As of August 04, 2026, the online Ontario Immigrant Nominee Program (OINP)’s eFiling portal is open and accepting Expressions of Interest (EOIs) once again, after taking the summer to restructure.
The biggest difference is that there is now only one stream, named the Ontario Workforce Priority Stream, with two subcategories based on National Occupational Classification (NOC) Training, Education, Experience and Responsibilities (TEER) codes (TEER 0-3 and TEER 4-5).
The current, new, version of the program echoes the old Employer Job Offer: Foreign Worker (EJOFW) stream that existed under the previous version of the program, in its general equirements. The process begins with the employer creating a job offer on OINP’s Employer Portal, after which the employee (applicant) can create an Expression of Interest (EOI) on the OINP’s portal.
Once the EOI is created, it remains in a pool of candidates until it is selected, or until it is automatically deleted by the system after 12 months. Once selected, the employee (applicant) received an invitation to apply (ITA) to the OINP for the provincial nomination.
Once the application for the nomination is submitted, the employee (applicant) must wait for Ontario’s decision. If approved, a certificate of nomination will be issued, with which the employee (applicant) can then apply to the federal government for permanent residence. Ontario also issues work permit support letters to those nominated with a job offer.
Employer requirements have not changed much from the previous iteration of the OINP, specifically the EJOFW stream. These requirements include being in active business for at least three years, having a business premises in Ontario for the employee (applicant) to work at, have no outstanding OESA and OHSA orders, and meet the revenue requirements depending on employee (applicant) work location. There are recruitment efforts that have to be undertaken by the employer as well, unless exempt. Separately, there are job offer requirements: the position must be full-time and permanent, urgently necessary to the business, not affect a labour dispute, and be at the required wage level.
Notably, if certain changes to the job offer occur at any point after a job offer is registered – whether it be at the EOI stage, OINP application stage, or nomination stage – everything done until that point may be void, and a new job offer (and therefore a new EOI, as they are uniquely linked) will have to be created, after which the process can start again.
Requirements for employees (applicants) didn’t change much either from the prior iteration of the EJOFW stream. Information on education is now relevant, whereas it wasn’t always relevant before; a language test must now be done by the employee (applicant); the location of intended settlement matters; the skill level and work experience level of the employee (applicant) is assessed; any earnings history in Canada is assessed; and any other attributes that would address immediate Ontario labour market needs are taken into consideration.
It is still free to register an EOI. Processing times for the various steps of this process are unknown at this time.
The only exception to this employer-submits-job-offer-first process under the OINP is submitting an application without a job offer, which can only be done by self-employed physicians. This process begins by the physician sending OINP a webform, after which the OINP guides the physician on EOI creation steps.
Author: Katya Karvelis
