Every program in Canada that is restricted to newcomers is repayable. That is the bad news, and it is the whole of the bad news. The money that is actually non-repayable sits in the 665 programs that never ask your immigration status at all — they assess your business. This guide shows you which ones, and what each one asks for instead.
Here is what you need to know before you spend an evening on this. Searching “grants for immigrants in Canada” returns page after page of lists, and almost every entry on those lists is a loan that has been relabelled. We checked all 697 programs in our catalogue on 31 July 2026. Exactly three are restricted to newcomers — the BDC Newcomer Entrepreneur Loan ($25,000–$50,000), the Futurpreneur Newcomer Program (up to $25,000) and Evol’s inclusive-entrepreneur loan in Quebec. All three are repayable.
The useful finding is the other one: 665 of the 697 programs place no immigration-status condition on the owner at all. They assess the business. That is where the non-repayable money is — NRC IRAP, CanExport SMEs, the SR&ED tax credit — and a permanent resident who incorporated last month is as eligible as a founder whose family has been here for five generations. The gate that actually stops newcomers is not your status. It is incorporation, and a Canadian credit file that starts empty on your landing date.
Nobody publishes this, so we counted it. Every record in the GrantCompass catalogue carries structured eligibility fields, which means the question “does this program care what my status is?” can be answered across the whole catalogue rather than guessed program by program. Here is the result, counted on 31 July 2026 against 697 records (452 of them currently open).
Source: GrantCompass catalogue of 697 Canadian business funding programs, structured eligibility fields, counted 31 July 2026. A further 6 programs condition status on someone the business hires (student placements, wage subsidies) rather than on the owner.
If you hold permanent residence, stop looking for immigrant-specific programs. You already have access to 665 of 697 programs, including every large non-repayable one. Your time is better spent incorporating and calling an IRAP advisor than searching for a newcomer grant that does not exist.
| Program checks… | Examples | Your status matters? |
|---|---|---|
| The corporation | IRAP, SR&ED, CanExport SMEs | No — it must be Canadian-controlled, you need not be |
| The individual owner | BDC Newcomer Loan, Futurpreneur | Yes — PR or protected person |
| The person you hire | Student work placements, wage subsidies | Only the employee’s status, not yours |
This is the list that matters if you are on a permit. Of the 32 status-gated programs, six write their eligibility wider than “permanent resident or citizen”. Three of the six are open today; the other three sit between intakes, which means the criterion is real but you cannot apply this minute.
| Program | Accepts | Status & amount |
|---|---|---|
| BDC Newcomer Entrepreneur Loan | PR or protected person | Open · $25K–$50K loan · Canada-wide |
| Evol conventional loan | Citizens, PRs, or holders of an eligible work permit | Open · $20K–$450K loan · Quebec |
| PME MTL retail fund | Citizenship, PR, or a Quebec Selection Certificate (CSQ) | Open · up to $25K grant · Montreal retail |
| Amex Backing Canadian Small Businesses | Citizen, PR, or valid work authorization | Between intakes · $10K grant |
| Mastercard Small Business Fund | Citizen, PR, or valid immigration authorization | Between intakes · $10K |
| NEXT AI Accelerator | Citizenship, PR, or a valid work or study permit | Between intakes · non-monetary · ON/QC |
A program that is silent on immigration status is not the same as a program that has confirmed it will accept yours. Most of the 665 simply never raise the question because they are assessing a corporation. Before you build a plan around one, read its own eligibility page — and if your status is unusual (implied status, a pending PR application, a refugee claim in progress), ask the program directly in writing rather than inferring an answer from silence. We will not tell you a program accepts temporary residents unless that program says so itself.
Status is one filter. Province, industry, revenue, incorporation and how long you have been trading are the others — and they knock out far more programs than immigration status does. Answer a few questions and see the ones that survive all of them. Free, no account needed.
The right first move is different for each of these, and getting it wrong costs months. Find yourself below.
You are in the narrowest and most valuable window on this page. The BDC Newcomer Entrepreneur Loan requires you to apply within 36 months of your landing date, and the eligibility is permanent by omission — once the window closes, it does not reopen. If your business has been operating for at least 12 months and you want that capital, this is the deadline to treat as real.
Do both things in parallel, not in sequence. Start the BDC application, and in the same week incorporate (if you have not) and phone your regional NRC-IRAP office. The loan is capped at $50,000; IRAP contributions in our catalogue typically land in the $75,000–$200,000 range for a first project and are not repaid. Waiting to see if the loan lands before starting the grant conversation is the single most common way newcomers lose a year.
