A 1,000-nomination top-up that barely matches last year

British Columbia was the first province to publish its 2026 nomination allocation. Last December it confirmed a federal allocation of 5,254 nominations for 2026, against the 9,000 it had requested from Immigration, Refugees and Citizenship Canada (IRCC) — roughly 41.6% less than it asked for. With this week's 1,000 additional spots, the annual allocation now stands at 6,254.

Stretch the timeline and the figure looks less generous. British Columbia held 8,200 nominations in 2023 and 8,000 in 2024, and used every one of them in both years. In 2025 Ottawa cut provincial nomination admissions targets nationally from 110,000 to 55,000; the province requested 11,000 nominations that year and initially received just 4,000, climbing back to 6,214 only after two top-ups — 1,254 nominations on October 2, 2025, and another 960 on December 15. In other words, the 6,254 now on the books exceeds the 2025 final figure by only 40, and the pre-top-up base of 5,254 was actually 960 fewer than what the province ended last year with.

Federal policy, meanwhile, is turning more favourable. Under the 2026–2028 Immigration Levels Plan, the PNP admissions target for 2026 is 91,500 — about 66% above the 55,000 set for 2025 — followed by 92,500 in each of 2027 and 2028. Admissions targets count permanent residents (PR) who actually land, which is not the same measure as the nominations a province may issue in a given year, but a higher target gives provinces room to press for more. The Northwest Territories said explicitly that its 103 extra nominations came from sustained lobbying of IRCC and restore the territory's allocation "to 2024 and 2025 levels." IRCC has not issued a consolidated statement on this round of provincial top-ups.

Three streams: care, build and innovate

British Columbia's announcement does not break down how the 1,000 nominations will be split among the three streams, saying only that they will support the program objectives published on April 23, 2026. Those objectives came out of a structural overhaul of the BC PNP aligned with the province's Look West economic strategy. The same reform permanently closed the Entry Level and Semi Skilled (ELSS) category, cancelled the planned bachelor's, master's and doctoral graduate categories, ended targeted tech draws, narrowed Skills Immigration in practice to a skilled worker route and a health authority route, and required that at least 35% of nominations go to communities outside Metro Vancouver.

care — health care, education, childcare and veterinary medicine

Under care, the BC PNP gives priority to skilled workers in the following 36 in-demand occupations:

*Early childhood educators must hold a one-year or five-year Early Childhood Educator (ECE) certificate issued by British Columbia's early childhood educator registry.

**Education professionals must be employed in British Columbia's K-12 school system and have French ability at Canadian Language Benchmark (CLB) 5 or higher.

***Targeted invitations under NOC 33102 go only to candidates already registered with the BC Care Aide & Community Health Worker Registry.

To receive a targeted care invitation, candidates need a full-time job or job offer in one of these occupations; work experience requirements vary by field and by BC PNP pathway. As of August 2026, the province had issued at least 946 care invitations this year. The qualifier matters: British Columbia suppresses draw results involving fewer than five candidates, and both the veterinary draw of July 9, 2026, and the education draw of August 6, 2026, were reported only as "<5."

build — construction trades

The build stream covers nine certified trades: carpenters (72310), construction millwrights and industrial mechanics (72400), electricians except industrial and power system (72200), heating, refrigeration and air conditioning mechanics (72402), heavy-duty equipment mechanics (72401), industrial electricians (72201), plumbers (72300), steamfitters, pipefitters and sprinkler system installers (72301), and welders and related machine operators (72106).

The BC PNP runs targeted draws for these occupations. Candidates need a job or job offer in the relevant trade plus at least two years of full-time equivalent work experience. So far in 2026 the province has issued 572 invitations to trades candidates.

innovate — high wages or high scores

The innovate stream is open to any industry and any occupation, and covers both skilled workers and entrepreneurs. It selects through irregularly scheduled High Economic Impact draws using one of two merit tests: a wage level combined with a job offer in a NOC TEER 0 to 3 position, or a registration system score.

The July 16, 2026, round required an hourly wage of $58 (about $115,000 a year) or a registration score of at least 132, and issued 569 invitations. The latest round, on August 20, pushed both thresholds lower: 337 candidates were invited on a wage of $55 per hour (about $110,000 a year) and another 265 on a score of 132, for 602 invitations in a single draw — and the $55 wage floor is the lowest of 2026. That brings innovate to 3,260 invitations for the year, roughly 70% of everything the province has issued.

Cut-off scores are falling across the board, and draws should speed up before year-end

The year's draw record shows thresholds sliding systematically. The innovate wage floor fell from $70 per hour on February 4 to $55 on August 20, while its score threshold dropped from 138 to 132. Within care, the healthcare minimum fell from 108 on May 6 to 84 on August 6, childcare from 115 to 102, and veterinary from 100 to 72. The build stream's construction trades minimum fell from 108 to 88. The candidate pool, by contrast, held roughly 8,306 people in early August, clustered most densely in the 100 to 109 band, with only 10 candidates above 150 points.

Analysts read the decline two ways: targeted draws confine the competition to a defined occupation list, leaving relatively few high scorers in each pool, and the province is moving faster to work through its allocation. In this week's announcement, British Columbia said it plans to use all 6,254 nominations before December 31, 2026, which suggests draw frequency and size still have room to rise between September and December. Several immigration firms warn that since the 2026 reform, a visible gap has opened between being eligible and being invited: a candidate who meets every pathway requirement can still wait indefinitely if their occupation is not on the current priority list.

For candidates already in the federal Express Entry system, a provincial nomination through the BC PNP's Express Entry BC (EEBC) route adds 600 points to a Comprehensive Ranking System (CRS) score, effectively locking in a federal invitation. That makes the tightness of British Columbia's nomination supply a direct input into those applicants' timelines.

A time-limited stream that is easy to overlook

Alongside the three main streams, British Columbia is also running a separate Temporary Rural/Remote Health Support Initiative this year, capped at 250 nominations. It targets janitors, light duty cleaners and security guards working at health facilities in rural and remote communities, and requires nine consecutive months of full-time work with the same employer plus a high school education. The initiative held its first draw on July 23, 2026, inviting 60 candidates at a cut-off score of 50 — the province's lowest threshold of the year. Because of wildfires, its registration deadline was extended on August 13 from August 31 to October 7, 2026. Those 60 invitations are not counted in the 946 issued under care.

One more item worth noting: the application fee for British Columbia's Skills Immigration categories rose from $1,475 to $1,750 on January 22, 2026.