IRCC announces new Express Entry category and immigration measures for doctors
On December 8, 2025, Minister of Immigration, Lena Metlege Diab, announced three new immigration measures to make it easier for international doctors to become permanent residents in Canada.
See your eligibility for all Express Entry streams
Under these measures, Immigration, Refugees and Citizenship Canada (IRCC) will introduce:
- A new Express Entry category;
- 5,000 specially reserved permanent residence admissions for provinces; and
- Expedited work permit processing for nominated practice-ready physicians.
New Express Entry category
To be eligible under the new "Physicians with Canadian work experience" Express Entry category, individuals must have accumulated at least 12 months of full-time continuous work experience (or an equivalent amount of part-time work experience) in Canada, within the last three years. This work experience must be in a single eligible occupation.
Occupations targeted under this new category (and their corresponding National Occupation Classification (NOC) codes) are listed below:
- General practitioners and family physicians (31102);
- Specialists in surgery (31101); and
- Specialists in clinical and laboratory medicine (31100).
Invitations to apply under this new category will begin in early 2026.
Think you may be eligible for the new category? Visit our dedicated article to make sure.
This category currently operates alongside all other existing Express Entry categories; however, IRCC typically makes changes to its program priorities under the system in the new year.
IRCC's current Express Entry category for healthcare workers already targets physicians, as well as a multitude of healthcare occupations such as nurses, dentists, optometrists, and others. It is unclear at this time how the current healthcare and social services category will function as today's newly announced category comes into effect.
Notably, the current healthcare occupations category does not have an in-Canada work experience requirement, only needing candidates to accumulate six months of work experience either in Canada or abroad.
Special admissions allocation
The Government of Canada will also set aside 5,000 federal admission spaces* for provinces and territories to nominate licensed doctors who have job offers.
These spots are in addition to the regular annual allocations for the Provincial Nominee Program (PNP), meaning that provincial immigration authorities will be able to drastically increase their intake of foreign doctors to nominate for permanent residence.
*Admissions spaces are detailed in Canada's Immigration Levels Plan—and correspond to the number of people who will physically come to Canada as new permanent residents every year. These admissions cover all of Canada's immigration programs (including Express Entry and the PNPs) and are broken down by program categories.
The government has not made clear which allocation the new reservation of 5,000 admissions for physicians will be taken from.
Expedited work permit processing
Doctors who are nominated by a province will benefit from expedited work permit processing in just 14 days, allowing them to work while their permanent residence applications are being finalized.
This is a drastic streamlining of work permit application processing from within Canada, which can typically take multiple months to process and finalize, before the issuance of a new work authorization.
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