The BDC newcomer window has closed for you, but Futurpreneur’s Newcomer Program runs to 60 months in Canada, and it is age-gated at 18–39 rather than status-gated beyond PR. Up to $25,000 repayable, with up to two years of mentorship that is not repayable and that most recipients rate above the money.
More usefully: at this point you are simply a Canadian business owner as far as 665 programs are concerned. Nothing on the federal side treats you differently from anyone else. If you have not yet looked at CanExport SMEs and you sell into a market you know from before you moved, that is the single most underused advantage newcomers have — the program funds market entry, and you already have the relationships.
Be direct with yourself about the constraint: nearly every program designed for newcomers requires permanent residence, and there is no way to argue around it. Of the three status-flexible programs open today, one is national (BDC, and it needs PR or protected-person status, so it is not for you) and two are Quebec-based — Evol’s loan accepts an eligible work permit, PME MTL’s retail fund accepts a Quebec Selection Certificate.
The route that actually works is the corporate one. If your business is an incorporated Canadian-controlled private corporation, IRAP and SR&ED assess the corporation, not your permit. Check first whether your permit permits self-employment or business ownership at all — that is an immigration question, not a funding one, and getting it wrong is expensive. Ask an authorised immigration consultant or lawyer before you incorporate.
The BDC Newcomer Entrepreneur Loan names protected persons alongside permanent residents in its eligibility, which makes it one of the few named entry points that does not require PR. The same 36-month clock applies.
Separately, several student work-placement subsidies (BioTalent, ICTC, EHRC, MiHR) explicitly accept students with refugee or protected status — relevant if you are the one hiring, since those programs subsidise the wage of a placement student. A refugee claim in progress is a different legal position from protected-person status; do not assume the two are interchangeable on an application form.
The business-immigration route narrowed sharply. IRCC paused new Start-Up Visa applications on 1 January 2026; the exception for 2025 commitment-certificate holders expired on 30 June 2026 and that door is now shut. The Self-Employed Persons Program has been paused since 2024. A replacement “high impact” Start-Up Visa pilot has been announced in principle with no opening date.
What remains: provincial nominee entrepreneur streams (British Columbia’s is the most active, with investment and net-worth thresholds), or immigrating through Express Entry first and starting the business after you land. Worth knowing before you plan around it: the Start-Up Visa never paid anyone anything. It was an immigration pathway, not funding. Every dollar on this page becomes available after you are here.
These are the only programs in the catalogue whose eligibility is written specifically around being a newcomer. They are genuinely useful — they exist because commercial lenders decline people with no Canadian credit file, and that is a real problem they really solve. They are also, all three, money you pay back.
The flagship newcomer lending product in Canada, and the only status-flexible one with national reach. BDC built it around the credit-history gap: the assessment leans on the business rather than a personal credit file that does not exist yet. The 36-month clock runs from your landing date, not from when you started the business — which is why the 12-month operating requirement and the 3-year window squeeze together into a narrow band for most people.
Repayable, equity-free financing paired with a volunteer business mentor for up to two years. Treat the mentorship as the product and the capital as the bonus: a mentor who has already navigated Canadian suppliers, contracts and bank relationships compresses the learning curve in a way $25,000 does not. Ask for a mentor in your own industry rather than accepting the first match.
Full eligibility, documents and process →The largest of the three by amount, and the only open program in the catalogue that names an eligible work permit in its own eligibility criteria. Leadership must hold at least 25% of shares or votes in a strategic role. If you are in Quebec and not yet a permanent resident, this is the first door to try.
Full eligibility and process →| BDC Newcomer | Futurpreneur Newcomer | |
|---|---|---|
| Amount | $25K–$50K | Up to $25K |
| Time-in-Canada limit | Under 3 years | Under 5 years |
| Age limit | None | 18–39 |
| Status accepted | PR or protected person | PR |
| Mentorship | No | Yes, up to 2 years |
The best newcomer-specific option for a founder under 40 who landed in the last three years is both at once: BDC and Futurpreneur co-lend, so applying as one package is the normal path to the combined amount and it costs you one process, not two. If you are over 39, BDC alone. If you are in Quebec and not yet a PR, Evol is the only open door.
Here is the part that changes outcomes. None of the programs below is designed for newcomers, and that is precisely why they matter: they do not ask about you. They ask about your corporation. A permanent resident who incorporated last month and a fifth-generation Canadian with the same project are, to these programs, indistinguishable applicants.
The largest non-repayable source most newcomer-owned companies can realistically reach, and the one they hear about last, because IRAP does not advertise — you have to phone a regional office and ask to be assigned an Industrial Technology Advisor. First contributions in our catalogue typically land in the $75,000–$200,000 range; the headline maximum is far higher but is not what a first project receives. Sole proprietorships and partnerships are ineligible, so incorporation is the real prerequisite here.
