Canadian IEC Visa Pool Now Open

Here at BUNAC we’ve been waiting a long time for the IEC (International Experience Canada) Canadian visa pool to open ready for our Work Canada 2017 programme. This month we finally received the great news. The Canadian high commission announced that the pool would open on 17th October. It’s open now.

For those of you who don’t know much about Canadian visas, the IEC working holiday visa allows citizens aged between 18-30 from the UK and 18-35 from Ireland to work and travel for up to two years in Canada. For British applicants, getting this visa is like getting a Glastonbury ticket. They can be pretty hard to come by, but if you get one you have some serious celebrating to do. It’s important to note though that (unlike Glastonbury) visa allocation does not come at a first-come-first-serve basis but on random selection. All you have to do is get in the visa pool and wait for your invitation to apply!

As you can imagine, this news was so exciting not only for us at BUNAC, but for young travellers in search of wanderlust all over. So, whether you want to experience life in a bustling Canadian cosmopolitan city like Toronto, Vancouver or Montreal or wake up to snowy mountains every morning followed by hours of skiing in Whistler or Banff, the IEC visa will get you there and BUNAC will support you throughout the process with visa guidelines, insurance options and job placement before arrival.

As the Canadians say, that’s not a bad idea eh? For more information, check out BUNAC’s Work Canada programme. With over 52 years of experience, we’re not a bad place to start.