Where this program stands
Ontario runs the largest provincial nominee program in the country, and in the summer of 2026 it replaced the whole of it. Advice given before then is almost certainly describing streams that no longer exist.
Three dates, and they do different work
On 30 May 2026 amendments to a second regulation, O. Reg. 421/17, came into force. That date closed nothing, but it sets the grandfathering line, because the transitional rule assesses an application made before 30 May 2026 against the criteria that applied immediately before that day.
On 25 June 2026 the amending regulation, O. Reg. 204/26, was made, filed and came into force, removing all eight former streams and creating the Ontario Workforce Priority stream. The Expression of Interest system also closed temporarily that day.
On 4 August 2026 the Expression of Interest portal reopened for the new stream. No round of invitations has been issued under it yet, so nobody can tell you what a competitive score looks like.
A second phase is coming, and that changes some plans
Ontario has published that the redesign streamlines the eight former streams into four, that the Ontario Workforce Priority stream is the first of them to launch, and that the remaining three are expected later this year. Its updates page calls this the first of a two phase program redesign, and has described what the redesign is meant to do, being to streamline pathways for people with arranged employment in Ontario, to raise language and education benchmarks, and to give employers in rural and northern communities more flexible revenue thresholds.
We could not source what those three streams will be, what they will require, or any date more precise than later this year. That matters most to graduates. The old Masters and PhD Graduate streams nominated research graduates with no job offer, nothing in the current stream reproduces that, and there is no published successor to wait for. We would rather tell you that plainly than let you wait on something unnamed.
- The allocation decides how many people succeed, not the criteria. Ontario's nomination allocation fell from 21,500 in 2024 to 10,750 in 2025, and the province used all of it by 17 December 2025. We have not confirmed a 2026 figure from an official source and do not print one.
- Every pathway now needs a job offer, apart from physicians. The self employed physician pathway is the only route here that does not, and it is narrow by design.
- The program has already been replaced once by a single regulation. That is worth weighing when you build a plan around current rules.
- There is no occupation list, and no grid maximum we could source. Any occupation in the applicable TEER category qualifies. Ontario publishes the scoring factors and their bands, and we could not source a total, so the 130 figure used in our calculator is our arithmetic and not Ontario's.
What closed, and when
If you were told you qualified for any of these, that advice is now historical. All eight closed on the same date, which is a correction to what this page said previously.
| Former stream | Closed | Worth knowing |
|---|---|---|
| Employer Job Offer, Foreign Worker | 25 June 2026 | Covered TEER 0 to 3 only |
| Employer Job Offer, International Student | 25 June 2026 | For recent Canadian graduates with an Ontario job offer |
| Employer Job Offer, In Demand Skills | 25 June 2026 | Selected specific TEER 4 and 5 occupations in each round rather than publishing a fixed list |
| Masters Graduate | 25 June 2026 | Required no job offer. It did not close ahead of the others |
| PhD Graduate | 25 June 2026 | Required no job offer |
| Express Entry, Human Capital Priorities | 25 June 2026 | Operated through the federal pool rather than Ontario's own system |
| Express Entry, French Speaking Skilled Worker | 25 June 2026 | Operated through the federal pool |
| Express Entry, Skilled Trades | 25 June 2026 | Already suspended on 14 November 2025 over compliance and misrepresentation concerns, with outstanding applications returned and fees refunded, then abolished with the rest |
| Entrepreneur | Archived | Ontario's own landing page states that all other streams are now closed. Its stream page is archived and marked as remaining on the site for a limited time before moving to the Archives of Ontario |
The regulation that removed them, O. Reg. 204/26, came into force on 25 June 2026, and that is the closure date. Some of Ontario's own pages still carry a notice giving 30 May 2026. That date belongs to a different measure, and it is the date the grandfathering rule uses, so an application made before it is assessed against the old criteria.
The loss that matters most is the graduate routes. Masters and PhD graduates of Ontario universities could be nominated with no job offer at all, which made Ontario the obvious province for an international student finishing a research degree. Every pathway in the replacement requires a job offer except the one for self employed physicians. If you came to Ontario to study on the strength of that route, the plan needs rebuilding rather than adjusting.