This is the program where being a newcomer is a competitive advantage rather than an obstacle. CanExport funds entry into a new international market — trade shows, market research, legal costs, adaptation — and the market you already understand, with suppliers and language you already have, is exactly the kind of case the program is built to fund. Review is competitive and first-come within the window, and activities cannot start before approval, so submit early.
The enhanced 35% rate is fully refundable for Canadian-controlled private corporations, which means cash back from the CRA whether or not you owe tax — the single most useful property of this program for a company that is not yet profitable. Budget 2025 raised the expenditure limit for the enhanced rate directly from $3 million to $6 million, putting the maximum enhanced credit at $2.1 million a year. Immigration status is not part of the test; CCPC status is.
Still a loan, but for a newcomer it behaves differently from a conventional one. The federal guarantee changes the lender’s arithmetic, which is what a thin Canadian credit file mostly damages. Expect to contribute personal equity (commonly 10–30%) and to be assessed on creditworthiness by the lender — the guarantee softens the decision, it does not remove it. Ask specifically for CSBFP by name and ask for the small-business lending team; branch staff frequently do not raise it unprompted.
Our CSBFP guide →Listed here because most “newcomer grants” articles present it as available year-round. It is not. Employer applications open once a year, in the autumn, and the 2026 cycle closed in December 2025. If you plan to hire a student next summer, the action is to diarise the autumn window — not to apply now.
Program detail and intake history →| Program | Do you repay it? | What it costs you |
|---|---|---|
| IRAP / CanExport | No | Your share of project cost (co-funding) |
| SR&ED | No — refundable credit | Documentation discipline |
| BDC / Futurpreneur / Evol | Yes, with interest | Principal plus interest |
| CSBFP | Yes — guarantee protects the lender, not you | Principal, interest, personal equity |
Here is what is actually happening when a bank says no. Conventional business lending is underwritten partly on personal credit history, and a credit file that begins on your landing date has nothing in it to underwrite. It is almost never your immigration status being refused; it is an empty file. That distinction matters because it tells you what to fix.
| Route | What it assesses | Credit file needed? |
|---|---|---|
| BDC / Futurpreneur newcomer loans | The business plan and viability | No — that is the point of them |
| CSBFP through a bank | Lender’s judgement, with an 85% federal guarantee | Some — the guarantee softens it |
| IRAP / CanExport / SR&ED | The corporation and the project | No — personal credit is not assessed |
A secured card (you deposit $500–$1,000 as collateral) starts the file. Use it for small recurring purchases and clear the balance in full monthly. Most major banks package one with a newcomer account. This is slow-burning and unglamorous, and it is the only thing that fixes the underlying problem.
BDC (under 3 years in Canada) and Futurpreneur (under 5 years, ages 18–39) assess the business, not the score. Both windows expire permanently. If you are inside one, that is a reason to move now rather than to wait until the business feels more ready.
IRAP, CanExport and SR&ED never look at personal credit. There is no sequencing reason to finish a loan application before starting a grant conversation, and every month you spend sequencing them is a month of runway.
The 85% federal guarantee is what makes a lender willing to look past a short history. Ask for the small-business lending team specifically. If one institution declines, another may not — CSBFP is delivered by banks, credit unions and caisses populaires, and their appetites differ.
Engineering, medicine, accounting, law, regulated trades — if you cannot practise, you cannot trade, and no amount of business funding fixes that. Credential recognition is a separate track with its own money, and it is worth starting before or immediately on arrival because it commonly runs 6 to 18 months.
Costs are front-loaded — assessment fees, exam fees and course deposits all land early — and financing you arrange after you have paid them is financing that arrived too late to help. Apply for the microloan before the process begins, not partway through it.
The strongest position is not one large program — it is a loan that arrives quickly stacked underneath a non-repayable contribution that arrives slowly. Because the newcomer programs are loans, they sit outside the government-assistance cap that limits how much grant funding can stack on one project, which leaves the non-repayable ceiling untouched.
Loans fund month 1. IRAP funds months 4–8.
CanExport window closes 31 Aug 2026.
Combined government assistance on a single project generally cannot exceed roughly 75% of eligible project costs — but that cap applies to grants and contributions, not to loans you repay. So the $75,000 of newcomer loans does not eat into your room for IRAP or CanExport. Disclose every source in every application regardless; non-disclosure is a clawback risk, and a clawback is worse than a smaller award.
