Ontario suspends its Express Entry Skilled Trades Stream

The Ontario Immigrant Nominee Program (OINP) has suspended its Express Entry Skilled Trades Stream, effective immediately, citing systematic misrepresentation.

Current applicants under the Skilled Trades Stream will no longer be able to pursue a provincial nomination through this pathway.

The province will stop accepting new applications to the Express Entry: Skilled Trades Stream and return all pending applications under the program.

All pending applications that are returned will have their application fees refunded.

The OINP did not indicate whether the stream would resume accepting new applications at a later date.

Consult with an experienced immigration representative

Alternative permanent residence pathways

Express Entry Trade category

Previous applicants to the OINP's Skilled Trades stream may find an easy alternative pathway in Express Entry's own Trade occupation category, since these applicants already had to have a valid Express Entry profile to qualify for the now-closed stream.

Category-based selection draws under Express Entry typically feature lower CRS scores than more general, or program-specific draws. For example, the most recent Trade category draw featured a Comprehensive Ranking System (CRS) score cut-off of 505, while the most recent Canadian Experience Class (CEC) draw featured a cut-off score of 533.

In addition to meeting the basic eligibility requirements for one of Express Entry's programs (the CEC, the Federal Skilled Worker Program, or the Federal Skilled Trades Program), candidates must also gain at least six months of work experience in an eligible occupation under the Trade category, within the last three years.

Eligible occupations for the Trade category are included in the table below:

To learn more about category-based selection draws in the Express Entry system, visit our dedicated webpage.

Alternative OINP pathways

In their announcement, the OINP made clear that candidates who had submitted for the Express Entry Skilled Trades stream may submit new candidate profiles to other OINP streams, provided that they meet the needed eligibility criteria.

These include both Express Entry-aligned (or enhanced) Provincial Nominee Program (PNP) streams, like the Skilled Trades stream, and non-Express Entry-aligned (or base) PNP streams.

Note that, unlike enhanced PNP streams under the OINP, base streams require candidates to submit a profile through the OINP's Expression of Interest (EOI) system (as opposed to choosing candidate profiles from the Express Entry system).

Enhanced OINP streams include the:

• Express Entry Human Capital Priorities stream; and
• Express Entry French-Speaking Skilled Worker stream.

Base OINP streams include the:

• Employer Job Offer: Foreign Worker stream;
• Employer Job Offer: International Student stream;
• Employer Job Offer: In-Demand Skills stream;
• The Master's Graduate stream; and
• The PhD Graduate stream.

Why did Ontario suspend the Express Entry Skilled Trades Stream?

The decision to suspend the Skilled Trades Stream and return all outstanding applications stems from a combination of program integrity, compliance, and labour market concerns.

The OINP’s internal review of the stream found “widespread misrepresentation and/or fraud” connected to the Skilled Trades Stream’s eligibility criteria.

The province’s immigration authorities have therefore determined that they could not reliably assess whether Skilled Trades Stream applicants actually met the stream’s eligibility criteria. As a result, Ontario has also concluded that the current design of the Skilled Trades Stream is vulnerable to systemic misuse—a problem which, in turn, impacts the OINP’s ability to nominate newcomers who will fill critical labour gaps in Ontario.

These new developments come with the consideration that the OINP has received a significant reduction in its immigrant nomination allocation for 2025, a factor that provincial immigration authorities cited in their decision to end the Skilled Trades Stream.

With a limited number of allocation spots, many Provincial Nominee Programs (including the OINP) have become far more frugal with their nominations, choosing to focus them on newcomers who can address labour market needs. Due to a systemic lack of clarity present in the current structure of the Skilled Trades stream around this, the OINP has instead chosen to close the stream altogether in a bid to better allocate its limited nomination allocation.

Consult with an experienced immigration representative