Canada is prioritizing French speakers and individuals with qualifying work experience in select sectors and occupations for permanent residence (PR) through Express Entry’s category-based selection (CBS).
To qualify for a priority occupational category, you must have six months of full-time, continuous work experience in a single eligible occupation within the last three years (in Canada or abroad), while the French-language proficiency category necessitates meeting a NCLC level 7 across all four language abilities.
Being eligible for category-based draws is advantageous in pursuing PR, as these draw types typically feature lower Comprehensive Ranking System (CRS) score cutoffs than others.
See your eligibility for all priority PR categories
You may in fact be closer than you think to qualifying for a priority PR category; throughout this article, we’ll run through how you can check your eligibility with CanadaVisa’s easy-to-use eligibility tool and what you can do next.
The current Express Entry categories include:
| Category | Eligibility |
|---|---|
| French-language proficiency | NCLC level 7 |
| Healthcare and social services | 37 occupations |
| Science, technology, engineering, and math (STEM) | 11 occupations |
| Trade | 25 occupations |
| Agriculture and agri-food occupations | 1 occupation |
| Education | 5 occupations |
| *Physicians with Canadian work experience | 3 occupations |
*Unlike other occupational categories, the newly introduced “Physicians with Canadian work experience” category introduced in December 2025 requires Express Entry candidates to have one year of work experience in an eligible occupation, accumulated in Canada.
How you can check whether you are eligible for priority PR category
You can check your eligibility for Canada’s priority PR categories using the CanadaVisa+ online eligibility tool, which is available via desktop or on mobile, and is accessible through any web browser.
To begin, simply navigate to the tool, press “Get started,” and fill out and submit the assessment form, which will prompt you to answer questions pertaining to your qualifications, such as work and study experience, whether you possess a job offer, and your current language skills.
Filling out the CV+ form and seeing your results (general eligibility for Express Entry programs at this stage) should take no more than 10 minutes, but to get a more comprehensive breakdown of your eligibility for priority PR categories and be able to save (and update) your profile, you can sign up—which will be required for the upcoming steps below.
Once you have signed up, this is what your dashboard will look like.
Navigate to the “Draws” tab within the top bar to begin exploring your eligibility for Express Entry’s various categories.
1. Based on the information provided in your profile (e.g., work experience for occupational draws; French language results for French draws), you can see which category you are eligible for based on a red X (not eligible) or green checkmark (eligible).
You will also see the date of the last draw for each, as well as the CRS cut-off score required to have been invited.
2. You can click into each of the categories to see the following information (the healthcare category will be used in this example):
a) A general summary of the category
b) Occupations and National Occupational Classification (NOC) codes eligible under that category
To see this information, start by clicking on “Eligible [category] Occupation Work Experience” and then navigating to “[category] Work Experience.”
Once you click into the latter, you will be able to see the complete list of eligible occupations and their corresponding NOC codes, (as well as rules surrounding work experience eligibility, which can be found by scrolling further down).
Note that this image is not reflective of all the healthcare occupations that are eligible for consideration under the healthcare category and is only to be referenced for illustrative purposes.
See your eligibility for all priority PR categories
See past draws under each category
If you navigate back to the CV+ “Draws” page, which features all Express Entry draw categories, click into a category, and scroll down, you can see all the previous draws that were conducted for that category.
The CanadaVisa+ tool will inform you whether you would have been eligible to receive an ITA in any previously conducted draws—taking into account your own CRS score and the cut-off score (“Required score”) for each respective draw.
Again, a green checkmark indicates you would have been eligible with your current CRS score; a red X indicates you would not have been eligible.
Express Entry candidates can use this to gauge score trends for that respective category (in general and year by year) and get a general understanding of their competitiveness within that category. For example, as you can see, over the course of 2025, cutoffs ranged from 462–510 for the healthcare category (seen above).
Further, having a visual of how frequently Canada’s immigration department draws a certain category can help a candidate determine whether they want to pursue a category-eligible occupation for the purpose of qualifying for CBS—as a common drawback of CBS is that it tends to occur less frequently than other draw types (e.g., Canadian Experience Class or Provincial Nominee Program draws).
This is not an indication of the frequency of future draws, but it can provide insight into which categories Immigration, Refugees and Citizenship Canada (IRCC) has recently been prioritizing. For instance, in 2025, IRCC held seven healthcare draws, but only one trade draw.
What to do next if you’re not yet eligible
If you find that you are currently not eligible for any Express Entry categories, working towards gaining the minimum six months’ worth of work experience in a category-eligible occupation or getting to a NCLC level 7 in French.
Be mindful that for many occupations, you may be required to return to school for at least a one-to-two-year program and/or meet licensing/accreditation requirements in order to begin working in that occupation, gain the six months of experience, and qualify for a category.
Further, to claim work experience under a priority PR-eligible occupation, you need to have performed a substantial amount of the main duties listed under that occupational code and all actions in the lead statement in the NOC system.
As you build eligibility, you can update your CV+ profile to view how your eligibility changes with improvements to your qualifications—while also making sure to update your Express Entry profile as well.
CV+ is updated every time IRCC conducts a draw.
See your eligibility for all priority PR categories