The points system: 130 points maximum, top scorers first

Under the rules published by the OINP, OWPS scores every applicant who holds a job offer out of a maximum of 130 points. The higher the score, the better an applicant's chances of being invited to apply for a nomination in the OINP's periodic selection rounds. In other words, OWPS is not first-come, first-served; it is a merit-based system that ranks candidates by score and issues invitations to the strongest.

Specifically, the 130-point total is built from the following 11 factors:

The distribution shows that Ontario work experience (up to 18 points), together with work region, compensation and language (up to 15 points each), carry the greatest weight — a clear tilt toward applicants who are already employed locally in Ontario, working in more remote areas, earning higher wages and bringing strong language skills.

Employment factors: region, skill, wages and occupational category

Work region (up to 15 points). Applicants earn up to 15 points based on where they work in Ontario, with more remote northern areas scoring higher and the City of Toronto scoring 0:

Occupation skill level (up to 9 points). Points are awarded according to the skill level of the applicant's occupation under the Training, Education, Experience and Responsibilities (TEER) framework of Canada's National Occupational Classification (NOC):

Compensation (up to 15 points). Applicants with a job offer are scored on their hourly wage:

Occupational category (up to 10 points). Points are based on the broad occupational category the applicant's job falls under, with health occupations scoring highest:

Ontario work experience (up to 18 points). This factor treats two mutually exclusive groups differently: applicants who have worked at least six months in the position named in their job offer, and all other applicants. For those working in the job-offer position:

All other applicants:

Human capital factors: tax history, education and Canadian credentials

Canadian income tax history (up to 8 points). Points are based on the applicant's highest annual income over the past five years, as documented on a Notice of Assessment issued by the Canada Revenue Agency (CRA):

Education (up to 10 points). Points are based on the applicant's highest level of education:

Canadian educational credentials (up to 10 points). Points are based on the number of Canadian post-secondary credentials the applicant holds:

*Only credentials from an eligible Canadian post-secondary institution, earned in a program of at least one year of full-time study, are counted.

Language and status factors

Official language proficiency (up to 15 points). Points are based on the lowest Canadian Language Benchmark (CLB) score across the four abilities — listening, speaking, reading and writing — in whichever official language, English or French, scores higher:

Language results must come from a government-approved official immigration language test taken within the past two years.

Official language bilingualism (up to 10 points). Applicants who reach an upper-intermediate level in both English and French — a CLB 6 or higher in all four abilities — earn additional points:

Temporary resident status (up to 10 points). Applicants holding a valid work permit receive full marks:

Even without a valid work or study permit, applicants must still hold legal immigration status to be eligible for OWPS.

Self-employed physicians: practice experience in place of a wage score

Self-employed physician applicants receive no compensation score; instead, their Ontario work experience is assessed on an alternative scale based on their cumulative length of medical practice in the province:

Beyond the scoring criteria, the OWPS web page that went live on July 20 also published the list of eligible Ontario and Canadian post-secondary institutions used for both the education requirement and the education score. The same day, the OINP released a separate document checklist for OWPS applicants on its own page.

Three pathways and the application process

To apply for a provincial nomination — and ultimately permanent residence — through OWPS, a foreign national must qualify under one of its three pathways, either as a worker holding a job offer from an eligible Ontario employer or as a self-employed physician:

• TEER 0 to 3 pathway — for higher-skilled occupations;
• TEER 4 and 5 pathway — for lower-skilled occupations;
• Self-employed physician pathway — for physicians who can bill through the Ontario Health Insurance Plan (OHIP).

On process, an eligible foreign national must hold a valid Expression of Interest (EOI) in Ontario's online EOI system; under the two job-offer pathways, the employer must initiate the EOI. The full path to permanent residence through OWPS runs as follows: create an eligible profile in the OINP's online EOI system; be selected by the OINP and receive an Invitation to Apply (ITA); submit a complete nomination application to the OINP; obtain the OINP's nomination; apply to the federal government for permanent residence as a provincial nominee; and finally receive a Confirmation of Permanent Residence (COPR) from the federal government to land as a permanent resident.

Notably, Ontario's online EOI system is currently closed and, according to the OINP website, is expected to reopen later this summer. Once it does, the OINP anticipates beginning draws to invite candidates to apply for a nomination.

The backdrop: a shift to merit-based selection amid halved allocations

The release of the OWPS scoring grid comes against the backdrop of Ontario's sweeping 2026 overhaul of its provincial immigration programs. As part of that reform, the province closed all of its former provincial immigration streams on May 30, 2026, and set out the full eligibility requirements for the three new OWPS pathways on June 26, 2026. Of the several new immigration streams Ontario has announced, OWPS is so far the only one with complete eligibility criteria published.

A major external driver of this rare overhaul is the tightening of nomination allocations at the federal level. In Ottawa's immigration levels plan, the national target for the Provincial Nominee Program (PNP) fell from 110,000 in 2024 to 55,000 in 2025, a drop of roughly 50 percent; for Ontario, that translated into an annual allocation that plunged from 21,500 in 2024 to 10,750 in 2025. Although Ontario's 2026 allocation has rebounded to 14,119 — up about 30 percent year over year — it remains well below the 2024 level. Under these tighter limits, Ontario's move to redesign its selection mechanism and issue invitations by score is widely read as a way to prioritize, within a constrained allocation, the workers its labour market needs most and who contribute the most.

For applicants who already submitted a nomination application under the former streams, the OINP says it will continue to assess them against the criteria in effect when their application was received, unaffected by the new rules.

What's next: three more streams still to come

Beyond OWPS, Ontario has announced plans for three additional provincial immigration streams: the Priority Healthcare stream, the Entrepreneur stream and the Exceptional Talent stream. As of publication, none of the three has a launch date. The Priority Healthcare stream, aimed at health-sector workers, is expected to allow applications without a job offer, while the Exceptional Talent stream targets foreign nationals who have demonstrated outstanding achievement in fields such as literature, the creative and performing arts, academic research and scientific innovation.