Canada Working Holiday Visa (IEC)

A medical examination is required if you have resided or sojourned for six or more consecutive months in a designated country/territory in the one year immediately preceding the date of your application for a work permit under the Working Holiday Program. Upon receipt of your application, if it is determined that you must undergo a medical examination, our office will forward the medical instructions to you. Please see the Designated Country/Territory List to determine if a country/territory is designated. A country/territory is designated if there is a "YES" in the column entitled "Designated" in the Designated Country/Territory List.

If you have been hospitalised for a condition/illness or if you have been treated for a chronic, communicable or serious medical condition, you may require a pre-departure medical examination. You must provide a detailed explanation of your condition/history on your application form. A Visa Officer will notify you if a medical examination is required. If you are issued medical instructions you should take the medical examination immediately. If you manage a condition such as asthma or diabetes well with the medicines that you take you will not generally require a pre-departure medical examination.

NOTE: If you intend to work in the occupations of childcare, primary or secondary school teaching, or health services, you will be required to undergo medicals at your own cost. As a guide, the approximate cost to undertake a medical examination may be around $300. Ski instructors and camp counsellors do not require medicals. During the online application, you will be asked about your work intention. Upon receipt of your signed application form, you will be posted medical forms, instructions on how to have the medicals performed and a list of designated medical practitioners. We cannot approve your WHP application until we receive notification that you are medically admissible. Generally speaking, you should allow for an additional delay of at least 6-8 weeks in the processing of your application when medicals are required. The LOI issued will be valid for a year from the date of the medical examination. It will not explicitly indicate that you may work in an unrestricted field but the work permit issued to you at the Port of Entry will be an unrestricted one.

Occupational basis for medical examination: This list is not all-inclusive. Occupations which bring you into close contact (more than three hours per day and/or risk of exchange of body fluids) with people, namely:

1. workers in the health sciences field, including staff and employees, clinical laboratory workers, patient attendants in nursing and geriatric homes, medical students admitted to Canada to attend university, medical electives and physicians on short-term locums;
2. teachers of primary or secondary schools or other teachers of small children;
3. domestics or home care helpers;
4. workers who give in home care to children, the elderly and the disabled; and
5. day nursery employees or child care workers, including assistants and helpers in a child care centre or employed in a private home (au pair, nanny).

If you wish to undergo the medical examination in a country other than your country of birth, please indicate this and list the country in the Comments Section when you fill out the online application.