British Columbia PNP receives second 2025 nomination allocation increase, IPG waitlist to benefit
The federal government has granted British Columbia an additional 960 spaces for provincial nomination in 2025, a portion of which will go toward waitlisted International Post-Graduate (IPG) applications.
This brings the British Columbia Provincial Nominee Program’s (BC PNP’s) total nomination allocation to 6,214—up from 5,254 following its previous nomination increase for the year.
British Columbia announced this nomination increase on its provincial news updates webpage on December 15, 2025.
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Who will benefit from this nomination increase?
British Columbia has announced that it will apply these nominations toward previously established priority candidates to meet provincial labour market needs:
- Healthcare professionals.
- Entrepreneurs.
- High economic impact candidates.*
Additionally, the BC PNP has specified that a portion of this nomination increase will go toward waitlisted IPG applications received in 2024.
*The BC PNP defines “high economic impact candidates” as those most likely to support BC’s economy, based on factors such as their education, occupation, and offered wage.
These priorities mirror what the BC PNP chose to focus on following its first nomination increase for 2025 (announced on October 2), which saw its nomination slots rise from 4,000 to 5,254.
In its October 2 announcement, the province noted it had 2,240 waitlisted IPG applications in its inventory. With its most recent nomination increase, it plans to finalize some of these applications.
After being granted 960 additional nominations, the province has recovered approximately 77% of its 2024 provincial nomination allocation of 8,000 spaces.
British Columbia intends to use its full nomination allocation by the end of the year, and plans to share its provincial immigration priorities in 2026.
How many invitations has British Columbia issued in 2025?
In alignment with some of its provincial priorities, British Columbia has extended invitations primarily to entrepreneurs and high economic impact candidates in 2025.
While most of the BC PNP’s invitations have been issued through its Skills Immigration category, there were more draws held targeting entrepreneurs.
So far in 2025, the province has held
- 14 draws through its Entrepreneur Immigration category through two streams.
- Base stream: eight draws, totaling no more than 80 invitations.
- Regional stream: six draws, totaling no more than 30 invitations.
- Three draws through its Skills Immigration category, totalling 978 invitations to individuals with jobs under falling under select *NOC TEERS or who met an established minimum score.
The province has not disclosed the number of waitlisted IPG applications for which it has resumed processing.
*Under Canada’s National Occupational Classification (NOC) system, each job falls into a TEER level from 0 to 5, determined by the role’s typical training, education, experience, and duties, with TEER 0 representing the highest-skilled positions and TEER 5 the lowest.
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