Draw details: Master's Stream dominates, cut-offs climb across the board

According to the OINP's latest announcement, on April 22, 2026, the province issued 918 ITAs to international student graduates currently residing in Canada on a valid work or study permit:

• Master's Graduate Stream: 674 ITAs, accounting for roughly 73.4% of the total, with a minimum score of 61.
• PhD Graduate Stream: 244 ITAs, with a minimum score of 56.

To be considered, candidates had to have created and attested their profile between April 22, 2025 and 11:59 p.m. on April 20, 2026. Compared with the March 18, 2026 draw for the same streams, cut-off scores moved up in both categories:

Several immigration firms read the increase less as a tightening of program thresholds and more as a ripple effect from the previous round — a wave of high-scoring candidates who had been sitting in the pool became eligible and competitive immediately after March 18, pushing this round's bar materially higher.

Key difference from the March 18 draw: no NOC requirement

A second notable shift from the March 18 round is that the April 22 draw did not require candidates to have experience in any specific National Occupational Classification (NOC) code. The two March 18 rounds were targeted draws in which the OINP issued a combined 1,107 ITAs (582 Master's at a cut-off of 30; 525 PhD at a cut-off of 49) to candidates whose work experience fell within designated NOC codes. The April 22 draw reverted to a broader eligibility screen: any candidate meeting the score threshold, with an attested profile still within the eligibility window and a valid Canadian work or study permit, was in scope.

The timing is also telling. Coming just one week after the OINP's April 15 draw targeting workers in priority and agriculture-related occupations, this back-to-back cadence suggests Ontario is deliberately accelerating issuance across multiple applicant groups ahead of the category overhaul.

Second draw under the streams since an 18-month pause

The April 22 draw is only the second issuance of ITAs under the Master's and PhD Graduate streams since they were paused in September 2024. The March 18 draw was the first under either stream since September 17, 2024 — a gap of more than 18 months — and the April 22 draw continued that cadence, while removing the NOC constraint to widen participation.

The broader backdrop helps explain the pace. Ontario's 2026 federal PNP allocation came in at 14,119 nominations, up roughly 31% from the 10,750 nominations allocated in 2025 but still only about 67% of Ontario's 2024 allocation of 21,500. The recovery mirrors a federal rebound — Canada's national PNP target rose from 55,000 in 2025 to 91,500 in 2026, with Ontario continuing to hold the largest provincial share at about 15%. Against that allocation backdrop, the flurry of Master's and PhD draws reads as a deliberate push to move the graduate inventory before the structural change on May 30.

What to do after receiving an ITA

Invited candidates must log in to the OINP e-Filing Portal and click on the newly created file number prefixed with "NMAS" (Master's Graduate) or "NPHD" (PhD Graduate), and then submit a complete application for provincial nomination within 14 calendar days of receiving the ITA.

A separate — and easy to miss — deadline also applies under both streams: the two-year graduation window. Candidates must complete all steps of the provincial nomination application within two years from the date the degree was conferred, not from the ITA date. For example, if a degree is dated June 1, 2022, all steps must be completed by June 1, 2024. Candidates whose degrees are already more than two years old at the point of applying should decline the ITA.

Once a provincial nomination is issued, the candidate may then apply to Immigration, Refugees and Citizenship Canada (IRCC) for permanent residence (PR).

Final window: Ontario's nomination system to be rebuilt on May 30

The draw timing is drawing heightened attention because it lands inside the OINP's most sweeping restructuring in more than a decade. Under published amendments to the Ontario Immigration Act, all nine existing application categories under the OINP are set to be formally revoked on May 30, 2026, including:

• Foreign Worker
• International Student with a Job Offer
• In-Demand Skills
• Master's Graduate
• PhD Graduate
• Human Capital Priorities
• French-Speaking Skilled Worker
• Skilled Trades
• Entrepreneur

In their place, Ontario has proposed four streamlined pathways: a consolidated Employer: Job Offer stream, a Priority Healthcare stream, an Entrepreneur stream, and an Exceptional Talent stream. Detailed implementation rules and start dates for the new pathways have not yet been published.

For international graduates currently on a Canadian work or study permit who qualify under the Master's or PhD Graduate streams, the message is practical: with less than 40 days left before the existing categories sunset, any ITA received now should be paired immediately with a check against both the 14-day submission clock and the two-year graduation window — or the final opportunity under these streams will slip away.