Ontario has launched the first set of pathways to permanent residence as part of its overhaul of its provincial immigration program.
According to an announcement published on its webpage, on June 26, 2026, Ontario dropped regulatory amendments detailing how foreign nationals can qualify for provincial nomination for permanent residence under the newly launched Ontario Workforce Priority Stream, which includes three pathways:
Assess your eligibility for enhanced PNP streams
The streams have come into effect immediately, but to be considered, foreign nationals must wait until the Ontario Immigrant Nominee Program (OINP) re-launches its Expression of Interest (EOI) system.
The OINP wrote that the new EOI system “is anticipated to open later in the summer.”
The province is expected to launch three additional streams—priority healthcare, entrepreneurs, and exceptional talent, as part of its second phase—for which no anticipated launch date has been announced, as of the time of writing.
Foreign nationals who have already applied for provincial nomination under the old pathways will continue to have their applications processed by the OINP under the requirements that were in place at the time their applications were received.
This pathway is for foreign nationals who have job offers in occupations that typically require at least some level of post-secondary education or training.
To qualify for this pathway, a foreign national must meet the following requirements:
A foreign national must also meet one of the following requirements:
The postsecondary credential can be either from a Canadian institution, or can be an equivalent foreign degree supported by a valid Educational Credential Assessment (ECA).
Full-time work experience is defined as at least 30 hours per week in a single role.
Part-time work experience, which can be counted only toward the occupational minimum, can contribute to the cumulative total length of required full-time equivalent work experience at a rate of
*To count as a recent Ontario graduate, a foreign national must have obtained from an eligible Ontario post-secondary institution, within the past three years, a
**For a job offer for NOC 33102 (Nurse aides, orderlies and patient service associates), a foreign national can meet the educational requirement with an Ontario college certificate from a program requiring at least one year of full-time study.
***The educational requirement can be satisfied with only a secondary school diploma or equivalent, if the job offer is for a NOC falling onto one of the following categories:
A foreign national with a NOC in one of the above categories can also meet the minimum language requirement with CLB 5.
****Job offers for NOC 73300 (Transport truck drivers) or NOC 73301 (Bus drivers, subway operators and other transit operators) can only satisfy the work experience requirement by means of the six months consecutive work experience job offer minimum.
*****Exemptions for occupational work experience minimum:
The foreign national must have the appropriate license or authorization to perform the job, if any of the job’s activities require licensing or other authorization under either Ontario or federal law.
This pathway is for foreign nationals with job offers in occupations that typically require only a secondary school education and/or several weeks of on-the-job training.
To qualify for this pathway, a foreign national must meet the following requirements:
To qualify for this pathway, a foreign national must meet the following requirements:
Licensing requirements are established by the College of Physicians and Surgeons of Ontario, and are available on its website.
Ontario publishes the requirements to bill through OHIP on its website.
To qualify as an eligible employer, the employer must meet the following requirements:
*Ottawa, Waterloo, Hamilton, Niagara, Essex, Wellington, Greater Sudbury, Frontenac, Brant, Peterborough, Hastings, Thunder Bay.
For the job offer to be eligible, it must
The wage level requirement is assessed on the basis of the data published by the federal government’s Job Bank, on the date the application is made.
In the event that Job Bank data is not available for the occupation and region at the time of application, the wage level requirement will be assessed first on the basis of the most recently available historical data for the region, and failing that, on the basis of the present-day nationwide data for the occupation.
At the discretion of the director, the employer “must have made reasonable but unsuccessful efforts to fill the position with a Canadian citizen or permanent resident prior to offering the position to the applicant,” according to the regulations.
The applicant and the applicant’s family members must not hold, or have held, directly or indirectly, equity in the employer’s business, with an exception provided only for cases in which the equity had been obtained as employee compensation and the total amount held by the applicant and their family falls below 10% of the total equity.
**Transport occupations exemption
To meet the exemption for transport occupations,
The granting of the OINP’s approval “must not be likely to affect the settlement of any labour dispute or the employment of a person involved in a labour dispute,” according to the regulations.
To be considered for provincial nomination under the Ontario Workforce Priority stream, a foreign national must create a new EOI in the province’s online system after the EOI system re-opens.
To support an eligible foreign national with a job offer, the foreign national’s employer must initiate a new EOI for their worker, by submitting a new job offer and new application for an approval of an employment position within the Employer Portal, once the Employer Portal has re-opened.
Employers will not be required to re-register for the Employer Portal if they have an existing registration within the Employer Portal.
After the EOI system re-opens, an eligible candidate must be selected by the OINP from the EOI pool, and invited to submit a complete application for provincial nomination to the OINP.
Upon responding to an invitation from the OINP with a complete application, a candidate can expect the OINP to process their application.
The launch of the Ontario Workforce Priority Stream and its three pathways on June 26, as published on the ONIP website, marks the first phase of implementing Ontario’s overhaul of its provincial immigration program.
Full details of the three pathways have been published online in the latest version of O. Reg. 422/17 General.
The province had retired all its previous permanent residence pathways on May 30, 2026, without having launched any replacements.
The revocation of the now-defunct pathways took place as part of a planned overhaul, conducted by means of changes to the province’s regulations, that had been first announced in December 2025.
The second phase, for which no anticipated launch date has been announced, is expected to include the following three streams:
To get permanent residence through a PNP, a foreign national must have an intent to reside in a province or territory outside Quebec, and must first receive a nomination from the province or territory they intend to settle in, and then apply to the federal government for permanent residence as a provincial nominee.
In the case of the OINP, the overall process would look like this:
For step 6, the process will vary depending on whether you apply through an enhanced PNP stream, which is integrated with the federal government’s Express Entry system, or through the base PNP.
For step 8, the process will vary depending on whether you are already in Canada during the period of time in which the immigration officer is finalizing their decision on your application for permanent residence, or whether you will be arriving from outside Canada to land.
The Canadian government categorizes occupations using the National Occupation Classification (NOC) system, which ranks the skill level of occupations based on their Training, Education, Experience and Responsibilities (TEER) level, with TEER 0 being the highest-skilled occupations, and TEER 5 the lowest-skilled occupations:
| TEER Level | TEER definition |
|---|---|
| 0 | Management position. |
| 1 | Typically requires a university degree. |
| 2 | Supervisory occupation, or typically requires a college diploma or two-year apprenticeship. |
| 3 | Typically requires a college diploma, an apprenticeship of less than two years, or at least six months of on-the-job training. |
| 4 | Typically requires at least a secondary school diploma, or at least several weeks of on-the-job training. |
| 5 | Typically requires only short-term work demonstration. |
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