The three pathways compared
All three sit inside one stream, share one Expression of Interest pool and one set of scoring factors. What differs is who they are for, what they demand, and whether a nomination can be used in federal Express Entry at all.
| TEER 0 to 3 | TEER 4 to 5 | Self employed physicians | |
|---|---|---|---|
| Job offer | Required. Full time, at least 1,560 hours a year and 30 hours a week, permanent with no end date, activities primarily in Ontario | Required, on the same terms | Not required, and no employer is involved |
| Occupation | Any occupation at TEER 0, 1, 2 or 3. No occupation list | Any occupation at TEER 4 or 5. No occupation list | Physicians registered with the College of Physicians and Surgeons of Ontario |
| Wage | At or above the median wage level for that occupation and region on the federal Job Bank. Recent Ontario graduates need only meet the low wage level | At or above the median wage level for that occupation and region | Not applicable |
| Work experience | One of three routes, set out below, or a mandatory licence instead | Nine months of cumulative, paid, full time work in the specific job offer position within the previous two years, while lawfully residing and working in Ontario | None prescribed |
| Must you have worked in Ontario | For the six month and three month routes, yes, the regulation requires the experience to be gained while lawfully residing and working in Ontario. The two year route and the licence route do not require it | Yes. The regulation requires it, so this pathway is closed to someone who has never worked in Ontario | No |
| Education | A post secondary credential of at least one year, or an equivalent assessed credential less than five years old. Lower requirements apply to listed trades groups, and a licence removes this requirement | A Canadian secondary school diploma, or an equivalent assessed credential less than five years old | None prescribed |
| Language | CLB 6 in all four abilities, or CLB 5 for the listed trades groups. Recent Ontario graduates are exempt from the test | CLB 4 in all four abilities, with no graduate exemption | None prescribed |
| Express Entry, and the 600 points | Available. You may choose to be nominated through federal Express Entry | Not available. Nomination is used in the non Express Entry process and there is no 600 point effect | Available |
| Application fee | $1,500 outside the Greater Toronto Area, $2,000 inside it | $1,500 outside the Greater Toronto Area, $2,000 inside it | $1,500 or $2,000, set by the practice address |
Every pathway also requires an invitation to apply, the qualifications you attested to in the Expression of Interest, any licence the work requires by law, and that neither you nor your family members hold, or have held, any equity in the employer's business, directly or indirectly, unless it came to you as employee remuneration and the total your family holds is under 10 per cent.
Read the Express Entry row before anything else if your occupation is at TEER 4 or 5. This is one of very few permanent residence routes in Canada that reaches those levels at all, which is genuinely valuable. But a nomination here cannot be attached to a federal Express Entry profile, so the 600 point effect that makes provincial nomination decisive elsewhere does not apply to you. Anyone telling you a nomination puts you at the top of the federal pool is describing a different pathway.
TEER 0 to 3
Three routes to the experience requirement, a licence route that removes both experience and education, and the trades groups that get a lower bar.
See requirements → Pathway twoTEER 4 to 5
Reaches occupations the federal programs exclude, on one strict experience route, and with no Express Entry option.
See requirements →Self employed physicians
Five criteria, no job offer, no employer, no language or education requirement, and registration classes that decide eligibility.
See requirements → BusinessOntario business routes
Where the Entrepreneur stream went, and what is left for someone whose plan was to invest.
See requirements →The deadlines that decide files
The two deadlines that most often end a file run from the invitation, not from the Expression of Interest, and the first of them belongs to your employer.
| Step | Deadline | Runs from |
|---|---|---|
| Employer submits the job offer in the Employer Portal | Before you can register | You then receive a job offer identification number by email |
| You register the Expression of Interest | 30 calendar days | The date the employer submitted the job offer. Miss it and the offer expires in the system, and the employer must submit a new one |
| Employer submits the application for approval of the employment position | 14 calendar days | The date the invitation to apply was issued |
| You submit your application and pay the fee | 17 calendar days | The date the invitation to apply was issued. You cannot submit until your employer has submitted theirs |
| Your Expression of Interest stays in the pool | 12 months | The date you registered it |
| You apply to the federal government for permanent residence | 6 months | The date of the nomination |
| You accept or refuse the nomination in Express Entry | 30 calendar days | The notification in your federal account, on the pathways where Express Entry is available |
| You submit the federal application after accepting | 60 calendar days | Your acceptance in Express Entry |
The self employed physician pathway starts differently, through a webform to the program rather than an employer portal, and no work permit support letter is issued for it.
Fourteen days of employer inaction can end the file before you are able to act. You cannot submit until the employer has submitted the position approval, and your own clock does not pause while you wait. Anyone relying on this stream should have the employer's side agreed, staffed and diarised before the invitation arrives, not after.
