Canada · Residency by investment
Federal Immigrant Investor Programme (and the IIVC pilot)
CLOSED. The Federal Immigrant Investor Programme was terminated in 2014 and the backlog of roughly 59,000 applications was cancelled outright by legislation, with fees refunded. Its replacement, the Immigrant Investor Venture Capital pilot (CAD 2M at-risk for 15 years), attracted almost no qualified applicants and was terminated in 2017. Canada has had no federal passive-investor route since. The Québec Immigrant Investor Programme is the only survivor.
Listed because it is the precedent that should inform any Canadian decision today: Canada has form for cancelling a queue retroactively, by statute, after applicants had waited years. The 2026 Start-up Visa closure is the same instinct, executed faster.
Qualifying routes
Five-year interest-free loan to the government; backlog legislatively cancelled
CAD 2M at risk for 15 years plus a CAD 10M net worth test — priced to fail, and it did
The facts
- Minimum investment
- 800k CAD
- Total landed cost
- n/a — closed
- Physical presence
- n/a
- Family
- n/a
- Permanent residency
- n/a
- Citizenship
- n/a
- Language test
- n/a
- Dual citizenship
- Permitted
- Requirements
- n/a — closed
- Canada legislatively cancelled ~59,000 pending federal investor applications in 2014. Assume queue risk in any Canadian programme is real.
- Sites still marketing a 'Canada investor visa' at the federal level are describing something that has not existed for over a decade.