The 'Study Without a Study Permit' Policy Just Expired — What Working Students Should Do Now

If you've been working in Canada on a work permit and quietly taking courses on the side without a separate study permit, a rule that may have made that possible has just ended. On June 27, 2026, a temporary IRCC public policy that allowed certain work permit holders to study without a study permit reached its expiry date. If you relied on it, this is a moment to check where you stand.

This was always a time-limited measure, not a permanent change to the law. It came into effect on June 27, 2023 and was built to sunset exactly three years later. Now that it has, the ordinary rule applies again: if you want to study in Canada, you generally need a study permit — unless another exemption covers you.

What the policy did

Normally, foreign nationals need a study permit to pursue most programs of study in Canada. The temporary public policy carved out an exception for a specific, narrow group of people who were already working here.

Under the policy, you were exempt from needing a study permit if you:

• held a valid work permit and the application for that permit was **received

by IRCC on or before June 7, 2023; or**

• had applied to renew a work permit on or before June 7, 2023 and were

authorized to keep working under paragraph 186(u) of the Immigration and Refugee Protection Regulations while that renewal was processed.

That June 7, 2023 cut-off is the detail many people miss. The policy was never open to everyone with a work permit — it was tied to applications already in the system by that early-June 2023 date. If your work permit application came in after that, this particular exemption never applied to you in the first place.

When the exemption ended for each person

The June 27, 2026 expiry is the outer limit, but for many people the exemption actually ended sooner. Under the policy, your study authorization ran only until the earliest of a few events.

In plain terms: the exemption ended when your work permit expired, when a pending renewal was refused, or on June 27, 2026 — whichever came first. So even before this week, plenty of people had already aged out of the policy when their work permit lapsed.

What this means for you now

The right next step depends on your situation:

• You finished your studies before June 27, 2026. There's nothing to fix on

the study-permit side for studies you've already completed under the policy.

• You're still studying, or plan to keep going. The exemption no longer

carries you. To continue studying lawfully, you generally need to hold a valid study permit — which means applying and being approved, not just submitting an application.

• You're not sure whether you ever qualified. Recheck the June 7, 2023

cut-off. If your work permit application post-dates it, you were likely never covered, and a different rule governs your situation.

Continuing to study after your authorization has ended can put you offside your conditions, so it's worth pausing to confirm your status rather than assuming the courses can simply continue.

An important catch: this never created PGWP eligibility

This is the point that trips people up most. Studying under this temporary policy did not make you eligible for a Post-Graduation Work Permit (PGWP).

A PGWP generally requires that you studied on a valid study permit, in an eligible program at a Designated Learning Institution, and met every other PGWP condition. Time spent studying under a study-permit exemption doesn't tick that box. If a PGWP is part of your longer-term plan, that plan needs to be built around an actual study permit — not this expired exemption.

What to do this week

• Confirm which work permit you hold and when it was applied for. The

June 7, 2023 date and your permit's expiry are the two facts that decide everything here.

• If you intend to keep studying, look at whether you need to apply for a

study permit now, and don't begin or continue a program assuming you're still covered.

• Don't bank on a PGWP from study time that happened under this exemption.
• Check the official source. IRCC can update or wind down policies quietly,

so verify the current state before you act: Temporary public policy — study without a study permit.

If something you read elsewhere doesn't match canada.ca, trust the official page.

Talk to us

Whether you were covered by this policy, whether you now need a study permit, and how any of it affects a future PGWP all depend on the specifics of your permits and timing. If you'd like help sorting out where you stand after the June 27 expiry, the team at JSR Immigration & Legals is happy to talk it through — get in touch.

This post is general information only and reflects what was publicly known as of June 30, 2026. It is not legal advice. Immigration rules and public policies change, so confirm current requirements with IRCC or a qualified professional before acting.