Joshua Tiong

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Canadian Youth Mobility Agreements - Did You Know?

Joshua Tiong

Traveling around the world as a visitor, student, worker, or whatever other circumstance. It's a dream for many of us, isn't it? However, due to national borders, we are often faced with all sorts of challenges imposed by the systems in place for traveling. Similarly, my partner and I have been considering different places where we could do long-term traveling / short-term working, but come up against the wall of visa issues and poorly laid-out information on public resources.

Thankfully, in Canada, we are very fortunate to be a part of a group of countries who have set up an agreement that simplifies this all. 

...cue enter: Youth Mobility Agreements

According to the Citizenship and Immigration Canada site:

International Experience Canada (IEC) provides young Canadians the opportunity to travel and work abroad. IEC is available in countries that have a bilateral youth mobility arrangement with Canada.
Depending on where you would like to go, you can choose from up to three travel and work experiences:
Working Holiday
Young Professional
International Co-op Internship

What this means is that, for Canadian Citizens aged 18-30 (and in some cases, 18-35), the process for you to travel to and stay in countries for a 1 year period is significantly easier. There is also, for the most part, an open work permit so you can take any form of employment that you can find. 

Now, I'll admit that even though this is great news, it can be kind of a pain to find a centralized, comparative source of information about these visas/work permits.

Luckily, some kind folks have put together a summary-type list over on Global Goose, as well as this one available on Wikipedia. These are wonderful starting points, but certainly no substitute for the diligent research you should be doing for your specific circumstances (e.g. on CIC site). Once you have an idea of which country(ies) you'd like to apply for, contact the nearest Embassy or Consulate of the country you wish to visit. 

Note that even if you are not eligible for an IEC visa, there are still a variety of business, family, or student visas & work permits that may be available to you. Check out this post from Global Goose to get you started. 

Happy Travels!

Personal Research relating to YMAs

I've been researching Europe for an eventual move that's being considered. I figured I would share some summary information of my findings.

Countries with Youth Mobility Agreements with Canada:

Austria, Belgium, Croatia, Czech Republic, Denmark, Estonia, France, Germany, Greece, Ireland, Italy, Latvia, Lithuania, Netherlands, Norway, Poland, Slovakia, Slovenia, Spain, Sweden, Switzerland, Ukraine, United Kingdom 

Countries without Youth Mobility Agreements with Canada:

Albania, Andorra, Armenia, Azerbaijan, Belarus, Bosnia and Herzegovina, Bulgaria, Cyprus, Finland, Georgia, Hungary, Iceland, Kazakhstan, Kosovo, Liechtenstein, Luxembourg, Malta, Macedonia, Moldova, Montenegro, Portugal, Romania, San Marino, Serbia,  Turkey, Vatican City

From the above countries with YMAs in place, the list had to be significantly narrowed down, based on what my partner and I are looking to accomplish in a move to Europe (travel, quality of life, professional opportunity, higher education, etc.). Here are a few other resources I've been using in my research: