UK LTD Business owner wanting to open business in Canada + Immigrate

[mattprune]

Hi All,

I am a UK Limited Business owner, delivering specialist IT Services and I have identified a requirement in Canada to deliver these services. Can I merely set up a Ltd Company in the Canada and travel back and forth from the UK to Canada on my GB Passport, or would I require a working/business Visa and if I open a business in Canada will the Canadian government give me a long term visa/permanent residency?

I would really like to hear from people, who have done this, got the t-shirt and worn it. As a very busy person with limited time, I do not have a great deal of time to "live and learn the experience" :-[ So any help would be really appreciated, as I feeling pretty stressed trying to work it all out.

Thanks in advance.

M.

 

[sckel]

There is a newly launched Entrepreneur Start Up Visa program where you can submit your business plan to a list of venture capital / angel investors and if they agree to fund your business start up, you can get a permanent resident visa in a relatively short time frame.

The idea is to match entrepreneurial talent / ideas with available resources in Canada as well as to match with the needs of the Canadian market and they believe that the venture capitalists are best qualified to determine the viability of a start up business plan.

 

[zardoz]

From the information you have provided, you are unlikely to qualify as a "business visitor" and would require a work permit. This is because you are discussing starting a business in Canada, rather than acting as a representative of a UK based company. See this link for more information. http://www.cic.gc.ca/english/visit/business.asp

 

[BC.Van]

Hi,

regardless of all immigration options, you have to ask yourself first whether you can satisfy the residency obligation after you immigrated which is 2 years out of 5. If you can't don't even start the process as you will loose your status after first five year period anyway. I have a lot of business clients who have lost their status because of that.