Your job offer is the file. So is your paperwork.

These apply where your job offer is supporting an application under the Nova Scotia nominee streams. They are checked, not assumed.

• Registration. A commercial business must be registered with the Nova Scotia Registry of Joint Stock Companies and show a permanent establishment in Nova Scotia as defined in Canada's Income Tax Act. A not for profit must be registered under the Societies Act.
• Two years operating. The business must have operated in Nova Scotia for at least two years.
• The wage. It must meet provincial employment standards and the provincial wage range published for that occupation. A wage below the range undermines the offer even where the candidate is otherwise strong.
• A genuine shortage. You must be able to show the position could not be filled by a Canadian citizen or permanent resident, and evidence the recruitment you actually carried out before making the offer.
• Work authorisation evidence. A positive labour market impact assessment naming the applicant, or proof that the worker holds an open work permit or that the position is exempt.
• Employer Registration Certificate. Depending on the role, a certificate from the Director of Labour Standards may be required in order to recruit and hire foreign workers. There is no fee for it.
• Good standing and clean conduct. A history of good workplace and business practices, compliance with applicable laws, good standing with occupational health and safety and labour authorities, and no violation of the Immigration and Refugee Protection Act or Regulations.
• No conflict with existing agreements. The hire must not contravene a bargaining unit agreement, labour agreement or provincial labour standards, and must not form part of an employment dispute.
• No cost recovery from the worker. You must not deduct the costs of bringing a foreign worker to Canada from their wages or salary. Nova Scotia says this in its own guide, and the federal Regulations say it more broadly.
• Not a placement firm placing elsewhere. An employment agency or placement firm may not act as the employer unless it is hiring the applicant as a full time permanent employee of the agency itself.

Requirements are set by the Government of Nova Scotia and change. Reviewed 21 August 2026 against liveinnovascotia.com and the Skilled Worker application guide dated July 2026.

Your involvement differs sharply between the three worker streams, and it is worth knowing which conversation you are actually in.

Full time means the employee will work year round for at least 30 hours a week. Permanent means the employment has no pre-determined end date.

Only needed if you do not hold an assessment naming the worker or proof that the worker or the position is exempt. Where it is needed, the specification is precise and it is the part employers most often assemble after the fact.

• Three advertisements, in three different publications. You have to show each publication targets a Canadian audience with the education, experience, language ability and skill level the job needs.
• Published in the six months before the offer. Not before that, and not after it.
• Publicly available for at least four weeks in a row. Four separate weeks scattered across the period is not the same thing.
• At least one in a Canada wide recruitment tool. One with a track record of finding workers for that job, such as Job Bank.
• What each advertisement must contain. Your operating name, telephone and fax numbers, email and mailing addresses, the job title, the duties, the skill requirements and the city or town of work.
• The outcome, evidenced. You must demonstrate the recruitment produced no qualified Canadian citizen or permanent resident candidate, and you must not make the offer to a foreign national until all Canadian candidates have been vetted.

The alternative to all of this is a positive labour market impact assessment naming your prospective employee, whose expiry date falls on or after the date they submit their expression of interest. That expiry date catches people out, because an assessment obtained early in a slow hiring process can lapse before the candidate files.

Your part of the paperwork is the NSNP 200 employer information form, completed and signed by your authorised signing officer, together with a signed copy of the accepted job offer, your Employer Registration Certificate if you need one, and either the assessment, the exemption proof or the advertisements. You give these to your prospective employee as PDFs to include in their submission, which means their deadline is effectively your deadline.

Rarely on eligibility. Usually on documentation only you can produce, and on classification decisions made casually at the start.

• Reference letters that do not match the occupation. They need to track the lead statement and a substantial share of the main duties for the NOC code claimed. A letter describing the job in your own words usually does not.
• Hours that do not reconcile to payroll. Where a stream requires a set number of hours, the letters and the payroll records have to agree.
• Classification chosen for convenience. The occupation code drives the language floor, the experience requirement and, under the 2026 selection priorities, whether the candidate is in a group the province is drawing from at all. Getting it wrong is not a technicality.
• Dates that conflict with status. Employment periods have to sit inside authorised work.
• An ownership interest nobody mentioned. Nova Scotia will not treat employment as valid where the applicant holds any ownership interest in the employer's business, exercises control over hiring, supervision or operations, or where the arrangement is not at arm's length. Self-employment does not count as work experience, including through a corporation or partnership.
• An advertisement that ran for three weeks. Or in two publications rather than three. The specification above is checked as written.

None of these are difficult to get right at the outset. All of them are expensive to fix once a submission has been made, and some cannot be fixed at all.

The pattern underneath them is always the same, being that an occupation is defined by its duties, not by the job title on your letterhead. What a file has to prove is what the person actually did. More on why that distinction decides cases.

Three things are worth knowing before you plan a hire around this program, and none of them are requirements.

• Selection is discretionary and it is not a queue. Every submission is an expression of interest entering a pool, and Nova Scotia draws from it periodically against published priorities, remaining allocation, retention likelihood, region, status in Canada and program integrity. Meeting the criteria does not mean your candidate will be selected.
• Accommodation and food services submissions are still not being accepted. The pause has been in place since 17 April 2024 while the province works through existing inventory, and the notice remains posted.
• Expressions of interest now expire. One submitted on or after 1 May 2026 is valid for 12 months from its submission date. An expiry is not a refusal and a new one can be submitted.

After a nomination your obligations continue. Nova Scotia requires immediate notice of anything that changes, including the nominee leaving, being terminated or laid off, a leave affecting their employment status, operational changes affecting their job, and changes to work location. Any third party who submitted information in support of an application carries the same duty.

Where an applicant and their employer both want it, and both give informed consent, we can act for the two of you together on the immigration file.

One strategy, one timeline, one set of documents, and no risk of the two sides telling the province different things about the same job. In practice that is what most employers and candidates want, because the alternative is two advisers reconstructing the same facts twice and billing for it separately.

Where a joint retainer would not be appropriate, we say so at the outset and set out the alternative. That judgment is made before anything is filed, not after a conflict has surfaced.