Learn how to apply for a nomination for permanent residence in Ontario if you are a French-speaking skilled worker with strong English language abilities.
Ontario’s Express Entry Human Capital Priorities stream is an immigration stream under the Ontario Immigrant Nominee Program (OINP).
It gives foreign workers with the required skilled work experience, language abilities and education the opportunity to apply to permanently live and work in Ontario.
You must have a valid profile in Immigration, Refugees and Citizenship Canada’s (IRCC’s) Express Entry system and receive a Notification of Interest from Ontario before you can apply online to be nominated by the Ontario government for permanent residence.
If you are nominated, your next step is to apply to the federal government through IRCC. They make the final decision on who becomes a permanent resident.
To qualify under Ontario’s Express Entry Human Capital Priorities Stream, you must meet all the requirements below. Please review the steps to apply for all of Ontario’s Express Entry streams. You do not need a job offer to apply.
Please refer to section 10 of Ontario Regulation 422/17 for more details on each requirement.
You must decide which of the following two federal programs you would like to be assessed against:
Under the Federal Skilled Worker Program, you must have:
Your work experience must have been:
You may have gained your work experience in Canada or overseas.
Continuous means:
Please note: Work experience may consist of back-to-back jobs with the same or different employer(s) (with no gap in between), but at least one year must be in the same NOC occupation as your primary NOC declared in your Express Entry profile.
If you are using periods of self-employment, you will need to provide employment documentation that is independently verifiable through third parties. This can include client reference letters indicating your duties and periods of work, as well as evidence of ongoing payments to you personally, for the services provided (for example, invoices). Please also note that your hours of self-employed work must be quantifiable to ensure that you accumulated at least 1,560 hours over one year of employment. Reference letters from yourself, your business partners and/or a family member are not accepted by the program.
Under the Canadian Experience Class, you must have:
Your work experience must have been:
Cumulative means:
Please note: Paid work experience gained while studying full-time at a post-secondary institution (for example, on a co-op work term) and self-employment are not eligible under the CEC.
Under both programs:
Vacation periods, regular sick leave and other standard paid leave entitlements as provided for in collective agreements, workplace legislation and/or individual employer policies are not considered interruptions to full-time employment. Extended leaves are considered interruptions to full-time employment and are not to be included in the calculation of work experience.
You must have a Canadian bachelor’s, master’s or PhD degree or its equivalent in another country.
If you completed your studies outside of Canada, you need to obtain an Educational Credential Assessment (ECA) report that proves your education is equivalent to a Canadian credential.
The assessment must be done by one of the following organizations, designated by IRCC.
Each organization charges a different fee and has different processing times. Please check the website of each ECA organization to choose the one that is best for you.
You must provide the OINP with an electronic copy of the ECA report when you submit your online application. The report cannot be more than five years old at the time you submit your application.
How to authorize the OINP to confirm your ECA results
We must be able to confirm your ECA results with the organization that completed it. This means you must authorize the organization to share the results with us (the Ontario Immigrant Nominee Program) electronically.
It is not enough to authorize the organization to share the results of your assessment with IRCC for the purposes of your application to the OINP.
Do not request a duplicate paper copy from your ECA organization to be mailed out to the OINP.
Follow these steps to authorize the OINP to access your ECA results:
For the other organizations not listed above, no additional steps are required.
Please contact the ECA organization directly if you have any specific questions about the process for getting an ECA or how to authorize and share your ECA results with the OINP.
You must be able to understand, read, write and speak English at a Canadian Language Benchmark (CLB) level 6 and French at a Canadian Language Benchmark (CLB) level 7 or higher.
To prove that you have the mandatory language skills, you must take an approved English and French language test before you submit your application to this stream.
The test must not have been taken more than two years from the date you submit your application.
For English tests, we accept:
For French tests, we accept:
Learn more about the English and French language tests
You must have enough money to support yourself and your dependent family members when you settle in Canada.
Note that a family member includes your spouse, common law partner and children under the age of 22, including their children.
You can meet this requirement through one or a combination of any of the following:
Learn more about the amount of money you must have available to apply (see How much money you’ll need
).
Example: You have checked how much money you must have available and, based on your family size, you must have $29,000 (CAD). You have a job offer in Ontario with an annual wage of $25,000 and you have a balance of $5,000 in your savings account for a total of $30,000. By using a combination of your job offer and bank statement, you would meet the settlements fund requirement.
Note: If you provide bank statements that include a one-time large deposit, we may ask you to provide additional documentation to support that your funds are free of debt or liability.
You must intend to live in Ontario after you’re granted permanent residence. We determine this by examining your ties to Ontario, which can include things like:
If you are applying from within Canada, you must have legal status (visitor record, study permit, or work permit) at the time you apply and should maintain that status until the time of nomination.
You may apply if you are in ‘implied status’ at the time of your OINP application submission. ‘Implied status’ means that you submitted an application to Immigration, Refugees and Citizenship Canada (IRCC) to renew/extend your temporary status document (a visitor record, work permit, study permit) before its expiry date. You can remain in Canada and continue to work or study under the same conditions as your existing permit until a decision is made on your pending IRCC application.
If you choose to be assessed against the Federal Skilled Worker Program (FSWP), you must score at least 67 points on the six selection factors (education, language skills, work experience, age, arranged employment in Canada and adaptability).
Learn more about the Federal Skilled Worker Program and the six selection factors.