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On July 13th of this year, the BC Provincial Nominee Entrepreneur Program re-opened, accepting new registrants. Certain changes were implemented with this re-opening. The latest draw was conducted under this base category for entrepreneurs. What do you need to be invited to this program? Do you have what it takes or are you in the approx. 60% that are not qualified or don’t have enough points?
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A quick intro and update for anyone who doesn’t know or needs a refresher on the Provincial program in BC:
* The province uses an online, points-based expression of interest (EOI) system to manage application intake
* The BC PNP will also have a new scoring system after November 16, 2022. More details about the scoring and other changes will be available in November when a new BC PNP Program guide will be posted.
Programs such as the BC PNP Health Authority, International Post-Graduate, and BC PNP Entrepreneur Immigration categories will remain open for new registrants and expressions of interest (EOI).
As of 2021, the top 5 source countries for this category of the BC PNP in 2021 were:
1: India
2: China
3: Iran
4: Brazil
5: UK
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The BC PNP Entrepreneur Stream is designed to target experienced entrepreneurs who want to invest and set up or buy a business in the province of BC. It has 3 sub-categories:
* Base
* Regional Pilot
* Strategic Projects
The Base category allows foreign entrepreneurs to propose a new business or purchase an existing business in any part of British Columbia.
The BC PNP launched the Regional Pilot in March 2019. The Regional Pilot is limited to smaller communities that are not located within 30 km of a major center (population 75K or more). 2021 was a transitional period for the Pilot which has been extended until 2024.
The Strategic Projects category is for foreign corporations that intend to establish a subsidiary or branch office in B.C. that aligns with their core business. It enables foreign corporations to permanently transfer key staff with specialized corporate knowledge and expertise to their operation in British Columbia. It’s a very small number of applicants in this category as the min investment starts at $500,000 and the company would need to create 3 new Canadian jobs for every executive you transfer over to the Canadian branch.
In 2021, a total of 213 registrants submitted an EOI to the BC PNP portal for the Entrepreneur Base program, but only 162 were qualified, of which 44 total nominations were issued to proceed to the work permit stage. That’s a very low % of total qualified applicants and it makes sense since the BC PNP Entrepreneur program is one of the strictest programs out there.
The BC PNP Entrepreneur Immigration Stream (EI) nominated a total of 38 applicants with work permits for permanent residency who already implemented their businesses from previous years.
Interestingly enough under the Entrepreneur Regional Pilot Program of BC, a total of 10 registrants submitted their EOI in 2021, 100% were qualified, and 9 were nominated (which is a 90% success rate) but the number of applicants was very limited.
* China continued to be the primary country of origin, with half of the nominees holding Chinese passports
* Iran was the country of origin that increased the most, moving up from having no nominees in 2020 to having 16 percent of nominees in 2021
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The latest draw for the BC PNP Entrepreneur program was a minimum threshold of 116 points for which 5 invitations were sent out for applicants.
Before this draw, it peaked at 129 points in August 2022 but before that still had draws between 111 to 116. At no point in any draw has the BC PNP invited more than 6 people under the entrepreneur program who have submitted their registration and business concepts through the online portal (EOI).
If you’re wondering what the process is to get started and the timelines, here it is:
1: Do an exploratory trip (highly recommended but not mandatory)
2: Submit your business concept and expression of interest online through the BC PNP portal (EOI)
3: Within 6 weeks of submitting your EOI is scored, and you must meet a minimum of 115 points out of 200 to stay in the pool as a qualified candidate
4: If you receive an invitation to apply in one of the BC PNP Entrepreneur draws, you will then need to complete a net worth audit of all your assets which you have declared through a designated third-party financial firm that the BC PNP has approved, and you are responsible to pay for their fees.
5: Within 4 months an interview is scheduled which is mandatory (to attend in person) and no they won’t issue any special invitation letter for you to obtain a visitor visa. And after the interview, all within the 4-month time frame they will render a decision on whether to nominate you for a work permit
6: After you receive the BC Provincial support letter for an entrepreneurial work permit, you will submit the work permit application to IRCC which can take 4-6 months to process.
7: After you receive the work permit, you will implement the business or maybe expand/invest in the business you purchased in BC for up to 18 months, after which you can become eligible to submit your final report for PR nomination. That can also take approx. 4-6 months to be issued.
8: The final PR application processing from the Federal government, after submitting all your supporting documents with the BC PNP PR nomination, will take anywhere from 20-24 months depending on the current situation of the backlog processing.
If you’re interested in immigrating to Canada through the BC PNP program, get a FREE assessment with one of our licensed immigration consultants, we have successfully helped applicants from over 47 different countries! Fill out our form, click here.
The B.C. PNP has also made minor adjustments to the Entrepreneur registration scoring system to re-balance points between human capital, or the skillset of an individual, and economic factors. Points have also been redistributed to increase the weighting for factors, such as the exploratory visit, that indicate an entrepreneur’s genuine intent and readiness to establish a business in the province. Previously many points were based on the business plan, now they have been re-balanced (120 are self-declared and 80 for the business plan)
Invitations under the Entrepreneur base category are typically based on a combination of any of these categories:
* The qualified candidate’s registration score
* The specific region in which a candidate proposes to establish a business
* The population size of the community in which the candidate proposes to establish a business
* Whether the proposed business is a start-up or a purchase of an existing business
* Whether the business proposal is aligned with identified priority business sectors
Some changes they have made in July to the program are:
* You cannot reside farther than 50 KM from the business operations
* Again, if you’re new to the program remember that the base category requires a minimum net worth of $600,000 Canadian Dollars and a minimum investment of $200,000, which doesn’t even guarantee your selection. That’s just to get you qualified to enter the race!
* Post-secondary education can be exempt if you owned 100% of a business for at least 3 years during the past 5 years.
* Franchises are allowed if they have been successful in the past 5 years.
* Just to give you an example, some business concepts which are not accepted by the BC PNP are real estate development activities or goods trading businesses (e.g., import/export), unless a value-added component is included.
* The BC PNP will not consider more than $150,000 of your investment for the points and eligibility factors if you are paying to purchase a business. No matter if you pay $200,000 or $1 million, $150,000 is the max credit they will allow you to claim for this purchase price, and you will still need to invest to expand or upgrade the business you have purchased.
* You are not allowed to make any investment in terms of starting or buying a business BEFORE you are approved by the BC PNP (after the interview) and receive your work permit, otherwise they will refuse your application.
* The language requirement which is CLB 4 can be submitted after implementing the business and is not mandatory when you apply. A CLB4 is a Canadian Language Benchmark equivalent of IELTS 4.5 for listening, 3.5 for reading, 4.0 for writing, and 4.0 for speaking.
* A co-registrant is allowed under the BC PNP base category but remember that they need to meet all the qualification criteria on their own such as investment amount and net worth, and so on. Having a co-registrant doesn’t mean everything is split in half. The lowest score among the co-registrants will apply to both of you, so if you are applying with somebody else who has a lower score than you it will reduce your chances unless you both have a strong profile.
*After receiving a nomination for PR from the BC PNP office, the applicant needs to continue to reside and operate the business until the COPR (Confirmation of PR) by the Federal government is issued. The applicant needs to continue to follow all terms & conditions of the BC PNP performance agreement even after the nomination until the PR is finalized. After the PR is finalized, you are free and can do anything you like.
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Without the visitor visa application and exploratory trip, a minimum of 3 years to be nominated, and another 2 years to be processed by the Federal government for the PR. The disadvantage of the program is that it’s super long, but you are going to be inside Canada living your life and running your business for most of this time period.
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