Hold ended on Iranian investor immigration affected by sanctions

the CanadaVisa Team - 09 February, 2012

Iranian immigrants coming to Canada via one of its investor programs can once again transfer required funds between Iran and Canada, as of January 25^th, 2012.

Last November 22^nd, the Canadian Ministry of Foreign Affairs and International Trade – as part of sanctions against Iran – made it illegal to transfer more than CDN $40,000 to Canada from Iran without a permit for the specified transaction issued by the Minister of Foreign Affairs John Baird.

Because an CDN $800,000 investment is a prerequisite for the Quebec Investor Program, the limit put on transferring of funds effectively put the processing of affected applications on hold. Similarly, affected applications to the PNP Investor Programs, which require an investment of CDN $75,000 on average, were also put on hold. In both cases, new applications were being received, but were stuck in limbo until the federal government issued instructions on how to proceed. (The Federal Investor Program is currently closed and may reopen midway through this year.)

The hold only affected applicants to the investor programs who needed to transfer their money out of Iran. If applicants had access to the required funds outside Iran, they continued to be able to make the required transfer to Canada, and their applications to the investor programs proceeded normally.

On January 25^th, the Ministry of Foreign Affairs and International Trade clarified that applicants to the immigrant investor programs can transfer the required money from Iran to Canada by seeking authorization from the Ministry. A set of related guidelines was issued on February 2^nd. The change ends the situation where such transfers had to be personally approved by Minister John Baird.

There is currently no form for this authorization process, with specific information about any fund transfer simply having to be relayed to the Ministry of Foreign Affairs and International Trade. The expected time for a decision to be rendered on the transfer is 3-6 weeks.

This additional authorization step has allowed processing to resume on applications to the investor programs that were contingent on the required funds being transferred from Iran to Canada.

Iran has been the second leading source of immigrant investors to Quebec, after China.

As the geopolitical situation of Iran continues to be volatile, stay tuned for any upcoming changes as relates to immigration to Canada from Iran on CanadaVisa.com.

Cohen Immigration Law has many years of expertise with Canada’s Immigrant Investor Programs, facilitating clients from Iran and around the world to relocate to Canada.