Express Entry Canada 2026–2027: Salary-Based Points, Canadian Experience, and the Reform Ahead

By 2027, Express Entry is set for a rule change: points will start being tied to industry salary levels, and candidates with Canadian work experience will get priority — while the francophone stream and provincial programs are already restructuring around similar criteria.

In short

• The Express Entry francophone stream is the second-largest after the general pool: 30,000 PR spots this year, 32,000 next year, 35,000 in 2028.
• The Trades category cutoff score jumped from 420–430 to 500 after 80–85% of applicants turned out to be cooks from Tim Hortons.
• Of the student pathways to immigration, only master’s programs of 16 months or longer actually work now — the reform closed the other routes.
• British Columbia was the first to introduce salary-based selection: an annual income of $125,000+ guarantees an invitation with no points needed under the old grid.
• An applicant tied to an employer under restrictions risks losing status for 2-3 years if they don’t get a Bridging Open Work Permit.

The francophone stream: why French opens PR without Canadian experience

French remains one of the main selection factors in Express Entry, and the reason is demographic. Outside Quebec, only about 3.5% of Canada’s population today speaks French as a first official language, a share that has noticeably declined over time. Because of this, French proficiency has become one of the most accessible paths to permanent residence without Canadian work experience — alongside other targeted Express Entry categories: provincial programs are already adding points for bilingualism, and Ontario’s provincial program used to run separate draws specifically for francophones before its reform.

The emphasis on French is driven not only by demographics but by politics. Quebec retains a strong sense of historical grievance toward the English-speaking majority, which historically restricted the rights of the French-speaking population, and provincial independence remains a serious political risk for any federal government — it would cut off Canada’s Atlantic provinces from the rest of the country. Promoting French-language immigration programs at the federal level is a way to minimize the risk of separatism.

Promoting French-language immigration programs at the federal level is a way to minimize the risk of separatism.

At the same time, francophones in Canada don’t live only in Quebec: the intent behind the policy is for invited immigrants to settle specifically in French-speaking communities outside Quebec, restoring a degree of historical balance. Authorities can’t actually force that outcome — such immigrants often end up settling in Toronto anyway, and the state has no power to dictate where people live.

There’s a third factor — refusal statistics. Applicants from several francophone countries (in particular, former French colonies) run into trouble verifying documents, which pushes authorities to invite more people than needed to reliably fill the quota. And one invitation isn’t one person — it covers an entire family, with up to six people on a single application.

Francophone stream quotas in Express Entry are rising year over year: 30,000 PR spots planned for this year, 32,000 next year, and 35,000 for 2028. Over nearly three years (2023 through October 2025), more than 61,700 invitations were issued under the French-language category — with a built-in buffer for refusals. Given this trajectory, the French-language stream looks set to remain the largest invitation channel after the general Express Entry pool.

Francophone communities outside Quebec: where new immigrants settle

Canada’s francophone population isn’t confined to Quebec — several distinct communities with their own identities exist outside the province.

• Franco-Ontarians. A sizable francophone community lives in Ontario and sees itself as a distinct people, not part of Quebec — calling a Franco-Ontarian a “Quebecer” is considered a serious insult. The community has its own flag — green and white, with a green lily. The Franco-Ontarian dialect differs from Quebec French. Before its reform, Ontario’s provincial program ran separate draws specifically for francophones.
• Acadians of Nova Scotia. Nova Scotia still has entire regions, villages, and small towns where French is spoken to this day. The Acadian language is yet another distinct dialect, matching neither Quebec French nor Franco-Ontarian French.
• New Brunswick. The city of Moncton is roughly 40% French-speaking — home to Franco-Acadians with their own dialect.
• Manitoba and Alberta. These provinces retain small pockets of French-speaking population.

Why applicants from Cameroon face such a high refusal rate

By some estimates, the refusal rate for applications from Cameroon exceeds 70% — figures that periodically surface through data obtainable via access-to-information requests. The reason isn’t language: applicants are francophone and formally meet the stream’s criteria. The problem is document quality — insufficient evidence backing up claimed facts, such as income, work history, and education.