These are not funding programs. They are immigration routes that people conflate with funding because both get filed under “how do I start a business in Canada?” The 2026 picture is unusually restrictive, so it is worth stating plainly.
IRCC paused new applications on 1 January 2026. A narrow exception allowed holders of a 2025 commitment certificate to file until 30 June 2026; that window has closed. IRCC has said it will introduce a replacement “high impact” Start-Up Visa pilot but has published no opening date. Note what the SUV never was: a source of money. It required applicants to secure backing from a designated investor or incubator; it did not provide any.
Paused since 2024 with the suspension extended and no restart announced. Applications filed before the pause continue to be processed.
The remaining active route, and narrower than it was. British Columbia’s entrepreneur stream is the most active, with investment and net-worth thresholds and a regional pilot at a lower investment level. Alberta, Saskatchewan and Ontario operate business streams with intake caps and limited draws; Manitoba closed its business investor stream years ago. Provincial allocations change annually — check the province’s own page for the current intake rather than any third-party summary, this one included.
If you are already in Canada with permanent residence, ignore this section entirely. Immigration pathways are irrelevant to your funding eligibility, and the time spent tracking a paused pilot is time not spent on an IRAP conversation you can have this week.
“There are dozens of grants for immigrant entrepreneurs in Canada.”
Three programs in a 697-program catalogue are restricted to newcomers, and all three are repayable. Lists that claim more are either relabelling loans as grants or listing mainstream programs — which anyone can access — as though they were immigrant-specific.
“The BDC Newcomer Entrepreneur Loan is a grant.”
BDC’s own materials call it financing and a loan. It is repaid with interest. A $50,000 loan adds $50,000 of obligation to your balance sheet; a $50,000 contribution adds none. Treating one as the other is how founders end up surprised.
“Immigrants cannot access the same funding as Canadian-born entrepreneurs.”
665 of 697 programs never ask. A permanent resident is not a second tier of applicant — and on CanExport, market knowledge from your country of origin is a genuine competitive advantage in the assessment.
“You cannot get funding without Canadian credit history.”
Non-repayable programs do not assess personal credit at all — they assess the corporation and the project. And the two newcomer loan programs were designed specifically for applicants who do not have a Canadian credit file. What an empty file blocks is conventional bank lending, which is why CSBFP’s federal guarantee exists.
These organisations do not give you money. They review your business plan, tell you which programs fit and improve the application before you send it — at no cost. Newcomer founders consistently skip them and it shows up in rejection rates.
Community Futures — a nationwide network of local offices offering free business advisory plus their own lending, strongest in rural and small communities and often the delivery partner for federal regional agencies.
Find your local office →MOSAIC — settlement services with dedicated newcomer business training in the Lower Mainland. Small Business BC — free province-wide advisory, not newcomer-specific but widely used.
BC grants guide →Business Link — free one-to-one advisory and workshops with newcomer-specific programming, offices in Edmonton and Calgary plus virtual access province-wide.
Alberta grants guide →Small Business Enterprise Centres — local advisory across the province; some run cohort-based micro-grant programs with their own intakes. TRIEC — mentorship in the Greater Toronto Area.
Ontario grants guide →The only province with two open programs that accept a status below PR — Evol and PME MTL’s retail fund. Quebec runs its own immigration system, and French-language obligations apply to businesses operating there.
Quebec grants guide →CBDC offices lend across rural Atlantic Canada, including a first-time entrepreneur loan of $10K–$150K with no immigration-status criterion. ACOA runs the federal regional programs.
CBDC first-time loan →“Contribution agreement” means grant. The federal government rarely uses the word “grant” for business funding — a non-repayable contribution is what you are looking for. “Financing” means loan. BDC and Futurpreneur both use it, accurately, and it is the word most third-party lists quietly translate into “grant”.
Federal programs accept applications in English or French with no effect on assessment. Apply in whichever you write more precisely.
Immigrants are not a niche in Canadian business, which is what makes the absence of dedicated non-repayable funding notable rather than unsurprising.
Source: Statistics Canada — “One in four private sector businesses are owned by immigrants”. Canada dedicates substantial non-repayable funding to other under-represented groups — the Women Entrepreneurship Strategy and Indigenous-specific federal streams both include grant components — while newcomer-designated funding is entirely loan-based. Whether that is a gap or a reasonable judgement that mainstream programs already serve newcomers is a policy question; what it means for you today is simply that the money is in the mainstream programs.
Intake windows on this page move — CanExport closes 31 August, Canada Summer Jobs reopens in the autumn, and the replacement Start-Up Visa pilot has no date yet. We will email you when they change. No hype, and you can leave any time.