Work permit compliance for Canadian employers

Every work permit, checked every day.

Scan. Verify. Never miss an expiry.

Workers photograph their permit with their phone. PermitSentinel reads it, checks it for errors and signs of forgery, and warns you and them two months before it lapses — so nobody works a shift they aren't allowed to.

  • English and French
  • Kept in Canada
  • No app to install
Verification resultWaiting for a photo
Olena KovalenkoOpen work permit# U105093317
Expires 30 Oct 2027Valid · 400 days leftExpiring · 2 months left
Today 31 Aug 2027Expiry

Reminder sent — Olena by text, you by email.

A worker photographs their work permit; each field is read and four checks pass, so it's saved for review. Two months before it expires, the worker gets a text and the employer an email. Point at a check to see what it catches.

What a missed date costs

1.4 million

work permits expire in Canada in 2026.

IRCC data via VisaHQ
Up to $100,000

per violation for a non-compliant employer, and up to $1 million a year.

Green & Spiegel
$10.2 million

in penalties issued in 2025–26 — more than double the year before.

ESDC figures via Immigration News Canada

From a text message to a clean record.

Three steps to set up. After that it runs by itself, every day.

  1. 01

    The worker scans it

    A link by text message. They photograph their permit and passport and type in their SIN — about three minutes, in English or French. No app, no password.

  2. 02

    It's checked in seconds

    Each detail is read and checked — number format, dates, a passport's check digits, signs of editing. A green tick saves it; a red cross says why and asks for a retake.

  3. 03

    It watches, every day

    Green while it's valid, orange two months out, red once it expires. You and the worker are told at two months, at one week, and on the day it lapses.

The checks people miss.

The obligations are yours with or without software. These are the ones that catch employers out.

Every expiry, every day
Days left on each permit, counted in your time zone — not a spreadsheet someone forgot to open.
Maintained status
A worker who applied to extend before expiry may keep working. The proof and the date go on file, and we keep asking until IRCC decides.
The SIN record
A SIN starting with 9 ends with the permit. Its checksum, its expiry and its match to the person's status are all checked.
Permit conditions
An employer-specific permit names an employer, an occupation and a place. Every placement is held against them.
Student hours
Study permit holders over the off-campus weekly limit while classes are on are flagged before it becomes a pattern.
Citizens and PRs, left alone
Recorded once and never re-checked. PR status doesn't end with the card, and re-checking people who don't need it can be discriminatory.

Document fraud

A forged permit has to fool more than your eyes.

Photoshop can make a convincing picture of a document. It can't make the check digits, the file's history and the rest of the record agree.

Captured live
Documents are photographed through the camera, all four corners in frame. Screenshots and photos of screens stand out.
The arithmetic has to add up
A passport's machine-readable lines carry check digits; a SIN carries a checksum. Edits break them.
The file tells on itself
A PDF exported from Photoshop or Illustrator, or changed after it was made, is flagged.
The record has to agree
The same document or number on two people, or a name that changes between documents, is caught.

Nothing is rejected silently. Every flag goes to a person at your company, with the reason in plain words.

Samuel Okafor
Westfield Cold Storage — Nisku
Needs review
  • PassportFile upload

    The passport's machine-readable lines fail their check digits — the kind of error an edited image produces.

  • Work permitFile upload

    The PDF was produced by an image editor, not issued as a document.

  • SIN confirmation letterFile upload

    No issues found

YouVerify the original document in person or by live video before relying on it.

Hand an inspector one file.

Who works for you, what their right to work rests on, and every check and notice in order — ready to print. Each entry is sealed to the one before it, so the record shows whether anything was changed after the fact.

  • Kept in Canada

    Documents and records stay in Canadian data centres.

  • The SIN, encrypted

    Staff see the last three digits, never more. The number is never sent to an AI model.

  • Each employer walled off

    Separation is enforced by the database itself, not only by the app.

  • Nothing deleted quietly

    Every action is written to an append-only record.

Work authorization record
Aspen Ridge Staffing Ltd.
Generated
25 Sept 2026
People tracked
13
NameValid untilStatus
Amina Kabongo7 Oct 2026Expiring
Arjun Mehta22 Jul 2027Authorized
Fatima Diallo23 Sept 2026Needs review
Grace Uwase19 Dec 2026Authorized
Jean-Paul Mbuyi22 Sept 2026Can't be scheduled
Record intact — 123 entries, none altered or removed

Less than one fine, for the year.

Priced per person you track. Citizens and permanent residents are never counted.

Starter

Up to 15 people with permits.

$49per month
  • Worker upload links, English and French
  • Daily checks and reminders
  • Inspection file
Book a demo

Growth

For employers with more temporary residents.

$4per tracked person, per month
  • Everything in Starter
  • Placement vs. permit conditions
  • Document fraud checks
  • Several managers and roles
Book a demo

Agency

Staffing agencies placing people at many client sites.

Let's talk
  • Everything in Growth
  • Scheduling and payroll exports
  • Volume pricing
  • Help moving your records in
Talk to us

Questions employers ask.

Something else? hello@permitsentinel.com

Is this legal or immigration advice?

No. PermitSentinel keeps your records, runs the checks you're already required to make, and tells you when something needs a person. Decisions stay with you; anything unusual is pointed to a licensed immigration consultant or lawyer.

Who decides whether a document is genuine?

Checks anyone can re-run: the number's format, dates that agree, a passport's check digits, signs of editing, a PDF made in an image editor. Pass them all and it's saved; fail one and you see why. Anything flagged waits for a person at your company to look at the original.

Do you check with IRCC directly?

Not today — there is no public verification service for employers. When one exists, it becomes the first check.

Where is the data kept, and who sees the SIN?

Documents and records are stored in Canada. The full SIN is encrypted; your staff only ever see its last three digits, and it is never sent to an AI model.

See your own workforce in it.

A 20-minute walkthrough, and a free check of your current list — names and expiry dates only, no SINs.