Express Entry adds up to 100 points for high-wage work

Immigration Minister Lena Metlege Diab announced in Kitchener, Ont., on Oct. 16 that Express Entry will award extra points to permanent residence applicants with high-wage job offers or Canadian work experience, starting Nov. 3, and will no longer require employers to obtain a Labour Market Impact Assessment (LMIA) for those offers.

The announcement was made at an event listed in a media advisory from Immigration, Refugees and Citizenship Canada (IRCC). The Canadian Press reported that a job counts as high-wage if it pays at least 1.3 times the median wage, and that higher wages earn more points.

CIC News, which reviewed IRCC’s published details, reported the points scale under a new labour market factor that tops out at 100 Comprehensive Ranking System (CRS) points. A job offer paying twice the Canada-wide median wage is worth 100 points, 1.5 times the median is worth 70 points and 1.3 times is worth 50 points. Applicants with at least 12 months of full-time Canadian work experience at those wage levels get 70, 40 or 20 points. Candidates receive the higher of the two scores.

Those figures come from CIC News rather than the Canadian Press report, which did not specify points for each wage level. Readers should check the scale against IRCC’s new high-wage occupations page, which CIC News said was published Oct. 16.

The LMIA change matters because the assessment has long been a hurdle for employers. It requires a company to show it could not find a Canadian worker for the role. Under the new rules, a job offer no longer needs one to qualify for the high-wage points. CIC News said candidates who add a job offer to their profile must still indicate they hold a positive LMIA, even though one is not required.

There is a practical catch for people already in the pool. CIC News reported that the government said invitations will be paused while scores are recalculated, a process that may take up to two weeks. Anyone who already holds an invitation to apply will not be affected by later changes to the occupation list, the outlet reported.

The change partly restores a feature that was removed in 2025. According to CIC News, Express Entry job offer points were removed in March 2025, when they had been worth 200 points for certain senior manager offers and 50 points for other valid offers. The new points are tied to wages rather than to the offer alone, which means a well-paid offer counts for more than a lower-paid one.

The announcement lands as Ottawa weighs how many newcomers to admit. A Sept. 29 interview in which Prime Minister Mark Carney signalled a “controlled increase” in population is examined in our look at the coming immigration levels plan, which is due by Nov. 1. Recent draws show how tight the competition is: the latest Canadian Experience Class draw invited 2,500 candidates with a CRS cut-off of 519, while a French-language draw invited 5,000 candidates at CRS 435.

Several questions remain unanswered in the coverage reviewed. Neither report said how many applicants are expected to qualify, how the new points will shift cut-off scores, or how workers in lower-paid jobs, many of them newcomers already in Canada, will fare against candidates who now gain up to 100 points. No reaction from opposition parties, employers or immigration lawyers was included in the reports.

CIC News also said the government’s wider plan, announced in April, would replace Express Entry’s three existing streams with a single stream, with the full package expected between April and October 2027. That timeline was reported by CIC News and was not confirmed in the Canadian Press story.

If you find reporting like this useful, consider supporting Canada News Media, an independent Canadian newsroom with no corporate parent.

Via The Canadian Press on CP24 and CIC News. Sourcing note: points values and timing are from CIC News and are framed as reported; the Canadian Press confirmed the high-wage threshold, the LMIA change and the Nov. 3 start date.