Ontario reaches 2024 PNP allocation limit
As of December 23, 2024, the Ontario Immigrant Nominee Program (OINP) has reached its full provincial nomination allocation for 2024.
A total of 21,500 nominations were issued across various streams in 2024. The OINP will continue to accept and consider new applications under its 2025 allocation.
As of this writing, the official number of provincial nomination allocations for Ontario in 2025 has not been announced.
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The province also published a breakdown of the number of invitations to apply (ITAs) it issued to candidates throughout the year. In total, the OINP issued more than 22,000 ITAs to candidates throughout 2024.
- Employer Job Offer: Foreign Worker stream – 6,695 ITAs.
- Employer Job Offer: International Student stream – 8,363 ITAs.
- Employer Job Offer: In-Demand Skills stream – 914 ITAs.
- Masters Graduate stream – 5,519 ITAs.
- PhD Graduate stream – 533 ITAs.
- Entrepreneur stream – 0 ITAs.
There is a difference between an invitation to apply (ITA) to a Provincial Nominee Program (PNP), such as the OINP, and a provincial nomination.
Foreign nationals first submit a candidate profile to the OINP for consideration (this can be passive or active consideration), either through an Expression of Interest (EOI) pool, or by having a valid Express Entry profile (if the stream they are applying is Express Entry-aligned, or “enhanced”).
If selected under a base stream, candidates are given an ITA and are invited to submit an application to the OINP. If this application is successful they will receive a provincial nomination and may then apply to Immigration Refugees and Citizenship Canada (IRCC) directly for permanent residence (PR).
If selected under an enhanced stream, candidates in the federal Express Entry pool with a provincial nomination will receive the maximum of 600 additional Comprehensive Ranking System (CRS) points, making them quite likely to receive an ITA in the next Express Entry draw for which they are eligible. For enhanced PNP programs, the foreign national must have a valid Express Entry profile.
Enhanced nominations can occur in either direction (either the candidate first has a profile in an EOI system and then creates a valid Express Entry profile, or they have a valid Express Entry profile and are then invited to apply by the OINP for a provincial nomination).
What to expect from the OINP in 2025
Though the OINP has not published its official provincial allocations for 2025, it can be reasonably expected that the number of nominations the province can issue will be notably fewer than in 2024.
This is due to the drastic cutback in overall admissions allocations for provinces, under IRCC’s Immigration Levels Plan.
In the 2023 Immigration Levels Plan (which sets targets for the following year), all provinces were given a total admissions allocation of 110,000 admissions that would be divided among all PNP programs in 2024. Provincial economic immigration was also set to overtake federal pathways in terms of admissions, according to the 2024-2026 Levels Plan.
As of 2024’s Immigration Levels Plan (which sets firm targets for 2025), provincial admissions targets have been halved to 55,000 in total, among all provinces. While the OINP is one of Canada’s most popular PNPs, it is likely that Ontario’s immigration program will see cuts to its provincial nomination allocation, on account of these macro-level changes.
The OINP also recently announced the closure of its entrepreneur stream in 2024, with no plans currently announced for a replacement stream.
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