Behind this lies the weakness of local institutions: the country lacks a fully functioning tax authority and a stable banking system capable of issuing documents that Canada’s immigration service recognizes as sufficient proof. A similar situation applies not only to Cameroon but to other francophone countries of the former French colonial empire — Côte d’Ivoire, Gabon, Congo. Because of the high refusal rate, Canada invites far more applicants than needed to fill the stream’s quota.

Express Entry reform: salary points, and why the weighting isn’t finalized

Express Entry is preparing to introduce a criterion it has never had before — factoring in a candidate’s salary. The logic is straightforward: the higher the salary, the more tax the worker pays in Canada, and the more points they’ll earn in selection. Previously the system scored education, experience, language, and age, but not income itself.

The final formula isn’t ready yet: the weighting hasn’t been locked in and is being debated separately by industry. As a result, it’s unclear just how much salary will influence the final score or exactly when the reform takes effect — only the direction of change has been signaled, along with the fact that selection rules will shift noticeably once it launches.

A key feature of the future model is that income will be assessed by industry, not individually. It won’t be enough for a specific candidate to have a high personal salary: the occupation itself has to belong to a field where high income is typical in the first place. Candidates won’t be able to boost their own points simply by raising their salary outside the context of their industry — it’s the occupation that’s being evaluated, not personal earnings.

Alongside this, Canada plans to bring back the job offer program, scrapped in March, though not in its previous form — only for certain highly skilled occupations. Both changes — salary points and a targeted return of job offers — point to the same goal: prioritizing highly skilled, highly paid immigrants.

One motive behind the reform is cracking down on abuse. The closure of the Home Child Care Provider Pilot was tied to fraud uncovered within the system, and the tightening of job offer rules and salary criteria is seen as a response to similar cases across various streams.

Canadian work experience as a selection priority

The third major component of the Express Entry reform is Canadian Experience. Priority goes to candidates already in Canada: this has been reported repeatedly, and the forecast is that this will hold for the next several years — those with Canadian experience will keep an edge over candidates abroad.

For an applicant not yet in Canada, this leaves a handful of paths.

• A provincial program with an employer. You need to find an employer willing to carry a candidate through a provincial nomination.
• An LMIA (Labour Market Impact Assessment), or a work permit without one. A second option is to secure an LMIA; a third is to get a work permit under a stream exempt from the LMIA requirement.
• French language — a standalone immigration path not tied to an employer.
• Studying in Canada — an option available only in specific cases, such as enrolling in a master’s program.

The student strategy no longer works with just any program. From a bachelor’s degree, only select fields of study qualify, and not everyone can get admitted to them. From a master’s degree, only programs lasting 16 months or longer qualify; such programs tend to be pricier and longer than typical ones, which filters out part of the candidate pool at this stage alone. On top of that, the funds required to show at the time of application were recently increased — the requirement was raised just last week.

The tightening stems from the fact that the student pathway used to be used as a workaround: one partner would enroll to study, the other would get a work permit, and the first would later apply for PR — regardless of whether they were actually still studying. Given how widespread such schemes became, the student strategy remained one of the primary immigration tools as recently as two years ago. The reform closed this loophole while also filtering out those enrolling in obscure branch campuses rather than recognized institutions. Employers, for their part, complained that the skill level of recent college graduates often fell short of professional standards — which made it harder to justify to an LMIA officer why a foreign specialist with experience, rather than a local graduate, was being hired for a position.

BC and Ontario provincial programs: selection by salary instead of occupation lists

In May, British Columbia replaced its old streams with three new categories: Innovate, Care, and Build. Every occupation that used to fall under BCPNP Tech moved into Innovate — that stream had a list of roughly 35 IT and adjacent occupations (marketers, engineers, and others). Selection under that list was purely points-based.

Now, running alongside points-based draws, BC also holds salary-based draws — the first such criterion introduced by any province. The sole condition for an invitation is an annual salary of at least $125,000: a profile that scores zero points under the old grid still gets invited if the candidate’s income clears that threshold.

Parameter	Before	After
BC: selection criterion	points from a list of ~35 IT-related NOC codes (BCPNP Tech)	annual salary from $125,000 (Innovate category)
Ontario: hourly wage	not scored separately	points rise with hourly wage, maxing out at $40/hour
Ontario: annual income	declared income counted, no separate cap	a new factor added, with the maximum score at $70,000 income

In Ontario, the new points grid reworked the salary factors: points for a higher hourly wage were increased, with the maximum awarded at $40 an hour. An annual income factor was also added — previously declared income was counted but without a separate threshold, and now the maximum score is granted at an income of $70,000.

