High Demand for RCIP - Canada's New Rural Pathway to Permanent Residence
Program Rural Community Immigration Pilot (RCIP) – a new pathway to Canadian permanent residence in rural areas – is attracting strong interest from both employers and international workers.
Due to demand far exceeding capacity, many localities participating in RCIP have had to apply measures to tighten criteria or temporarily stop accepting applications in certain industries.
Latest changes from RCIP communities
The table below summarizes the notable changes to date:
| RCIP Community | New update |
| North Okanagan-Shuswap | No applications accepted from fast food or gas station employers. |
| Peace Liard | Suspend employer designation until November 2025. |
| Claresholm | No applications accepted from fast food employers. |
| Thunder Bay | Temporarily stop accepting applications for Sales and Service industry in August. |
| Sault Ste. Marie | No applications accepted from dine-in restaurants or security guard employers. |
Details of the situation in the localities
1. North Okanagan-Shuswap (British Columbia)
In the first intake, the community received hundreds of applications beyond their capacity to process. They canceled the intake on July 17, 2025 to clear the backlog and will have 3 more intakes in 2025.
Additionally, applications from the Fast Food (NAIC 722512) and Gas Stations (NAIC 4471) industries are no longer accepted due to limited nominations and high demand.
2. Peace Liard (British Columbia)
The Employer Nomination Cap has been reached in July 2025 and will reopen in November 2025.
Notably, in the first RCIP candidate intake on August 1, 2025, they received the maximum number of applications in less than 10 minutes.
3. Claresholm (Alberta)
As of 24 July 2025, Claresholm will stop accepting and approving applications for fast food employer designation.
4. Thunder Bay (Ontario)
Temporarily stop accepting applications for Sales and Service positions throughout August 2025.
Thunder Bay Economic Development will review before deciding to reopen in September.
5. Sault Ste. Marie (Ontario)
- Stop accepting applications from dine-in restaurants as of May 8, 2025.
- Stop accepting applications from employers recruiting security supervisors from June 3, 2025.
What is RCIP?
RCIP (Rural Community Immigration Pilot) is a settlement program based on the recruitment needs of employers in rural communities in Canada.
- How it works: Applicants must have a job offer from a designated employer in the RCIP community. The application will then be endorsed by a local economic development organization.
- Next step: The candidate submits an application for permanent residence to the Canadian Immigration Services (IRCC). In the meantime, the candidate may be granted a temporary work permit to work legally in Canada.
- Scale: There are currently 14 communities participating in RCIP.
What is immigration pilot?
Immigration pilot là chương trình định cư thử nghiệm của Chính phủ Liên bang Canada, thường kéo dài tối đa 5 năm.
- Objective: To address specific human resource needs in certain regions or occupations that are not being met by other settlement programs.
- If successful, the pilot can be upgraded to a permanent settlement program (e.g. Atlantic Immigration Program).
- Due to its small size, the pilot often receives applications in a very short period of time. For example, the Home Care Worker program that opened on March 31st this year was full within hours.
Conclusion
RCIP is becoming an attractive opportunity for workers who want to settle permanently in Canada, especially in rural areas. However, due to the sudden increase in the number of applications, many communities have tightened conditions or temporarily stopped accepting applications.
Interested parties need to prepare their documents carefully and follow the announcements from each community to submit their applications in time when there is a new opening.
