Ontario's provincial nominee program has been a closed door since May 30, when the province revoked all nine of its OINP streams without a single replacement. Today, June 26, 2026, the first replacements arrived. Ontario filed regulatory amendments launching the Ontario Workforce Priority stream — the opening phase of its overhaul — with three new pathways to permanent residence. One of them needs no job offer at all.
There's one catch that matters more than any eligibility rule: you can't actually submit anything yet. The pathways are live in regulation, but Ontario's Expression of Interest (EOI) system — the front door you have to walk through — is still closed. The province says it's "anticipated to open later in the summer." So today's job isn't to apply. It's to get eligible before the door opens.
What launched today
The Workforce Priority stream contains three pathways, written into the latest version of Ontario Regulation 422/17:
| Pathway | Job offer required? | Who it's for |
|---|---|---|
| TEER 0–3 | Yes | Higher-skilled workers (management, professional, technical, skilled trades) |
| TEER 4–5 | Yes | Lower-skilled workers (occupations needing a high-school education or short training) |
| Self-employed physicians | No | Doctors licensed in Ontario and eligible to bill OHIP |
TEER stands for Training, Education, Experience and Responsibilities — the skill tiers Canada assigns to every occupation, from TEER 0 (management) down to TEER 5 (short on-the-job training). The pathway you fit is set by your occupation's TEER level.
Two things did not change today. First, anyone who already submitted a complete OINP application before the streams closed will still be processed under the old rules in place when they applied. Second, the rest of the proposed overhaul is still pending: Ontario has confirmed a Phase 2 with three more streams — Priority Healthcare (for licensed or soon-to-be-licensed health workers, no job offer), Entrepreneur, and Exceptional Talent — but has not announced a date for any of them.
Pathway 1: TEER 0–3 (higher-skilled, job offer required)
This is the flagship pathway for skilled workers with an Ontario job offer. You need a full-time, permanent job offer from an eligible Ontario employer in a TEER 0, 1, 2, or 3 occupation, and then you have to clear two gates.
Language or recent-graduate gate. Either meet the minimum language level for your occupation — Canadian Language Benchmark (CLB) 6, or CLB 5 for certain trades and lower-TEER-3 roles — in all four abilities, in English or French; or qualify as a recent Ontario graduate (a degree, diploma, or grad certificate from an eligible Ontario institution within the past three years).
Credentials-or-experience gate. On top of that, meet one of these:
- Licensing — hold a licence to work in your regulated profession in Ontario; or
- Education + work experience — a post-secondary credential from a program of at least one year (a foreign degree needs an ECA from WES, IQAS, or another approved assessor), plus either two years of cumulative experience in your occupation over the past five years, or a shorter job-offer route of six months' consecutive full-time work with your offering employer (three months for recent Ontario grads).
Full-time here means at least 30 hours a week. The structure clearly rewards people who already have an Ontario footprint — a licence, an Ontario credential, or months on the job with the employer sponsoring them.
Pathway 2: TEER 4–5 (lower-skilled, job offer required)
This pathway covers occupations that typically need only a high-school education or a few weeks of training. The gates are different and, in one respect, tougher:
- Job offer: full-time, permanent, in a TEER 4 or 5 occupation, paying at least the median wage for that occupation in your region.
- Experience: at least nine months of cumulative work experience in the past two years — in the same job, with the same employer making the offer.
- Education: a secondary school diploma or equivalent.
- Language: at least CLB 4 in all four abilities, English or French.
The nine-months-same-employer rule is the real test. This isn't a "find any job and apply" route — it's a "stay with your Ontario employer through the seasons, then get nominated" route.
Pathway 3: Self-employed physicians (no job offer)
This is the standout. It's the only Workforce Priority pathway with no job-offer requirement — built specifically for the way most doctors actually work. To qualify you must:
- Be licensed and in good standing as a physician in Ontario, holding a valid certificate of registration as an independent, academic, or provisional practitioner from the College of Physicians and Surgeons of Ontario; and
- Be eligible to bill through OHIP (the Ontario Health Insurance Plan).