Both provinces — Canada’s largest economies — are sending the same signal: candidates with higher earnings get priority, since they contribute more in taxes.

How BC and Ontario changed salary-based selection

Parameter	Before	After
BC: selection criterion	points from a list of ~35 IT-related NOC codes (BCPNP Tech)	annual salary from $125,000 (Innovate category)
Ontario: hourly wage	not scored separately	points rise with hourly wage, maxing out at $40/hour
Ontario: annual income	declared income counted, no separate cap	a new factor added, with the maximum score at $70,000 income

BC and Ontario — Canada’s largest economies — are both prioritizing candidates with higher earnings.

The structure of Express Entry’s 10 targeted categories, and the doctor anomaly

Express Entry splits targeted selection into 10 categories: one for francophones, five general occupational categories with NOC lists, and three for candidates with Canadian experience, including senior managers and physicians.

One case drew a lot of confusion when an invitation round for doctors went out with a cutoff score of around 168 — a level typically sufficient for an applicant with no notable achievements. Yet doctors face steep requirements: three post-secondary degrees and at least a year of Canadian work experience, plus English well above a basic level. Why invite candidates with such qualifications at such a low points threshold is a question the immigration system itself seemingly has no answer to.

Why invite candidates with such qualifications at such a low points threshold is a question the immigration system itself seemingly has no answer to.

This mismatch is a symptom of a broader shift in selection logic. When Express Entry launched, the principle was straightforward: the path went to candidates with the best score, with competition running through the CRS system. Later, the system shifted toward targeted draws for specific categories — a reasonable-sounding move if the labour market is short on a particular type of specialist. But it’s precisely this shift from selecting “the best of the best” to selecting “the occupations that are needed” that created a distortion, one that left cutoff scores across categories no longer comparable: in some, competition is fierce, while in others an invitation can be had with barely any selection at all.

The Trades category and the cooks: how a flawed NOC list distorted selection

The category conditions were loose from the start: only 6 months of work experience in the target field over the previous 3 years was required, with no obligation to keep working in that occupation while the application was being processed. As a result, some candidates took jobs from the target list as a second job or side gig, purely to rack up the required hours. The program was pitched as a way to bring in specialists in healthcare, trades, IT, and education, but a year later the shortages in those fields hadn’t gone anywhere.

In the category’s second iteration, the minimum experience was raised from 6 months to 1 year, and the NOC lists were partially reshuffled. But no mechanism ever emerged to stop a candidate from picking an occupation off the target list purely on paper, just to check a box.

The Trades category showed this most clearly. In 2025, for unclear reasons, the cook occupation ended up on the NOC list for that category. Analysis of Express Entry data conducted by a specialist who later appeared as a panelist at an industry conference found that 80–85% of candidates qualifying under Trades were listed as cooks. On closer inspection, these turned out to be international students who had graduated from Canadian colleges and taken jobs at Tim Hortons, McDonald’s, and similar chains — mass-classified as cooks. The Trades draw round earned the ironic nickname “entry has been cookified.”

The Trades draw round earned the ironic nickname “entry has been cookified.”

The effect on the cutoff score was sharp. In 2023–2024, the Trades cutoff never exceeded 420–430. After the influx of “cook” candidates, the score suddenly jumped to 500.

A separate problem is provincial allocation that ignores actual demand: it can’t be that the same occupation needs an identical number of welders and electricians across every region — need varies from province to province. A telling case played out in Ontario at the provincial level: candidates in the Trades category were first invited, and then all the applications submitted were withdrawn.

Why IT occupations were dropped from Express Entry, and whether they’ll come back

In the first version of Express Entry’s targeted categories, there was a STEM category that included many IT occupations. Later, IT specialists were removed from it entirely. One explanation is an oversupply of specialists in the Canadian labour market: in recent years, large numbers of IT specialists arrived in Canada from Ukraine and the post-Soviet region (due to the war), as well as through a separate Israeli program, and from Hong Kong and Iran — not counting those who earned an IT credential at Canadian institutions. Another explanation frames the exclusion as a temporary overcorrection ahead of a new wave of demand: the AI boom and data-center construction are expected to revive demand for IT specialists and even push it past previous levels.

