Visas and the queue
Quebec Immigrant Investor Program
Also called QIIP, Quebec Investor Program, Investor Program.
The Quebec Immigrant Investor Program is Quebec's investor immigration route: a five year, interest free investment of CAD 1,000,000 that the province guarantees and repays in full, plus a non-refundable CAD 200,000 contribution, buys Quebec selection, while Canada alone decides permanent residence.
What it decides
The applicant must also show net worth of at least CAD 2,000,000 of lawful origin, which may be shared with a spouse, two years of management experience acquired in the five years before filing, a secondary or vocational diploma, and spoken French at level 7 on the Quebec scale. An approved financial intermediary makes the investment and the contribution within 120 days of the ministry's request and returns the CAD 1,000,000 without interest within 30 days of the end of the five year term. Selection then runs through a notice of intent to select, a work permit, and 12 months of residence in Quebec within two years of that permit, at least six of them by the investor personally, before the Certificat de selection du Quebec issues; the federal government decides the permanent residence application. Intake was suspended from 1 April 2023 to 1 January 2024 for a redesign and is now open at any time with no cap, on a non-refundable review fee of CAD 18,241 for the principal applicant from 1 January 2026. Nothing in the program requires job creation and the capital is not at risk, which is the opposite of the EB-5 bargain.
Where this is explained properly
Pages here that go into quebec immigrant investor program rather than mentioning it.
Related terms
- EB-5 Immigrant Investor ProgramEB-5 is the employment-based fifth preference immigrant visa category: a foreign national who invests the required capital in a new US commercial enterprise receives permanent residence, granted first on a two year conditional basis, and keeps it by proving that the investment created full-time jobs for at least ten qualifying US workers. It leads to residence, not citizenship.
- Capital at riskThe rule that the investor's required capital must be genuinely exposed to loss, with a real chance of gain, and not shielded by a guaranteed return or by any contractual right to repayment.
- Minimum investment amount$800,000 for an investment in a targeted employment area or in an infrastructure project, and $1,050,000 for every other investment, set by 8 U.S.C. 1153(b)(5)(C) (INA 203(b)(5)(C)). The amount that applies is the one in force on the date the petition is filed.
- Citizenship by investmentCitizenship by investment is a scheme that grants a country's nationality, and its passport, in exchange for a set payment or investment; the United States runs no such scheme, and EB-5 buys conditional permanent residence, never citizenship.
- Australian Significant Investor VisaThe Australian Significant Investor Visa was the Significant Investor stream of the Business Innovation and Investment (Provisional) visa, subclass 188: it required a complying significant investment of at least AUD 5,000,000 held for the life of the visa, and it closed permanently to new applications on 31 July 2024.
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