By Victor Ing,
Special to The Post

On March 25, 2025, the Department of Immigration, Refugees and Citizenship Canada (IRCC) announced that foreign nationals with Canadian job offers will no longer receive bonus points towards receiving an invitation to apply (ITA) for permanent residence under Canada’s Express Entry (EE) System. This substantial change took effect immediately and applies to all EE candidates who have not already received an ITA. Given the current uncertain immigration environment, permanent resident hopefuls must now re-evaluate their chances of receiving an ITA and proactively plan their next steps. Here is what you need to know.

Canada’s EE system is now 10 years old, and it was first implemented to allow the Canadian government to rank and select economic candidates for permanent residence based on factors that they believe make successful immigrants. In addition to scoring for human capital factors such as prior work experience and language proficiency in English or French, which form the backbone of the ranking model, candidates who had Canadian job offers scored bonus points because, theoretically, they had already secured gainful employment in Canada and should be able to quickly and successfully adapt to life in Canada.

Job offers, however, were always misunderstood by the public. Many believed they were entitled to points for having one if they were already working for a Canadian employer who was willing to offer them a permanent position. In reality, only a small number of people held job offers that were worth bonus points. Specifically, this included workers who held valid Labour Market Impact Assessments (LMIA) or were working under LMIA-based work permits. This also included some workers holding closed permits issued under Canada’s International Mobility Program (IMP).

The government’s removal of these bonus points was justified on the grounds that the system had been widely abused. IRCC did not mince words in their December 23, 2024, news release that this change was necessary to “reduce fraud by removing the incentive to illegally buy or sell labour market impact assessments to improve a candidate’s chances of being selected to come to Canada as a permanent resident”. This statement, however, does not fully explain the recent wholesale elimination of bonus points for job offers. Even accepting that LMIAs are being abused (which is certainly well-documented) it does not explain why bonus points for IMP-based job offers should also be removed. To be clear, this change affects many workers already in Canada who never obtained LMIAs, including those with permits issued under Canada’s trade agreements and work permits issued to facilitate the transfer of workers to Canada by multinational corporations.

Against this backdrop, candidates who were previously relying on receiving an additional 50 points to qualify for permanent residence must now re-evaluate whether they still have a viable pathway to achieve their goals. At the top of everyone’s mind is whether the minimum point score needed to receive an ITA will drop and, if so, by how much and how quickly?

Unfortunately, there are many factors pointing to a difficult year for those hoping to receive an ITA under the EE System:

Reduced Immigration Targets: IRCC plans to reduce the number of newly approved permanent residents by 21% from 500,000 to 395,000 in 2025. Of the 395,000 approvals, IRCC expects that approximately 232,150 will come from economic immigration, creating a supply and demand problem where permanent resident hopefuls are competing for fewer spots compared to years past under the EE System.

Targeted Draws: For about the past 1.5 years, IRCC has been using a “category-based” selection process whereby permanent resident candidates receive a preference to receive ITAs if they have French language skills or otherwise have work experience in certain in-demand occupations identified by IRCC, such as healthcare and trades occupations. Due to IRCC’s recent focus on implementing category-based selection, candidates who do not fall within the prescribed categories will have to wait longer to receive ITAs and will have to compete with a larger pool of candidates when IRCC issues ITAs to them. To put things in perspective, in the first three months of 2025, IRCC issued 18,500 category-based ITAs compared to the 12,183 ITAs issued to non-category-based candidates. Put another way, non-category-based candidates have only received about 40% of the total ITAs issued so far this year.

Large Pool of Candidates: The use of category-based draws has directly increased the number of highly ranked candidates who are stuck waiting to receive ITAs. As of March 16, 2025, there are 96,270 candidates who have been ranked under the EE system who score 451 points or better. With this many highly ranked candidates, IRCC’s current immigration targets, and the slow pace which IRCC is inviting candidates who do not qualify for category-based selection, it would take many months over the course of this calendar year to exhaust this pool of candidates.

As a Canadian immigration lawyer, I have been preaching the importance of preparation to clients for years, including getting advice early and being flexible with their immigration plans. The March 25, 2025, announcement to completely eliminate the granting of bonus points for job offers drastically changes the outlook for many candidates for permanent residence.  It is more important now than ever during this time of constant change to seek advice and exhaust all possible ways to boost your own points scoring without a job offer, and to explore pathways to immigration that fall outside of the EE system, including Canada’s new pilot programs and similar opportunities for success.

Victor Ing is a lawyer at Sas & Ing Immigration Law Centre. He provides a full range of immigration services.

For more information, go to canadian-visa-lawyer.com or email victor@sasanding.com.