OINP
The Ontario Immigrant Nominee Program is Ontario's share of the Provincial Nominee Program. It nominates people for permanent residence in Ontario — and because a nomination through an Express Entry aligned stream is worth 600 CRS points, it is effectively decisive for the candidates who get one.
This page is written from an employer's side. If you are the candidate, the PNP page covers the same programme from yours.
Streams where you are involved
The employer job offer streams are the ones that need you. They cover a foreign worker already in Canada or abroad, an international student graduating from an eligible institution, and roles in in-demand occupations — which have historically included trades, agriculture, construction and transport rather than office work.
In each, you provide a permanent, full-time job offer at the prevailing wage, and you have to qualify as an employer in your own right. It is not enough that the candidate is good; Ontario assesses whether your business should be nominating anyone.
Streams where you are not
The human capital streams draw from the Express Entry pool directly — skilled workers, skilled trades, and French-speaking skilled workers — and Ontario searches the pool and issues notifications of interest without an employer involved. If your candidate is already in the pool with a strong profile, they may be nominated without you doing anything, and telling them that is more useful than building a job offer around a stream they do not need.
How it runs
Most streams operate on an expression of interest system: candidates register, Ontario scores and ranks them, and invitations are issued in periodic draws against criteria the province sets for each one. An invitation is time-limited — usually a matter of days to submit a full application — so the documents have to exist before the draw, not after it.
Intake windows, target occupations and score thresholds change through the year, sometimes at short notice. Anything written about specific streams, including here, is a description of how the programme works rather than a statement of what is open this week.
Where Skylam comes in
We are based in Mississauga and Ontario is the programme we work with most. For employers: establishing whether your business qualifies, getting the job offer and the wage right, and being ready for a draw. For candidates already in the pool: whether a nomination is realistically within reach, and whether it is worth building an offer around.
Requirements
Who qualifies
The employer, on a job offer stream
- Been in active business for a minimum number of years, with premises in Ontario where the person will work.
- Gross revenue and employee thresholds, set higher for businesses in the Greater Toronto Area than elsewhere in the province — Ontario uses these to direct nominations outside Toronto.
- Compliance with Ontario employment and health and safety law.
- A permanent, full-time position — not a contract, not seasonal — at or above the prevailing wage for the occupation and region.
- A genuine need for the role, in a business that could be expected to have one.
The candidate, on a job offer stream
- Work experience in the occupation, of the type and length the stream sets.
- Any licence or certification the occupation requires in Ontario — for regulated trades this is a threshold question, not a formality.
- Language and education requirements as set by the stream.
- Intention to live in Ontario.
Human capital streams
- An active Express Entry profile, with Ontario selected among the candidate's provinces of interest.
- Eligibility under one of the federal programmes Express Entry manages.
- A notification of interest from Ontario, which the candidate must respond to within the window given.
- No employer involvement required.
Then the federal stage
A nomination is not permanent residence. IRCC still assesses admissibility — medicals, police certificates, criminal and security screening — and can refuse an application Ontario has nominated. Plan for two stages, not one.
Thresholds, eligible occupations and intake status are set by Ontario and change through the year. Check the province's own page for the stream you are considering, on the day you are considering it.
Requirements change without notice. Check IRCC’s own page
Every case turns on its own facts. Book a consultation and a licensed consultant will tell you where you stand on OINP.
Book a ConsultationLast updated 22 September 2026
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