It depends on your credential. Graduates of bachelor's, master's, and doctoral degree programs are generally exempt from field-of-study requirements. For most college certificate and diploma programs, your program must generally link to an occupation on IRCC's eligible field-of-study list — and that list has changed more than once, with fields added and removed. Because eligibility is usually locked in based on when you applied for your study permit, check the current rules on canada.ca for your specific situation.
Updated July 2026