What the employer has to show
A file can be perfect on your side and fail here, and you will usually have no visibility of it. These are the requirements Ontario publishes for the employer.
| Requirement | Inside the Greater Toronto Area | Listed census divisions | Everywhere else in Ontario |
|---|---|---|---|
| Gross annual revenue | $1,000,000 in the most recently completed fiscal year | $500,000 in the most recently completed fiscal year | $250,000 in each of the last two completed fiscal years |
| Full time employees who are citizens or permanent residents, at that work location | 5 | 3 | 3 |
| Time in business | Active for at least 3 years before the application | Active for at least 3 years | Active for at least 3 years |
The listed census divisions are Ottawa, Waterloo, Hamilton, Simcoe, Middlesex, Niagara, Essex, Wellington, Greater Sudbury, Frontenac, Brant, Peterborough, Hastings and Thunder Bay District. Ontario also states, on its updates page, that a rural community for this purpose is one in a census division with a population under 150,000, while the regulation defines the lowest tier residually as any location not in the other two. Where that difference decides a file we confirm it against the regulation rather than the summary.
- The employer must maintain a place of business in Ontario where you will work. And the employment activities must occur primarily in Ontario, with an exception for transport truck drivers and bus and transit operators.
- The position must be urgently necessary to the business. And must not affect the settlement of a labour dispute.
- The wage has a second test if you already hold the job. It must meet the required wage level and also be at least what the employer currently pays you in that position, so an internal file cannot be built on a wage that is being held down.
- No outstanding employment standards or health and safety orders. Under the Employment Standards Act, 2000 or the Occupational Health and Safety Act.
- Recruitment evidence can be required. Where you are outside Canada or working outside Ontario, the director may require evidence of reasonable but unsuccessful efforts to recruit domestically.
- Headcount limits how many candidates one employer can support. Ontario's employer checklist requires the business to show it has enough full time employees to submit more than one application in the same calendar year, so an employer with several candidates may not be able to put all of them forward.
- Truck and bus operators need a safety rating. A valid CVOR certificate under the Highway Traffic Act, rated Excellent or Satisfactory. Ontario asks for a CVOR Abstract (Level 1) to prove it.
- Two recruitment methods, and a four week advertisement. The employer guide and the employer checklist both say a minimum of two advertising or recruitment methods should be used, and that advertisements should be posted for at least four weeks before the position is offered to you. Both are drafted as a should rather than a must, and both are what recruitment gets measured against.
- The Ontario Public Service cannot be the employer. Ontario states that an expression of interest or application will not be accepted where the Ontario Public Service or an OPS entity is listed as the employer. Bodies that are separate legal entities are treated separately, so an employer in the wider public sector should settle its legal status before anything else.
- Bonuses and commission do not count toward the wage. The employer guide states that piece work, bonuses, commissions, vacation pay and non financial compensation are not treated as part of the offered wage. They can be paid on top of base pay, but only the hourly base wage is measured against the required wage level.
One caution about pairing the lowest revenue tier with the highest regional score. Thunder Bay District and Greater Sudbury are Northern Ontario for the 15 point regional factor, and they are also on the list of census divisions carrying the $500,000 revenue threshold rather than the $250,000 one. The cheapest employer test and the best regional score are not always in the same place.
Estimate your Ontario score
Ontario's published scoring factors for this stream, reproduced band by band. Scoring factors are not the stream criteria, and Ontario says so expressly. You must meet every criterion of your pathway whatever this returns.
Your situation
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What we do not state, and why
Each of these is something a reader might expect to find here. We looked, could not confirm it from Ontario or from the regulation, and would rather say so than estimate. Several items that previously sat in this list have been removed because they were in fact answerable, and leaving them here was our error rather than a gap in Ontario's material.
- Ontario's 2026 allocation. The 2024 figure of 21,500, the 2025 figure of 10,750 and its exhaustion on 17 December 2025 are confirmed. We have not confirmed a 2026 figure and do not print one.
- What the three further streams will contain. Ontario has published that the redesign ends in four streams and that the remaining three are expected later this year. We could not source what they will be, what they will require, or any date more precise than that.
- Any cut off score. No round has been held under this stream. Cut offs published for the former streams describe programs that no longer exist and we do not carry them across.
- How many nominations the former Entrepreneur stream issued. We previously printed a 2024 figure and could not confirm it from Ontario's published data.
Five things we used to say we could not confirm, which we now state plainly. Settlement funds are not required, because the regulation lists the criteria for each pathway exhaustively and none of them includes funds. The fees are set in the regulation, which is published on e-Laws with its filing and publication dates on the face of the instrument. And three employer side rules are set out in Ontario's own employer guide and checklist, being the two recruitment methods, the bar on the Ontario Public Service as the employer, and the exclusion of bonuses, commissions and piece work from the offered wage. All three now appear above. Saying a government does not publish something it does publish is a worse error than an ordinary gap, so each has been corrected.