If you’ve applied for an LMIA before, you already know the Temporary Foreign Worker Program (TFWP) splits every position into one of two streams — High-Wage or Low-Wage — and the line between them is the wage threshold. What a lot of employers don’t realize is that this number isn’t fixed: it moved this year, and it’s different in every province. Here’s what it actually is, why it changed, and how to check where your position lands before you apply.
What the Wage Threshold Actually Is
The hourly wage threshold is the provincial or territorial median hourly wage, plus 20%, based on Statistics Canada’s Labour Force Survey. If the wage you’re offering meets or exceeds your province’s threshold, the position falls under the High-Wage stream. If it’s below, you’re in the Low-Wage stream — and the two streams come with meaningfully different rules.
Why This Changed in 2026
Updated hourly wage thresholds took effect July 17, 2026, and the increase wasn’t small: the threshold used to sort positions into Low-Wage and High-Wage went up by roughly 20% — somewhere between $5 and $8 per hour depending on the province or territory. The practical effect is that positions that would have cleared the High-Wage bar a year ago may now fall under Low-Wage instead, simply because the line moved, not because the job or the offer changed.
That matters because the Low-Wage stream carries stricter conditions — things like a cap on the proportion of low-wage temporary foreign workers at a worksite, mandatory transportation and housing assistance in some cases, and shorter LMIA validity periods. An employer who hasn’t rechecked their numbers since before July could be planning around the wrong stream entirely.
How to Check Your Province’s Threshold
Because the threshold is set per province and territory — and updates periodically — we’re not going to quote you a fixed dollar figure here; it would be outdated by the time you read it in a different quarter. Instead, use Job Bank’s Compare wages tool to check the median wage for the specific occupation and region you’re hiring for, and cross-reference it against the official ESDC wage threshold page, which lists the current threshold by province and territory. Both are free and take a few minutes.
What Changes Depending on Your Stream
The stream your position falls under determines which set of program requirements you have to meet:
- High-Wage stream: a transition plan showing how you’ll reduce reliance on the TFWP over time, and generally fewer restrictions on worksite composition.
- Low-Wage stream: caps on the percentage of low-wage temporary foreign workers you can employ at one location, employer-provided or employer-assisted housing in many cases, and return transportation for the worker.
Getting the stream wrong on your LMIA application doesn’t just slow things down — it can mean building your job offer and compliance plan around the wrong set of rules entirely.
How Workvantage Helps
Before we submit an LMIA application for an employer, checking the current wage threshold for that role and region is one of the first things we do — precisely because it moved this year and catches employers off guard. If you’re planning to hire a temporary foreign worker and aren’t sure which stream your offer falls under, talk to our team and we’ll walk through the numbers with you before you apply.
