Recent PNP Draw

Quick answer: As of August 2026, no PNP draws are taking place in Ontario. On June 26, 2026, Ontario closed all eight of its Ontario Immigrant Nominee Program (OINP) streams and replaced them with a single new stream, the Ontario Workforce Priority (OWP) stream. The last invitation round under the former streams was held on April 30, 2026. The new Expression of Interest (EOI) portal reopened on August 4, 2026, and no invitation round has been held under the new stream yet. Candidates who register an EOI now enter the pool before the first draw takes place.

What Changed in June 2026

The Ministry of Labour, Immigration, Training and Skills Development amended Ontario Regulation 422/17 under the Ontario Immigration Act, 2015. The amendments came into force on June 25, 2026 and were announced on June 26, 2026. This is Phase 1 of a two phase redesign of the Provincial Nominee Program in Ontario.

The following eight streams were permanently closed:

1. Employer Job Offer: Foreign Worker
2. Employer Job Offer: In-Demand Skills
3. Employer Job Offer: International Student
4. Master's Graduate
5. PhD Graduate
6. Express Entry Human Capital Priorities
7. Express Entry French-Speaking Skilled Worker
8. Express Entry Skilled Trades

No further invitations will be issued under any of these streams. The Entrepreneur stream and the Regional Immigration Pilot had already been revoked earlier in 2026 under a separate amendment that took effect on May 30, 2026.

The stated goals of the redesign are to streamline pathways for people who already have arranged employment in Ontario, help employers retain workers in hard to fill roles, raise language and education benchmarks, strengthen program integrity, and give employers in rural and northern communities more flexible revenue thresholds.

The Ontario Workforce Priority Stream: Three Pathways

The OWP stream has three separate pathways. Two require a full time, permanent job offer in Ontario. The third does not.

Pathway 1: TEER 0-3 (Skilled Workers)

Open to candidates with a full time, permanent Ontario job offer in any NOC TEER 0, 1, 2 or 3 occupation.

Pathway 2: TEER 4-5 (Essential Workers)

Open to candidates with a full time, permanent Ontario job offer in any NOC TEER 4 or 5 occupation.

Pathway 3: Self-Employed Physicians

Physicians can qualify without a job offer. All three of the following are required:

• Membership in good standing with the College of Physicians and Surgeons of Ontario
• A valid certificate of registration in an eligible class: independent, academic or provisional
• Eligibility to bill through the Ontario Health Insurance Plan (OHIP)

Some occupations may have alternate criteria. The regulation is the governing source for detailed requirements.

Employer Requirements and the Rural Advantage

All three pathways sit inside an employer driven framework. Employers must be approved before a candidate can be invited. The key change for 2026 is that lower gross annual revenue thresholds now apply to employers located in rural communities. For OINP purposes, a rural community is one located in a census division with a population under 150,000.

This is a meaningful shift. A candidate with a job offer outside the Greater Toronto Area may now find that an employer who could not previously meet the revenue test is able to support an application.

Employers who had already registered in the employer portal do not need to register again. However, once the portal reopened they had to submit a new job offer and a new application for approval of an employment position in order to generate a new EOI for the candidate under the redesigned stream.

If You Had an EOI or an Application Under the Old Streams

This is the part most affected candidates get wrong, so read it carefully.

Registered EOIs that never received an invitation: These have been automatically withdrawn. Job offers registered under the former streams that did not lead to an invitation to apply were also withdrawn while the platforms were updated. Affected registrants, employers and representatives received notice directly. There is no appeal and no carryover of position in the pool. If you want to be considered, you must register a new EOI under the OWP stream.

Applications already submitted after an invitation under a former stream: These are grandfathered. They continue to be assessed against the eligibility requirements that were in effect on the date the application was submitted. You do not need to reapply, and a change in rules after your submission date does not apply retroactively to your file.

Nominations already issued: A nomination that has already been issued remains valid under its own terms. If it is an enhanced (Express Entry linked) nomination, the 600 additional CRS points still apply.

Program Integrity Changes You Should Know About

The redesign also tightened enforcement. The response window for anyone issued a Notice of Intent to Issue an Administrative Monetary Penalty or a Ban order was cut from 60 days to 30 days. Notices of contravention may now be sent by email, mail or in person, and are deemed delivered without requiring proof of receipt.

For employers and candidates this means two things: deadlines are shorter, and you cannot rely on arguing that a notice was never received. Keep the email address on file current and monitor it.

2026 OINP Draw History (Former Streams)

These rounds are now closed to new invitations. They are retained here as a record of what Ontario prioritised in the months before the redesign, which remains a useful signal for occupation demand.

The occupations that appeared most consistently across these rounds were registered nurses, licensed practical nurses, nurse aides and patient service associates, early childhood educators, software engineers and developers, construction managers, and a wide range of TEER 4-5 manufacturing and food processing roles.

What About the Rest of Canada?

Ontario is one province among many. If your job offer, work history or family ties point elsewhere, other provincial and territorial programs continued to run invitation rounds through 2026 while Ontario was in transition. British Columbia, Alberta, Saskatchewan, Manitoba, Nova Scotia, New Brunswick, Prince Edward Island and Newfoundland and Labrador each operate their own nominee streams with their own criteria, and several of them do not require an Express Entry profile at all.

If Ontario is not currently a realistic option for you, the right move is to be assessed against every province rather than waiting for a single stream to open. Fill out our free assessment and we will tell you which provinces you actually qualify for.

What is PNP (Provincial Nominee Program)?

Provinces and territories that operate a Provincial Nominee Program can nominate candidates from the Express Entry pool, and can also nominate foreign nationals through their own paper based (base) processes.

A candidate who receives a provincial nomination through an enhanced, Express Entry aligned stream receives an additional 600 points in the Comprehensive Ranking System. In practice this guarantees an invitation to apply for permanent residence in the next Express Entry draw, because no realistic CRS cut off approaches 600 points on its own.

A candidate nominated through a base (non Express Entry) stream applies directly to Immigration, Refugees and Citizenship Canada for permanent residence instead. Base nominations have historically had significantly longer processing times than the six month service standard that applies to Express Entry linked applications.

PNPs exist because labour market needs differ across the country. A profile that is uncompetitive federally can be highly competitive provincially, which is why the program remains one of the most practical routes to Canadian permanent residence.

Do I Qualify for a PNP If I Don't Qualify for Express Entry?

Often, yes. Most provincial programs prefer candidates with an active Express Entry profile, but a number of streams, including Ontario's new Workforce Priority stream, do not require one. The OWP stream is employer driven and assessed on the job offer, work experience, language and education requirements listed above, not on a CRS score.

Because eligibility varies by province and by stream, and because rules changed substantially in 2026, a self assessment against an outdated checklist is one of the most common reasons applications fail. Contact us for a proper eligibility review.

What To Do Right Now

1. If you have a qualifying Ontario job offer: Confirm your employer meets the current revenue and eligibility requirements, have them submit a new job offer through the employer portal, and register your EOI. No draws have been held under the new stream yet, so registering now places you in the pool before the first round.
2. If your old EOI was withdrawn: Do not wait for a reinstatement notice. It is not coming. Re-register under the OWP stream if you are eligible.
3. If you already submitted an application under a former stream: Do nothing beyond responding promptly to any request from the OINP. Your file is assessed under the old rules.
4. If you do not have a job offer: The OWP stream will not work for you unless you are a self-employed physician. Look at Express Entry federal streams and at other provinces instead.
5. If your language or education falls short of the new benchmarks: The thresholds went up, not down. Retesting or completing an Educational Credential Assessment may now be the single highest value action you can take.