Update: OINP Portal Now Open

The Ministry of Labour, Immigration, Training and Skills Development opened the expression of interest portal for the Ontario Workforce Priority stream on August 4, 2026, recorded on the program updates page. The eligibility criteria published on July 20, 2026 are unchanged, and this firm examined them in Update: More Information on the OINP Application Process.

What the opening adds is the ranking mechanism. The Ontario Workforce Priority stream page sets out a point value for every scoring factor, and the program invites the highest-ranking candidates from a selection pool. A candidate who meets the stream criteria therefore faces a second question, which is position in the pool and the extent to which that position can be controlled.

01. The scoring factors

The stream page assigns points across eleven factors, grouped under employment and labour market attributes, education, language, and regionalization.

The published maximums sum to 130. The Province publishes no aggregate, and the figure should be treated as arithmetic rather than as an official ceiling.

Registration operates as entry to a selection pool rather than as an application, a distinction set out on the application process page. The program ranks the pool, either generally or on a targeted basis directed at specified labour market or human capital attributes, and invites the highest-ranking candidates. A registration remains valid for 12 months and is then removed automatically. A candidate who satisfies every stream criterion and ranks low in the pool may receive no invitation within that period and must register again.

The June 26, 2026 amendments to Ontario Regulation 422/17 under the Ontario Immigration Act, 2015, SO 2015, c 8 closed the eight former streams and created this one. Candidates whose registrations under those streams were withdrawn in the weeks that followed enter the pool on the same footing as a first-time registrant.

02. Entries derived from the job offer

Four factors carrying 49 of the 130 published points follow from the job offer the employer submits in the Employer Portal. The NOC TEER category, the NOC broad occupational category, and the hourly wage are prepopulated in the registration from that submission. The regionalization score is determined by the work location the employer entered.

The published guidance identifies the NOC code and the hourly wage as fields the candidate cannot edit. Correcting either requires the employer to withdraw the job offer and submit a new one, after which the candidate registers a new expression of interest and the 30-day registration window restarts. This firm set out the operation of that lock and the deadlines that surround it in the July analysis of the application process.

The intervals between bands are narrow enough that entry accuracy carries measurable consequence. The wage factor steps at $20, $25, $30, $35 and $40 per hour, so a wage recorded at $39.50 scores 12 points where $40.00 scores 15. The TEER factor awards 9 points for TEER 0 or 1, 6 for TEER 2 or 3, and none for TEER 4 or 5. The broad occupational category factor ranges from 10 points to 2 points according to the first digit of the NOC code. Taken together, those three prepopulated entries carry between 2 and 34 points.

03. Candidate-controlled scoring factors

Language proficiency carries up to 25 points across two factors and represents the largest allocation a candidate can affect without employer involvement.

The primary factor awards 15 points at CLB 9 or higher, 12 at CLB 8, 8 at CLB 7, 4 at CLB 6, and none at CLB 5 or below, assessed on the lowest of the four abilities. A candidate holding CLB 6 in all four proficiencies scores 4 of the 15 available. A candidate holding CLB 5 in a listed skilled trades occupation, and a candidate holding CLB 4 with a TEER 4 or 5 job offer, score nothing on this factor. The second factor awards 10 points for two official languages, which requires CLB 6 across all four abilities in both, and 5 points for one.

The language requirement and the language scoring factor.

The two provisions are expressed in different terms, and the difference affects recent graduates.

The stream page provides that a candidate with a job offer in a TEER 0, 1, 2 or 3 occupation must have one of three things. The first is CLB level 6 or higher in all four proficiencies, where the job offer employment position is not a NOC occupation listed as a skilled trade. The second is CLB level 5 or higher in all four proficiencies, where it is. The third is proof of graduation from an eligible Ontario institution within the last three years with a postsecondary degree or diploma that took at least two years to complete on a full-time basis, an Ontario College Graduate Certificate, a master’s degree, or a PhD degree. The page states that a language test is not required where the candidate holds one of the listed credentials.

The scoring factor is stated differently. It provides that the candidate must take an approved English or French language test, and that points are awarded on the lowest CLB level across the four language areas of reading, writing, listening and speaking.

