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International Experience Canada, usually shortened to IEC, is the Canadian government's programme for young people who want to work and travel in Canada for a year or two. Most people search for it as "the Canada working holiday visa", though what it gives you is a work permit rather than a visa, and it is open only to citizens of countries that have signed a youth mobility agreement with Canada. If you are looking for a way to spend a year working in Canada without a permanent move lined up, this is the programme those searches lead to, so it is worth knowing who it is for, and who it is not for.
You are a citizen of a country that has a youth mobility agreement with Canada, you are inside the age range your country's agreement sets, and you want to work in Canada for a limited time. It is also for readers unsure whether their country has such an agreement, and in particular for readers in India, where the answer is no; we explain why below.
A youth mobility agreement is a deal between two governments: each lets the other's young citizens come to work and travel for a limited time. Canada has these agreements with a set of countries and territories, and IEC is the programme that runs Canada's side of them. IRCC's IEC eligibility page puts the first requirement plainly: your country or territory of citizenship must have a youth mobility agreement with Canada. IRCC is Immigration, Refugees and Citizenship Canada, the department that runs immigration.
What you receive is a work permit: permission to work in Canada for a set period. It is temporary, and it does not turn into permanent residence on its own; our post on what a visa, permanent residence and citizenship mean explains the difference. If you have read about New Zealand's working holiday visas, the idea is the same: a limited stay, with the right to work, for young citizens of partner countries.
IEC has three categories, described on IRCC's page about the programme. Which of them you can use depends on your country's agreement; not every country gets all three.
An open work permit. "Open" means it is not tied to one employer: you can work for most employers anywhere in Canada and change jobs as you travel. You do not need a job offer before you apply.
An employer-specific work permit, which ties you to one employer in one place. You need a job offer first. IRCC says the work must be paid, not self-employed, and must count toward your professional development: a job in your field, at a skill level the programme accepts. (TEER is Canada's scale of job skill levels, from 0 to 5; IRCC's page names the levels that qualify.)
Also an employer-specific permit, for students. You must be registered at a post-secondary institution outside Canada, and the internship must be directly linked to your field of study and needed to complete it.
You will meet the term LMIA on many Canadian work-permit pages; our LMIA post explains what it is. For what IEC itself asks of an employer, read IRCC's IEC pages.
The age range, the categories open to you, how long you can stay and how many times you can take part are all set by your country's own agreement, and they differ a lot. IRCC keeps the whole list on its eligibility by country page; check that page, not this post. Two examples from it, as we found them when we checked: citizens of Australia can apply from 18 to 35 in all three categories, with a Working Holiday of up to 24 months, while citizens of Japan can apply from 18 to 30, in the Working Holiday category only, for up to 12 months.
One rule applies to everyone: IRCC's eligibility page states that you are not eligible for IEC if you hold a refugee travel document from any country.
Then you are not eligible for IEC on your citizenship, and creating a profile will not change that. India is in this position: it has no youth mobility agreement with Canada and does not appear on IRCC's country list, and many other countries are in the same position.
You may read that "recognized organizations" are a way around this, so here is exactly what IRCC says. A recognized organization (RO) is a Canada-based body that helps young people plan an IEC experience: a job, a bank account, accommodation, insurance. IRCC lists the current ones on its recognized organizations page, naming for each the citizens it serves. Most serve citizens of IEC countries only. One also serves citizens of the United States, which has no agreement with Canada, and one serves the member countries of its own international exchange network, whose membership IRCC's page does not list. So for some nationalities an organization can open a door that citizenship alone would not, but only where IRCC's page names your country for that organization. When we checked, India was not named for any of them.
If you are an Indian citizen, the honest summary is: IEC is not open to you on citizenship, no agent can change that, and IRCC's page is where to check whether any organization names your country. For a citizen of an agreement country, using one is optional; IRCC notes that participants who use one can get two more lifetime participations, and most charge a fee.
You cannot simply apply for an IEC work permit. The steps, as IRCC's "create your profile" page sets them out, are these.
Your profile stays in the pool until you get an invitation or the season ends, when IRCC removes all profiles from the pools. Nothing on IRCC's pages promises an invitation, and nobody can sell you a place in a round.
IRCC's eligibility by country page states the common requirements that apply across countries: a valid passport, health insurance, proof of at least CAN$2,500 to cover your first weeks, and proof that you have a return ticket or the money to buy one. These figures can change; read them from the page.
The insurance is not a formality. IRCC's eligibility page says your policy would need to cover the cost of getting you to a medical facility, returning you to your home country, or returning your remains.
Not by itself: it is a temporary permit. What it gives you is time in Canada and, in a skilled job, Canadian work experience. Express Entry, Canada's main system for skilled permanent residence, includes the Canadian Experience Class, a programme built for people who have already worked in Canada. Our Express Entry post explains its three programmes and what each asks for, so you can see whether the job you take on an IEC permit would count. If permanent residence is your real goal, plan the job, not just the trip.
Our report assesses IEC as one of the Canada pathways. It checks your citizenship against the participating-country list it carries, and when your citizenship has no agreement with Canada it states that plainly on the report, so a reader in India sees it written down rather than left to guess. That is the whole of what it does here: it does not tell you whether you will be invited, and it does not predict a round.
Read the Canada hub to see the pathways the report covers, and when you are ready, answer the free questionnaire. It takes your citizenship, age and work history and shows which Canada routes deserve your attention, IEC among them.
Answer our free questionnaire and see your eligibility summary instantly. You only pay to unlock your full personalized immigration report.