Working Holiday Visas

Working holiday visas are sometimes also called Youth Mobility or Young Worker’s Exchange visas. They are reciprocal visas issued by the Canadian government and the governments of Europe, Japan, Australia, NZ, and Chile.

These are generally open to young citizens of those countries, who are between the ages of 18 and 35 and who have about $2,000 in their bank account. Click on the name of your country below to see how you can qualify for a working holiday visa.

Australia	New Zealand	Eire	Great Britain
Italy	France	Germany	Belgium
Netherlands	Czech Rep.	Latvia	Norway
Sweden	Denmark	Japan	Korea
Chile

If you are not a citizen of one of those countries, you might still be able to get a visa using an organization like SWAP or BUNAC.

So if you get one of those visas, what does it mean? Well, practically it means that you can come to Canada to work for 6 months (if you’re Italian), 1 year (if you’re from most of the countries listed above), or as much as 19 years (if you’re Australian). You don’t need a job or a job offer, just get on a plane, show up, and start looking.

If you’re Canadian, it means the same thing, but in reverse. Get one of these visas, no job offer required, and show up in Australia, or Chile, or Britain, or Italy (etc…) and start looking for a job.

More information on that (the job thing) will be found here later – though feel free to ask any questions in the comments to this blog.