The published pages do not state how the scoring factor applies to a candidate who meets the language requirement through the third route and holds no test result. A candidate in that position should put the question to the program before deciding whether to sit a test in advance of registration.

Ontario work experience.

This factor carries 18 points, the largest single allocation in the scheme, and rewards continuity in the same position. The bands award 18 points for more than 24 months in the job offer position, 15 for 13 to 24 months, and 12 for 6 to 12 months. A candidate with less than 6 months in that position falls to a secondary scale capped at 12 points, awarding 12 for more than 24 months of Ontario work generally, 9 for 13 to 24 months, and 6 for 6 to 12 months.

Education, status and earnings.

Education carries 20 points across two factors. The highest credential factor awards 10 points for a doctorate or a degree in medicine, dentistry, veterinary medicine or optometry, 8 for a master’s degree, 6 for a bachelor’s degree or a university credential above bachelor level, 5 for an Ontario College Graduate Certificate, a university credential below bachelor level, a college or CEGEP credential, or an apprenticeship or trades certificate, and none below that. The Canadian credentials factor awards 10 points for more than one credential from an eligible Canadian institution and 5 for one. Credentials completed outside Canada require an Educational Credential Assessment less than five years old at the date of application.

Legal status carries 10 points for a valid work permit and 5 for a valid study permit. Canadian earnings history, evidenced by a Canada Revenue Agency Notice of Assessment issued in the last five years, awards 8 points at $70,000 or more in a year, 6 at $50,000 to $69,999, and 4 at $30,000 to $49,999.

Regionalization.

The factor awards 15 points for Northern Ontario, 10 for Eastern Ontario, Southwestern Ontario and Central Ontario outside the Greater Toronto Area, 5 inside the GTA outside Toronto, and none for Toronto. The application fee runs in the opposite direction, at $2,000 for a job offer within the GTA and $1,500 outside it.

04. Work experience requirements and hour thresholds

The work experience requirements are labelled in months and defined in hours. The hour figure is the operative test.

For a TEER 0 to 3 job offer, the six consecutive months in the job offer position requires at least 780 hours of paid work within a 12-month period at a minimum of 30 hours per week. The three-month route available to recent Ontario graduates requires at least 390 hours on the same weekly minimum. The two-year cumulative route in the same NOC occupation requires at least 3,120 hours within the five years preceding the application. For a TEER 4 or 5 job offer, the nine cumulative months requires at least 1,170 hours within a 12-month period.

Part-time equivalence is available only on the two-year cumulative route, at 15 hours per week over four years to a total of 3,120 hours, or across more than one job at 30 hours per week over two years to the same total.

Cumulative routes tolerate breaks in employment. Vacation, regular sick leave, and standard short-term paid leave entitlements will not generally be treated as interruptions to full-time employment. Extended leave will be treated as an interruption and excluded from the calculation.

Related-occupation bridges.

The two-year cumulative route admits experience in a related occupation in three defined circumstances. Experience in a professional engineering occupation under NOC Sub-Major Group 213 counts toward a job offer in a technical occupation related to engineering under Sub-Major Group 223. Experience as a pharmacist under NOC 31120 counts toward a job offer as a pharmacy technical assistant under NOC 33103. Experience as a licensed practical nurse under NOC 32101 or as a registered nurse under NOC 31301 counts toward a job offer as a nurse aide under NOC 33102. Each bridge operates in one direction, from the regulated profession toward the support occupation.

Job offers under NOC 73300, transport truck drivers, and NOC 73301, bus drivers, subway operators and other transit operators, require the six-month consecutive experience irrespective of licensure or recent Ontario graduation.

Work experience is counted to the date of application submission. Stream criteria must be satisfied at the date the expression of interest is registered. Supporting documents for each scoring factor claimed are listed in the applicant checklist.

05. Employer eligibility and approval of the employment position

An application for a certificate of nomination cannot be approved unless the employer’s application for approval of the employment position is approved. The employer requirements therefore operate as conditions on the candidate’s file.

