Overview
This is the route for a skilled professional abroad with no Canadian work history, other than a tradesperson, who should look at the Federal Skilled Trades Programme instead. Experience counts wherever it was gained, which is what makes it valuable, and the trade off is a higher language bar and a mandatory education assessment.
Two features distinguish it from the other two programmes and both catch people out. Your qualifying experience has to sit in a single occupation rather than being assembled from several, and you must separately pass a selection grid scored out of 100 with a pass mark of 67. Passing that grid is a condition of qualifying at all. It is not the same thing as your ranking score, and a strong ranking score does not rescue a failed grid.
Best suited to: a professional outside Canada with at least a year in one skilled occupation, strong English or French across all four abilities, and a credential that will assess well.
Eligibility
- Work experience. Either one year of continuous full time work, or 1,560 hours in total, within the ten years before you apply. The continuity requirement attaches to the full time year only. The 1,560 hour alternative exists precisely so that part time work and several simultaneous jobs can be combined, and those hours do not need to be continuous. Hours beyond 30 a week are not counted.
- One occupation. All of that experience must sit in the same occupation, the one you nominate as your primary occupation. This is stricter than the Canadian Experience Class, where experience may span several.
- Skill level. The occupation must be at TEER 0, 1, 2 or 3. Experience at TEER 4 or 5 does not count, however skilled the work felt.
- Paid work only. Wages or commission. Volunteer work and unpaid internships are excluded. Paid work done while you were studying can count, but only where it was continuous with no gaps, a condition that does not apply to other experience.
- Language. CLB 7 as a minimum in all four abilities in your first official language. A second official language at CLB 5 adds points but is not required.
- Education. A Canadian secondary school diploma at minimum, or a foreign equivalent. Where the credential was obtained outside Canada an educational credential assessment is required, and it must have been issued within the last five years when you submit your profile.
- Settlement funds. Required, unless you are authorised to work in Canada and hold a valid job offer.
- Where you will live. Anywhere in Canada except Quebec, which selects its own economic immigrants. Work experience you gained while living in Quebec still counts, provided you can show you do not plan to settle there. People routinely write off Quebec years they were entitled to claim.
The selection grid, which is not your ranking score
This is the part most people have never heard of until it fails them. Six factors, scored out of 100, and 67 is the pass mark. Fall below it and you do not qualify for this programme at all, whatever your ranking score would have been.
| Factor | Maximum | What it turns on |
|---|---|---|
| Language | 28 | Your first official language across the four abilities, with a small allowance for a second |
| Education | 25 | Your highest completed credential, as assessed |
| Work experience | 15 | How many years, within the ten year window |
| Age | 12 | The full 12 points from 18 through 35, declining after that and reaching zero at 47 |
| Arranged employment | 10 | A qualifying job offer. This is the one place a job offer still scores |
| Adaptability | 10 | Previous study or work in Canada, relatives in Canada, and your partner's language and history. Past Canadian work only counts here if it was at TEER 0 to 3 |
A job offer scores here and nowhere else. Since 25 March 2025 a job offer adds nothing to your ranking score. It still earns up to 10 points on this grid, which occasionally makes the difference between 65 and 67, and it can still be what unlocks a provincial nomination. Anyone telling you a Canadian job offer will lift your ranking score is working from rules that changed last year.
IRCC has consulted on removing this grid altogether
A departmental consultation published on 23 April 2026 proposed scrapping the Federal Skilled Worker selection grid entirely. Nothing has changed in law and the grid applies today exactly as set out above. We flag it because anyone planning a multi year strategy around scoring 67 should know the mechanism itself is under review, and because the same consultation proposed removing the mandatory job offer from the Federal Skilled Trades Programme.
The maxima above are published by IRCC and verified at 18 August 2026. How the sub factors within each are awarded depends on the detail of your record, which is what an assessment is for. We do not publish a grid calculator because a wrong answer here tells you that you do not qualify when you may well do.
Requirements checker
A structured way to see where you stand against the published criteria. It returns an indication only, not an eligibility decision, not legal advice, and not a prediction that you will be invited.
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