Canada PR for Indian Chartered Accountants in 2024

Canada Immigration for Chartered Accountant

Canada is one of the most immigrants friendly in the world providing immigrants around the globe different pathways to immigrate to Canada via different types of immigration programs. Immigrants having work experience in different work fields with a different set of skills are given different types of immigration programs from which they can avail themselves. Depending on the requirements of the immigrants they can apply for different types of visas available like PR visa, study visa, work visa, etc.

What are the major programs to apply for Canada PR?

Immigration, Refugees & Citizenship Canada (IRCC) provides immigrants with the best way to immigrate to Canada via the programs that allows them to apply for Canada PR visa. Some of the major immigration programs for Canada PR are as follows:

Express Entry Program for Chartered Accountant (CA)

It is the flagship program of IRCC to provide immigrants with Permanent Residence (PR) visas. Introduced in 2015, it is a point-based program managing the profiles of the candidates who have applied under the economic skilled immigration programs – Federal Skilled Worker Program (FSWP), Federal Skilled Trades Program (FSTP), and Canadian Experience Class (CEC). Candidates need to meet the requirement of a 67 point system that filters out the skilled immigrants from the pool of applicants.

Once they have cleared the 67 points system, they are allowed to apply under the express entry program. Candidates have to submit their credentials and create their express profile. The express entry program uses the Comprehensive Ranking System (CRS) to rank the profiles of the candidates based on the points that are awarded to them based on their credentials. The highest-ranked profiles are then given an Invitation to Apply (ITA) to apply for a permanent residence visa to the IRCC.

Provincial Nomination Program (PNP)

Every province/territory in Canada has this program that allows them to nominate highly skilled immigrants to live in the province. Mainly those immigrants who want to live in the province of their own choice or were not able to meet the CRS cut-offs of express entry programs apply for provincial nomination programs.

Provincial nomination programs have low requirements and immigrants are easily able to meet those requirements. There are two ways to apply for a provincial nomination program –

First, is by directly approaching the provincial immigration office of the province you want to move to settle in.

The second is via the express entry program of the federal government of Canada. Every provincial nomination program has an express entry stream for the immigrants who have enlisted in the express entry program.

How

In Canada, CA is referred to as Certified Public Accountants (CPA). If the candidate is a fully qualified member of the Institute of Chartered Accountant (ICAI) means they have obtained membership through completion of the accounting body’s qualification process and not through a recognition agreement with another accountancy body, and they have obtained their designation while not a resident of Canada, they have the right to advanced standing in Certified Public Accountants (CPA) certification program through the Memorandum of Understanding (MOU).

Candidates who have applied under this agreement are exempted from CPA Professional Education Program (CPA PEP) modules. They are required to pass the Common Final Examination.

Follow the below-mentioned simple steps to get the CPA licensure in Canada:

• The first step would be to check your eligibility. For the international candidate, use NASBA’s International Evaluation Services to determine their eligibility for taking the exam.
• After doing this, the candidate needs to submit their application with the required set of documents. Then your application will be assessed for its validity and the candidate will receive a Notice to Schedule (NTS) which will be valid for six months.
• With the NTS, candidates will schedule their exam with Prometric. The examination will be taken in Prometric centers, and for international locations requires an additional fee.
• The next step would be to prepare for the examination. Candidate NTS will get the candidate six months of free access to NASBA’s Professional Literature package.
• Candidates then need to pass all four examination sections within 18 months.
• After passing the exam, candidates can apply for their licensure. Generally, candidates need to have 150 credit hours of education with a concentration in accounting. These 150 credit hours include:
• 30 semester hours in accounting subjects and 24 semester hours in Business Administration Subjects
• Minimum of 15 semester hours in accounting must be at the upper-division or graduate level
• Candidates need to have a minimum of one year of experience which is verified by a licensed CPA (approximately 2,000 hours). Experience should be accounting, attest, auditing or tax.

What are the steps to Immigrate to Canada as a CA?

To move to Canada, candidates need to implement the following steps which are very easy and simple:

• Candidates need first to make their profile in the express entry program and submit all their credentials like age, language proficiency, educational qualifications, etc.
• Once a candidates express profile is created, they will be given a CRS score and their profile will be ranked according to these points.
• Once the profile is submitted into the express entry program, they are pooled with other candidates’ profiles in the express pool. The express pool can also work as a job portal for Canadian strongployers to filter out skilled and capable candidates.
• Candidates, who have applied for the express entry program, can also apply for the provincial nomination program. Candidates can check for occupation in-dstrongand lists of the provinces to check whether their field of work is listed. If yes, then they can apply under the occupation in-dstrongand stream of that province. Getting provincial nominations awards the candidates with 600 CRS points.
• If the candidate can meet the CRS cut-off which is set via the express draws that are held in the regular interval by the IRCC, they are issued an Invitation to Apply (ITA) to apply for a permanent residence visa.
• Once a candidate gets an ITA, they have 60 days to submit their application with proper documents to the Immigration, Refugees & Citizenship Canada (IRCC) for a permanent residence visa.