Under section 4 of Ontario Regulation 422/17 and the published employer requirements, the employer must have been in active business for at least three years before submitting the application, must have business premises in Ontario at the location where the candidate will work, must meet revenue and Canadian citizen or permanent resident employee minimums scaled to the job offer location, and must have no outstanding orders against it under the Employment Standards Act, 2000 or the Occupational Health and Safety Act. The recruitment effort requirement applies only where the candidate resides outside Canada or works outside Ontario. Reduced gross revenue thresholds apply to employers in rural communities, defined for program purposes as census divisions with populations under 150,000, a measure introduced with the June 2026 redesign.

The outstanding orders condition carries the widest reach. An employment standards order arising from an unrelated wage complaint, or a health and safety order arising from an inspection, prevents approval while it stands, and the candidate’s file cannot proceed independently of it.

The job offer must be for a full-time and permanent position in Ontario, must be urgently necessary to the employer’s business, must not affect a labour dispute, and must meet the required wage level for the job offer location.

Expressions of interest and applications naming the Ontario Public Service or an OPS entity as employer will not be accepted. Other government employers not staffed by OPS employees are treated as separate legal entities and may participate where they meet the employer criteria.

06. Conditions of nomination

The approval attaches to an employment position, and the nomination rests on that approval.

A nominee must remain employed in the approved position until the permanent residence application is granted or refused. Where that employment is terminated, by the employer or by the nominee, the approval is cancelled, and pursuing permanent residence under the stream requires a new expression of interest. The program cannot amend an approved employment position after nomination. Any change to the terms of employment, including duties, wage, hours, or term, must be reported to the program immediately. The program’s Post-Nomination Verification Unit conducts follow-up verification and is authorized to cancel approvals, including the nomination, where conditions are not met.

The employment law consequences follow directly. A promotion producing a changed job title or NOC code is a reportable change and may require a work permit support letter extension. A restructuring altering hours or duties is a reportable change. Termination, whether express or arising from a unilateral change to the terms of employment sufficient to end the contract, removes the approval on which the nomination depends, whatever civil remedy the departing employee may hold against the employer.

A nomination certificate is valid for six months, and the permanent residence application must reach Immigration, Refugees and Citizenship Canada before it expires. Candidates nominated on a TEER 0 to 3 job offer, and self-employed physicians, may elect nomination through the Express Entry system, which requires a valid federal profile maintained from application until nomination. The enforcement changes accompanying the redesign, including the reduction of the response period for penalty and ban notices from 60 days to 30 days and the deemed delivery of notices of contravention, are set out in the redesign analysis.

07. Sequence and timing

The published rules produce an order of operations for a file entering the pool.

The employer acts first, and the accuracy of that submission fixes 49 points. Verification of the NOC code, the wage, and the work location precedes submission. Correction after submission requires a withdrawn job offer, a new registration, and a restarted 30-day window.

Language results represent the largest allocation available without employer involvement and the only substantial allocation that can be altered within weeks. The interval from CLB 6 to CLB 9 is 11 points on the primary factor. Where a candidate meets the language requirement by credential rather than by test, the treatment of the scoring factor is the open question identified in section 03.

Ontario work experience accrues without action and steps at 6 months, 13 months, and 25 months in the approved position. A registration made shortly before a step enters the pool at a lower score than the same file would carry after it, and remains at that score for a validity period of 12 months.

Employer compliance status is verified before the job offer is submitted. Verification after an invitation issues leaves 14 calendar days for the employer’s application and 17 for the candidate’s, and the candidate cannot submit until the employer has. The full deadline structure appears in the July analysis.

One question the published pages leave unresolved concerns amendment of a registered expression of interest. The guidance permits updating personal information at any time before an invitation and identifies the NOC code and hourly wage as locked. It does not address a language result improved after registration. Until the program addresses this, the conservative reading treats the registration as fixing the score, and the sequencing above assumes it.

If you are weighing registration now against improvement of a language result, a wage entry, or a period of service first, the answer turns on your own occupation, employer, region, and test results, measured against the published factors and against Ontario Regulation 422/17, which governs where the program pages and the regulation diverge. Setting out the structure of the scoring identifies which allocations move and which do not. It does not determine where a particular file lands in the pool.