A telling parallel shows up in provincial programs: IT specialists disappeared from both Express Entry and Ontario’s nominee program at the same time — Canada’s largest IT clusters are concentrated precisely in Ontario and British Columbia (Toronto and Vancouver), with a smaller presence in Alberta and other provinces. Ontario went several years without any IT-occupation draws at all, but resumed them this past April — inviting IT candidates through provincial nomination at a relatively low cutoff score. British Columbia also saw changes to its IT-specialist intake, but the program for them remains in place.

Meanwhile, unemployment is fairly high right now, and it’s hard for programmers and IT specialists in general to find work in Ontario — assessed as a temporary situation. IT specialists are expected not to have disappeared from selection for good, but to return under different requirements as demand tied to AI infrastructure grows — including data analysts and data administrators.

This could also be affected by the reform of the National Occupational Classification (NOC): the current 2021 edition is winding down, with a 2026 edition due this fall — such an update happens every 5 years and could bring new IT NOC codes for occupations that previously didn’t exist as distinct professions.

Ideas for smaller provinces: tax holidays and spreading immigrants more evenly

One idea floated for smaller provinces is a tax holiday for IT companies — 3 to 4 years, up to a certain income threshold — in exchange for relocating a headquarters or development division to the region. Ireland is cited as a model: a small country offered major businesses tax exemptions, tax holidays, and low tax rates — and it was on those terms that Google and Meta opened offices there. The logic is simple: if a government sends business the opposite signal by raising taxes instead of offering incentives, new IT infrastructure simply won’t get built.

Canada previously had a small, separate stream specifically for IT specialists, but it was closed. The idea is to recreate similar targeted initiatives in smaller provinces, rather than concentrating them only in Vancouver or Toronto, where a young IT specialist with fluent English would head anyway. A province like New Brunswick could realistically attract an IT worker over 40 with intermediate language skills if the right conditions were created for them — including affordable housing. This approach would allow immigrants to be spread more evenly across the country instead of concentrating in a handful of major cities.

A separate and equally pressing topic is rural immigration and settling remote provinces: there’s a clear push to draw people into rural areas, even though those areas themselves are often not ready to receive them. A similar problem shows up in business migration: based on experience with several cases under Alberta’s stream, local communities are genuinely interested in entrepreneurs, but they judge them not by economic criteria but by what social function they’ll serve — for instance, whether they’ll fund a playground next to their business. In effect, this is an attempt to fund local social projects with entrepreneurs’ money rather than build business migration as such.

Employer-change restrictions under provincial nominations

One of the most important things on a provincial nomination certificate is the specific program’s rules on changing employers (c100). On paper, the question is simple: are there employment restrictions or not (c101).

• If there are no restrictions. The candidate can switch jobs if something goes wrong with the current employer — this protects the applicant for the entire time the PR application is being processed.
• If restrictions apply. The applicant is tied to the same employer for the whole processing period — which runs 2-3 years (c102). It’s precisely this long processing time that makes the restrictions issue critical: parting ways with an employer over such a stretch risks losing status entirely.
• Bridging Open Work Permit. Not every nomination grants eligibility for one (c103) — and without it, a person simply has no way to support themselves and work legally while the PR application is pending.

A separate problem is what happens if the employer of an applicant with restrictions stops meeting the requirements. Extending a stay in Canada isn’t possible in that case (c107), even if the employer is still interested in keeping the employee. The reasons can be purely formal and outside the applicant’s control:

• the employer can’t obtain a letter of support due to a high local unemployment rate (c108);
• the letter of support has already expired or was used for a different nomination (c109).

PR application processing itself takes 2-3 years (c104, c105), and this isn’t limited to provincial nominations. Some applications from countries with active conflict get stuck at the security-check stage with no predictable timeline (c106). For someone with restrictions, such a delay means they can neither change employers nor extend their stay — their status ends up blocked from both directions.

The opacity of draws: why provinces don’t publish schedules in advance

The last Express Entry draw under the Education category was exactly a year ago, and there hasn’t been a single one this year, even though the category hasn’t been discontinued. Healthcare saw only two draws in 2026, at 4,000 invitations each — 8,000 total. A year earlier there were seven, with roughly double the total invitations, and a noticeably lower cutoff score. The Trade category held only one draw this year, for 3,000 invitations, and STEM didn’t draw at all. The formal requirement is that if a category is listed, it must issue invitations at least once a year.

