sharing, bonuses and commissions from the wage used for this purpose. A restaurant job advertised as reaching a high hourly figure once tips are counted is a low-wage position.
The second is an annual salary quoted without hours. The threshold is hourly, and a salary converted at 40 hours a week produces a different rate from the same salary converted at 44. The employment must be full-time in any case, which ESDC defines as a minimum of 30 hours of work per week.
What the low-wage stream adds
The low-wage stream carries obligations the high-wage stream does not, because the workers in it are treated as more exposed. For a worker reading an offer, these are the entitlements most often quietly dropped.
- Transportation: the employer must pay the round-trip transportation costs for the worker to come to Canada and return home, and the cost must not be recovered from the worker.
- Housing: the employer must provide suitable and affordable housing or ensure that it is available. ESDC treats suitable as not needing major repairs, and affordable as costing less than 30% of pre-tax income.
- Health insurance: the employer must obtain and pay for private health insurance covering emergency medical care for any period the worker is not covered by the provincial or territorial system, and must not recover the cost from the worker.
- Advertising: a Job Bank advertisement for a minimum of 8 consecutive weeks within the 3 months before applying, advertising targeted at youth aged 15 to 30, and at least 2 additional recruitment methods aimed at underrepresented groups.
- Duration: ESDC states the program allows hiring a temporary foreign worker in a low-wage position for a maximum of 1 year.
That maximum duration is the one to plan around. A one-year employment period, on a permit tied to one employer, is a short runway for anyone hoping the job leads somewhere permanent.
The cap on low-wage positions
There is a limit on how much of a workforce can be low-wage temporary foreign workers, applied per work location. The general figure is a 10% cap on the proportion of temporary foreign workers an employer can hire in low-wage positions at a specific work location.
A higher 20% cap applies in defined sectors: construction, food manufacturing, hospitals, nursing and residential care facilities, and specified in-home caregiver positions. Employers with fewer than ten staff are limited to one such worker under the 10% cap, or two under the 20% cap.
Some positions are not capped at all, including on-farm primary agriculture under listed occupation codes, caregiving in health care institutions, short-duration positions of up to 120 days and seasonal positions of up to 270 days.
There is also a rural measure. In March 2026 the government announced that, at the request of a province or territory, rural employers in eligible regions may retain their current number of low-wage temporary foreign workers and temporarily increase the allowable share from 10% to 15% of their workforce. The measure was announced as running until 31 March 2027, and it depends on a province or territory having asked for it, so it is not available everywhere.
Refusal to process, and why a job in a big city may be impossible
This is the rule readers have never heard of and it defeats more offers than any other. Since 26 September 2024, ESDC refuses to process an LMIA application where the wage is below the provincial or territorial threshold and the work location is in a census metropolitan area with an unemployment rate of 6% or higher at the time of submission.
Refusing to process is not the same as refusing the application. Nobody assesses whether the job is genuine or whether the employer recruited properly. The file does not get that far.
Certain applications remain eligible for processing anyway: primary agriculture occupations, construction, food manufacturing, hospitals, nursing and residential care facilities, listed in-home caregiver occupations, applications supporting permanent residence only, and short-duration positions of generally up to 120 calendar days that are genuinely temporary or highly mobile.
The list of affected metropolitan areas is not static. ESDC states the unemployment rate table is updated every 3 months, with the next update scheduled for 9 October 2026. A job offer in a city that was eligible in one quarter may not be in the next, which is a real reason an employer's plan can collapse through nobody's fault.
What the high-wage stream asks instead
The high-wage stream is lighter on worker entitlements and heavier on proving the employer is reducing reliance on the program over time.
- Recruitment: at least 3 different activities, including a Job Bank advertisement using Job Match, with a minimum of 4 consecutive weeks of advertising within the 3 months before applying and at least one activity continuing until a decision is issued.
- Transition plan: mandatory, setting out 3 distinct activities to recruit, retain or train Canadians and permanent residents, with several exemptions including in-home caregiver and health care provider positions and seasonal agriculture.
- Duration: an employer may request an employment duration of up to 3 years.
- Health insurance and the employment agreement requirements apply here too, as does the bar on recovering the processing fee or recruitment fees from the worker.
Both streams share the same wage discipline afterwards. The prevailing wage is reassessed at the start of employment and reviewed annually against updated Job Bank figures, and the wage can never fall below the one named in the positive decision.
- Is the threshold the same as the provincial median wage?
- No. ESDC sets the threshold at the applicable provincial or territorial median hourly wage plus 20%. A job paying exactly the median is a low-wage position under this program.
- My offer is above the median for my occupation. Does that make it high-wage?
- Not necessarily. The stream is decided against the provincial or territorial threshold, not against the median for your occupation. A well-paid job in a lower-paying occupation can still sit below the threshold, and the occupational median matters separately as the prevailing wage the employer must pay.
- Why was my employer told the application cannot be processed?
- Most likely the refusal to process rule. Since 26 September 2024, an application for a position paying below the threshold with a work location in a census metropolitan area with an unemployment rate of 6% or higher is not processed at all. Several sectors and short-duration positions remain eligible, and the affected list is updated every 3 months.
- Can the employer just raise my wage to get into the high-wage stream?
- They can offer more, but the offered wage is the wage that has to be paid and it cannot later be reduced below the figure in the positive decision. Raising the number on paper without the intention or ability to pay it is a compliance problem that lands on the employer and on your status.
- How long can a low-wage position last?
- ESDC states the program allows hiring a temporary foreign worker in a low-wage position for a maximum of 1 year. High-wage employers may request an employment duration of up to 3 years.
If you want to know which stream a specific offer falls into, and whether the work location makes the application impossible before anyone spends money on it, bring us the offer and the postal code. Book a consultation
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