Where this stands
Base and Regional are both running
The Base stream drew most recently on 28 July 2026, inviting ten candidates at a minimum score of 117. The Regional stream drew on 30 June 2026, inviting fewer than five at a minimum score of 113. A third stream for established foreign corporations launching operations in the province is handled case by case rather than by draw.
Invitation volumes are small. Ten places in a round is not a programme under pressure to fill, so the score you present matters.
This is a real alternative and it is worth knowing why. Ontario revoked its entrepreneur stream in June 2026, the federal Start-up Visa closed to new applications on 30 June 2026, and the federal Self-employed Persons Program has been paused since April 2024. For a client whose plan is to immigrate through a business, the provinces are now the only route, and British Columbia is among the more accessible of them.
Neither stream nominates you for owning a business. Both give you a work permit first, expect you to come, establish and actually run the business for around twenty months, and nominate only after a final report shows you did what you agreed to. The commitment is real long before the status is.
Base against Regional
The money is the obvious difference and the least important one. What separates these streams is how much control you must take, whether you can buy rather than build, and whether a community has to want you.
| Base | Regional | |
|---|---|---|
| Personal net worth | $600,000 | $300,000 |
| Personal investment | $200,000 | $100,000 |
| Ownership required | 33.33% | 51%, majority control |
| Where | Anywhere in the province, Metro Vancouver included | Participating regional communities only, outside Metro Vancouver and the Capital Regional District. You must live there |
| New or existing business | Either. You may buy an existing business | New business only |
| Business experience | 3 years as an active owner manager within the last 10, or 4 years as a senior manager | 3 years as an owner manager within the last 5. A narrower window |
| Language | Not required to register | CLB 4 required at registration |
| Community involvement | None | An exploratory visit and a referral letter from the host community, before you register |
| Jobs to create | 1 full time, for a citizen or permanent resident | 1 full time, for a citizen or permanent resident |
| Most recent draw | 28 July 2026, minimum score 117, 10 invitations | 30 June 2026, minimum score 113, fewer than 5 invitations |
Draw dates, minimum scores and invitation volumes are published by the province after each round. The current table is here.
Halving the money doubles the commitment. Regional asks for majority ownership rather than a third, a new business rather than one you can buy, three years of ownership inside five rather than ten, a language test, a visit to the community and a letter from it saying they want your business. For someone genuinely willing to move to a smaller community and build something, it is the better deal. For someone who wanted a cheaper way into Vancouver, it is not a route at all.
What the score has to reach
Two numbers matter and they are not the same number, which is where most published guidance goes wrong.
- The minimum to enter the pool. The programme guide sets 105 points for a single registrant, or 115 where two people register together, plus at least 40 points in the business concept section. Below either figure you do not qualify to be in the pool at all.
- The score actually being invited. Considerably higher. Recent rounds invited at 117 for Base and 113 for Regional. Meeting the minimum gets you into the pool; it does not get you an invitation.
- How the 200 points divide. A self declared section worth up to 120, covering your experience, net worth, investment, job creation, the regional district and adaptability, and a business concept section worth up to 80, covering commercial viability, transferable skills and economic benefit to the province.
- Why we do not publish the sub factor values. The detailed point tables we could obtain came from an earlier edition of the programme guide. Publishing them as current would be guessing, and on a scoring grid a wrong figure tells a client they qualify when they may not. We work from the current guide on a live file.
The business concept section is where files are won and lost. Forty of its eighty points are a hard floor you must clear regardless of your total, and it scores commercial viability, whether your skills transfer and what the province actually gains. Net worth cannot compensate for a weak concept, which is the opposite of how most people assume these programmes work.
How nomination works
This is a long route and the sequence is the point. You are asked to deliver before you are given anything permanent.
- Register and be scoredFree to register. Base takes around six weeks to score, Regional around four.
- Be invited, then applyRegistration fee $300, application fee $3,500.
- Sign a performance agreementA binding agreement setting out the investment, the business, its location, the job creation and the timelines. A review fee of $500 applies. Money invested before this is signed does not count towards compliance, which is a trap worth stating twice.
- Come on a work permit and run the businessRoughly twenty months of actually operating it, around 610 days.
- File a final reportBetween months 18 and 20, showing you did what the agreement required.
- Nomination, then permanent residenceOnly after the report is accepted. The nomination adds 600 points to your federal ranking score, and the permanent residence decision is federal.
Do not spend before the agreement is signed. Investment made ahead of the performance agreement cannot be counted as compliance with it. People who move early, wanting to show commitment, can spend the money and still fail the assessment.
Businesses that do not qualify
The province excludes a long list outright, and several of them are exactly what an applicant proposes first.
Home based businesses, passive investments earning only rental income, real estate development, sale or brokerage, insurance brokerage, payday lending and money exchange, bed and breakfasts, hobby farms, adult entertainment, coin operated laundries, tanning salons, second hand goods without value added, most simple franchises, automated car washes, and import or export trading with no demonstrated value added.
Passive investment is the recurring misunderstanding. Buying property to let, or putting money into a business somebody else runs, is not what either stream is for. Both require you to own a real operating business and to be actively managing it, which is also what the twenty month operating period is designed to test.
What we do not state
Because it is not confirmed
- The score sub factor values. The detailed tables available to us came from an earlier edition of the guide. The section structure and the thresholds above are current; the internal point values are not published here.
- The Strategic Projects stream detail. A third stream exists for established foreign corporations opening operations in the province, handled case by case rather than by draw. The figures we found for it were secondary sourced, so we confirm only that it exists and that it begins with contacting the province directly.
- Whether the Base stream imposes a language minimum at application. None is required to register. Whether one applies later could not be confirmed.
- The current list of participating regional communities. The province maintains it and individual communities pause their intake from time to time, so a list copied here would mislead. The province publishes it here.
Each of these is answerable for a live file. They are absent rather than hedged, because on money thresholds and scoring a page that quietly guesses causes more damage than one that admits a gap.