Step 2 of 5
Understand work during your studies
Working off campus is a condition on your permit, not a right that comes with it. Going over the weekly limit is unauthorized work, and it is the kind of thing that surfaces years later in a PR application. This step is about staying inside the line without giving up income.
The limit
24 hours per week off campus while classes are in session
While your study term is running, you may work up to 24 hours a week off campus. During breaks your institution has scheduled — summer between terms, winter holidays, reading week — you may work full time, with no weekly cap.
Source: Work off campus — canada.ca · checked
What has to be true before you work at all
- Your study permit carries a condition allowing off-campus work. If it does not say so, you cannot.
- You are enrolled full time at a designated learning institution.
- Your program is a post-secondary academic, vocational or professional programme (or, in Quebec, a vocational programme) of at least six months leading to a degree, diploma or certificate.
- You have started studying. Not when you arrive — when the programme begins.
A "scheduled break" has to be on your institution's academic calendar. A week you personally have no classes is not a break. Keep a copy of the published calendar for any period you worked full time — that document is what proves you were inside the rules.
Two jobs, one limit
The 24 hours is a total across all off-campus employers, not per job. Two part-time jobs at 15 hours each is 30 hours, which is over. On-campus work — for the institution itself, a faculty member, a student organisation, or a business located on campus — sits outside the 24-hour count.
Log a week in the off-campus hours checker →
Why going over is worse than it looks
Over-hours work is unauthorized work. The consequences do not usually arrive at the time — they arrive later, when you apply for something you actually need:
- It can support a refusal of your post-graduation work permit.
- It can support a refusal of permanent residence, and every PR application asks whether you have ever worked without authorization.
- It is discoverable. Your income is reported on a T4 that names your employer and the tax year.
And the hours you broke the rule for would not have counted anyway. Work performed while you were a full-time student is excluded from Canadian Experience Class — including co-op terms. So over-working during a term risks your status to accumulate hours that can never be used toward PR. The trade is all downside. See how CEC counting works in step 5.
What to keep
- Every pay stub and T4, filed by tax year.
- Your institution's published academic calendar for each year, showing scheduled break dates.
- A simple record of hours per week per employer. If a question ever comes, this is the answer.