What dormant means
These two sub-categories accept profiles and issue nothing
Both pages are live on saskatchewan.ca and both accept Expression of Interest profiles. The last draw was on 12 September 2024, when 89 invitations were issued at a cut-off of 88 out of 110. There has been no draw in 2025 or 2026, the province's Expression of Interest page states that no draws are scheduled, and neither sub-category appears in the processing statistics for the second quarter of 2026.
In March 2025 Saskatchewan went further and returned the pending applications in these sub-categories that had no Saskatchewan job offer attached.
These are the only two Saskatchewan routes that never required a job offer, which makes their condition the most important fact about the province for anyone applying from abroad without an employer.
We have given them one page rather than two, and put it plainly at the top, because the alternative is a reader working carefully through a set of requirements they can satisfy in full and discovering only at the end that satisfying them leads nowhere.
- Not closed. Saskatchewan has not announced a closure, withdrawn the pages or removed the criteria. That distinguishes these two from the three business streams, which were closed expressly and permanently on 27 March 2025.
- Not functioning. Twenty-three months without a draw, absent from current processing statistics, and with pending job-offer-less applications returned. On any practical measure these routes are not producing nominations.
- No schedule to plan against. Saskatchewan's published position is that selection dates are not posted before they take place. Results appear afterwards. So there is no calendar, and no way to distinguish a long pause from a permanent one until it ends.
- A profile is free. The $500 fee attaches to the application on invitation, not to the profile. So filing one costs nothing but the time, which is the beginning and the end of the case for doing it.
What the two sub-categories require
Recorded because the criteria remain published and because anyone deciding whether to file a profile should be able to see what it would be assessed against. Not recorded as a route we would advise planning around.
| Requirement | Occupations In-Demand | Saskatchewan Express Entry |
|---|---|---|
| Job offer | Not required | Not required |
| Federal Express Entry profile | Not required | Required, with a valid job seeker validation code |
| Work experience | One year of full-time work in the last ten years, in an occupation at TEER 0 to 3 that is on the in-demand list and not on the excluded list | The same |
| Education | Post-secondary, with an educational credential assessment for credentials earned outside Canada | The same |
| Language | At least CLB 4 in all four abilities, tested | The same |
| Points | At least 60 of 110 | At least 60 of 110 |
| Settlement funds | Required | Required |
| Fee | $500 on invitation, not on filing the profile | The same |
The occupation requirement is the one that cannot be checked from this page. Saskatchewan publishes both the in-demand list and the excluded occupation list as separate downloadable files, revises them without notice, and applies the version in force when an application is received.
The Express Entry sub-category carries one advantage the other does not. A provincial nomination obtained through it adds 600 points to your federal Comprehensive Ranking System score, which in practice guarantees an invitation from the federal pool. That is why it was the more sought after of the two. It is also why it is worth keeping a federal profile current independently, because the federal pool is drawing and this sub-category is not. How the federal pool works.
What we would actually advise
Plainly
A reader who has got this far usually wants to know one thing, which is whether to bother. Here is the answer we give clients.
- File the profile if you qualify, and expect nothing from it. It is free and it costs you an afternoon. If draws resume you are in the pool rather than starting from scratch. That is the entire benefit and it is worth having, provided nothing else in your plan depends on it.
- Put the real effort into an employer. Every Saskatchewan sub-category currently issuing nominations requires an approved job offer. If Saskatchewan is genuinely the objective, that is the work, and the three priority pathways in health, agriculture and technology are the most accessible versions of it.
- Keep a federal profile current in parallel. Federal Express Entry requires no job offer, no provincial occupation list and no nomination, and it is drawing. For most people in this position it is a better use of the same evidence.
- Ask whether Saskatchewan is the point. Some clients want Saskatchewan because family or a community is there, which is a real reason and shapes the strategy. Others want Canada and were told Saskatchewan was the easy door, which stopped being true in 2024. Those two situations call for different advice and it is worth being honest about which one applies.
What we will not do is build a plan on a dormant stream. If a representative has told you a Saskatchewan Expression of Interest profile is a route to permanent residence in the current climate, ask them when the last draw was. The answer is September 2024.