A high score doesn’t guarantee an invitation even within provincial nominations. A telling case in Alberta: an applicant with the maximum score in the open category didn’t get selected because her employer doesn’t operate in the field the province needs under its rules. During that time, five or six draws went ahead with candidates scoring lower than her, and she was never invited. When asked, the province replied that it invites whomever it deems necessary — and technically, that’s within its right.

In that same province, there were stretches when candidates with NOC codes starting with 6 and 1 weren’t invited for close to two years running. Some people switched to a lower-paying occupation during that time just to preserve their chances of an invitation. Then, without warning, the province suddenly invited an accountant — an occupation it had ignored for two years.

Not every province publishes a schedule. British Columbia runs draws regularly every month and only pauses them when a quota is cut, resuming afterward. Prince Edward Island — the smallest provincial program — publishes dates for all draw rounds for the coming 12 months at the start of the year, and candidates prepare their documents in advance around those fixed dates. New Brunswick has claimed a similar approach, but in practice dates shift without explanation: a planned draw may simply not happen, with “policy changes” cited as the reason.

Provinces can announce a need for specialists in a given field and then go months or years without inviting them — with no explanation of when the next draw will happen or how many spots it will offer.

Preparing for unpredictable changes: the Plan A, B, and C strategy

Programs change without advance notice — an applicant finds out about changes only after the fact, not beforehand (c163). The only practical response to this unpredictability is not to rely on a single immigration channel, but to keep several parallel options running at once.

Consultants describe this as the Plan A, B, and C rule: an applicant should have at least three resettlement scenarios worked out, because there’s no way to predict which program will survive and which will close without warning (c164).

Practice shows what this looks like for the most motivated applicants. They work as a nursing assistant, learn French at the same time, and pick up yet another skill set, so they have grounds to qualify for several programs at once (c161, c162). The point isn’t to cover every base, but to meet the criteria for at least one backup option by the time an unexpected draw comes along.

Frequently asked questions

Can I get PR through French if I don’t live in Quebec and have never been to Canada

Yes — the Express Entry francophone stream is a standalone path to permanent residence that requires neither Canadian work experience nor any connection to Quebec: invited immigrants are meant to settle in French-speaking communities outside the province, though in practice authorities can’t force them to stay there.

What if I don’t speak French and I’m not in Canada yet

Then the path without Canadian experience narrows to a provincial program with an employer, obtaining an LMIA, or getting a work permit through an LMIA-exempt stream, or studying in Canada — though the study option doesn’t work with just any program and isn’t a fit for everyone.

Does a high refusal rate among applicants from francophone African countries mean applying is pointless

No: the high refusal rate is tied to weak local institutions that can’t issue documents recognized as sufficient proof, not to applicants failing to meet the stream’s criteria — they are formally francophone and meet the requirements. This is exactly why Canada invites far more applicants than needed to fill the quota.

Could the Express Entry salary reform affect applications already submitted

It’s not yet known: the new system’s weighting hasn’t been finalized and is being discussed separately by industry, so it’s impossible to say how much income will affect the final score or exactly when the reform will take effect — only the direction of change has been signaled, along with the fact that selection rules will shift noticeably once it launches.

Can I qualify for BC’s Innovate category without a high personal salary, if I already have enough points under the old list

Yes — the salary criterion works as a separate path, not a replacement for the previous selection method: a profile with no points under the old BCPNP Tech grid still gets an invitation if the candidate’s annual income is at least $125,000, while points-based selection by occupation list continues to run in parallel.

Should I expect IT occupations to return to Express Entry’s targeted categories

By one account, this is a temporary exclusion caused by an oversupply of IT workers in the Canadian labour market, and as demand tied to AI infrastructure grows, occupations like data analysts and data administrators could return — but for now that’s an expectation, not an announced decision with a date.

What can I do if a province hasn’t invited my occupation for two years, even though the category isn’t officially closed

Technically, provinces are required to issue invitations under a listed category at least once a year, but in practice that rule doesn’t guarantee regularity: there have been two-year stretches without invitations for certain NOC codes, after which a province could suddenly invite exactly that kind of candidate without warning.