Most physicians in Ontario are paid fee-for-service — they bill OHIP rather than draw a salary from an employer — which historically made it hard to fit them into job-offer-based immigration streams. This pathway removes that mismatch entirely. It pairs neatly with the federal Physicians with Canadian Work Experience Express Entry category, which made the same fix at the national level. If you're a practising or incoming Ontario doctor, you now have two doors instead of zero.
The part applicants underestimate: your employer has to qualify too
For both job-offer pathways, the OINP vets the employer as hard as the candidate. An eligible employer must:
- Maintain a place of business in Ontario and have been operating for at least three years.
- Meet a minimum gross annual revenue, scaled by location: $1,000,000 in the GTA, $500,000 in a major census metropolitan area (Ottawa, Hamilton, Waterloo, Niagara, London/Essex, and several others), or $250,000 outside those areas (in each of the past two years).
- Employ a minimum number of Canadian citizens or permanent residents full-time at the job location: five in the GTA, three outside it.
- Have a clean record under Ontario's major labour laws.
The job offer itself must be full-time, indeterminate (not a fixed-term contract), genuinely necessary for the business, performed mostly in Ontario, and pay at or above the median wage for the occupation and region (recent Ontario grads in the TEER 0–3 pathway can be offered the low-wage level). If your prospective employer is a small or brand-new business, confirm it clears these bars before you count on this route.
How the process will work
The whole stream runs through Ontario's EOI system, and the sequence is worth understanding now so you're ready the day it opens:
- After the EOI system re-opens (anticipated later this summer), you create a new EOI profile in Ontario's online system. Existing profiles from the old streams don't carry over — this is a fresh submission.
- If your pathway needs a job offer, your employer initiates an EOI for you through the Employer Portal — submitting the job offer and a position-approval request. Employers already registered in the portal don't need to re-register.
- The OINP selects candidates from the EOI pool and invites them to apply for nomination.
- You submit a complete application; if approved, you receive a provincial nomination.
- You then apply to IRCC for permanent residence as a provincial nominee.
What to do now, by profile
The streams are live but the EOI is closed, so every useful move right now is preparation.
You have an Ontario job offer and months of experience with that employer: you're the most likely early winner. Assemble your reference letters, pay stubs, employment contract, language results, and ECA now — and make sure your employer is registered in the OINP Employer Portal. Their registration is a dependency on your timeline, not yours.
You're a physician licensed (or getting licensed) in Ontario: confirm your CPSO registration is active and your OHIP billing eligibility is in order. With no job offer required, your paperwork is your application — there's little standing between you and an EOI the day the system opens.
You're a foreign-trained nurse or allied health worker: the no-job-offer route you're waiting for is the Priority Healthcare stream — and that's Phase 2, with no date yet. Don't stall: start your Ontario licensing now (College of Nurses assessments can run 6–12 months), so you're ready whenever it launches.
You're outside Canada with no Ontario job or licence: Phase 1 is hard to reach without an Ontario employer or Ontario licensure. Treat Ontario as upside and run your primary plan through Express Entry, BC PNP, Alberta AAIP, or Nova Scotia in parallel.
Don't wait for the EOI to open before acting — by then you're competing with everyone who prepared early. The two things you can lock down today are the two slowest: your employer's portal registration (for the job-offer pathways) and your credential or licensing paperwork (the ECA for a foreign degree, or your CPSO registration and OHIP billing eligibility for physicians). Ontario has said selection will run through EOI draws, which means when the system opens it can issue invitations within weeks. The candidates who get picked first will be the ones who were already eligible on day one — not the ones who started gathering documents after the announcement.
Background
Today's launch is Phase 1 of an overhaul Ontario first announced in December 2025 and set in motion by revoking all nine existing streams on May 30, 2026. The full eligibility rules now live in O. Reg. 422/17, and Ontario is posting operational updates to its OINP program updates page. Phase 2 — Priority Healthcare, Entrepreneur, and Exceptional Talent — remains undated.
Where to go next
Ontario PNP overview | The 5 proposed streams, explained | May 30 revocation breakdown | PNP guide | WES vs IQAS | CRS Calculator
Sources
- Government of Ontario — 2026 OINP program updates
- Ontario Regulation 422/17 — General (latest version)
- CIC News — Ontario launches three new pathways to permanent residence (June 26, 2026)