Overview

The Ontario Immigrant Nominee Program (OINP) provides Ontario’s employers with an opportunity to attract and retain foreign workers to help fill their labour needs.

To qualify as an employer, you must meet program requirements and have made a job offer for a full-time and permanent position to an eligible foreign worker.

On this page, an ‘employee’ means an employee who is registering an expression of interest (EOI) and/or applying for a certificate of nomination, as applicable.

Learn more about the Ontario Workforce Priority stream and review the employee requirements.

Please note, if the foreign worker is applying for nomination as a self-employed physician, the content on this page is not applicable.

Employer Portal

You must use the Employer Portal to submit an application for approval of an employment position under the Ontario Workforce Priority stream.

The Employer Portal can be accessed via the OINP e-Filing Portal.

For information about how to register an employer account for the Employer Portal and submit applications, please refer to the Employer Portal User Guide.

Before you apply

1. Make sure you meet the mandatory requirements

There are several mandatory requirements that you as the employer must meet to be eligible for an approval of an employment position. These include:

2. Understand the application process

To apply for the approval of an employment position to the OINP under the Ontario Workforce Priority stream, you must first register your business in the Employer Portal and provide information about the employment position by creating a job offer.

Refer to the Employer Portal User Guide for information on how to:

  • register in the Employer Portal
  • create a job offer
  • appoint a representative
  • submit an application

3. Have your supporting documents ready

You also need to make sure you have all necessary supporting documents, in English or French, scanned and ready to upload to submit the application.

Please visit the Employer Job Offer Stream: Employer Checklist for further details.

Employer requirements

Please refer to section 4 of Ontario Regulation 422/17 for more details on each requirement.

General requirements

To qualify, your business must:

  • have been in active business for at least three years prior to applying
  • have business premises in Ontario where the employee will work
  • have no outstanding orders made against your business under the Ontario Employment Standards Act, 2000 or the Occupational Health and Safety Act
  • have met the gross annual revenue and full-time employee requirements based on where the employee will work

Please note, if you are seeking an approval of a NOC 73300 — Transport truck driver employment position or NOC 73301 — Bus drivers, subway operators and other transit operators, you must also demonstrate that your business has a valid CVOR certificate, as defined in subsection 1 (1) of the Highway Traffic Act, and a safety rating under that Act of Excellent, or Satisfactory. You will need to submit a CVOR Abstract (Level 1) to demonstrate you meet this requirement.

EOIs or applications submitted under the OINP, where the Ontario Public Service (OPS) or an OPS entity is listed as the employer, will not be accepted. This is due to the OPS not currently participating in the OINP.

All other government agencies and corporations that are not staffed by OPS employees will be considered as separate legal entities and may be eligible to participate as an employer in the OINP if they meet all employer eligibility criteria.

Revenue requirement

Your business must meet the relevant revenue requirement for its most recently completed fiscal year (the year used for tax or accounting purposes) before the date of making this application:

  • A minimum of $1,000,000 in total gross annual revenue if the employee will work or report to work at a location in the Greater Toronto Area (City of Toronto, Durham, Halton, Peel, and York regions).
  • A minimum of $500,000 in total gross annual revenue if the employee will work or report to work at a location in the following census divisions:
    • Ottawa (census division)
    • Waterloo (regional municipality)
    • Hamilton (census division)
    • Simcoe (county)
    • Middlesex (county)
    • Niagara (regional municipality)
    • Essex (county)
    • Wellington (county)
    • Greater Sudbury/Grand Sudbury (census division)
    • Frontenac (county)
    • Brant (census division)
    • Peterborough (county)
    • Hastings (county)
    • Thunder Bay (district)
  • A minimum of $250,000 in total gross annual revenue in the last two most recently completed fiscal years if the employee will work or report to work at any location not specified above.  

Meaning of report to work

In cases where the employee will work at more than one location, the location where the employee will report to work means either:

  • the location where the employee’s immediate supervisor or manager works
  • the location of the administrative office where the employee will receive work assignments

Full-time employee requirements

The full-time employee requirement is defined by the employee's work location. These requirements are different depending on if the work location is inside or outside the Greater Toronto Area (GTA) and must be met when the application is submitted.

Work location inside the Greater Toronto Area (City of Toronto, Durham, Halton, Peel and York regions)

If the employee will work at a location in the GTA or will work at more than one location but report to work at a location in the GTA, your business must have at least 5 full-time employees who are Canadian citizens or permanent residents who work or report to work at that location.

Work location outside the Greater Toronto Area

If the employee will work at a location outside the GTA or will work at more than one location but report to work at a location outside the GTA, your business must have at least 3 full-time employees who are Canadian citizens or permanent residents who work or report to work at that location.

Meaning of full-time employee

A full-time employee is an employee who has worked a minimum of 30 hours per week.

If your business employs a mobile workforce, the minimum number of full-time employees you must have at the location where the employee will work or report to work can include both:

  • employees who work at that location
  • employees who report to work at that location

Reasonable domestic recruitment efforts required

You must demonstrate that reasonable efforts were made to recruit a Canadian citizen or a permanent resident prior to offering the position to the employee, unless either:

  • the employee is already authorized to work in Ontario
  • you have a positive Labour Market Impact Assessment (LMIA) for the same NOC code and position

The OINP is designed to assist you in circumstances where your efforts to fill a position domestically were unsuccessful due to skills shortages. You are expected to conduct domestic recruitment efforts on your own, or with the assistance of recruitment agencies/specialists (for example, headhunters or human resource consulting firms) who have expertise in recruiting domestic talent.

A minimum of two advertising or recruitment methods should be used, including:

  • a job bank advertisement with the Government of Canada’s Job Bank
  • print media (national or provincial/territorial newspapers, national journals, magazines with national coverage, specialized journals, professional association magazines, newsletters, etc.)
  • advertisement on general employment websites (Workopolis, Monster, Indeed, LinkedIn Jobs, CareerBuilder, Glassdoor, Eluta, etc.)
  • advertisement on specialist websites dedicated to specific occupation profiles (accounting, marketing, biotechnology, education, engineering, etc.)
  • posting on employer’s career website for internal and external candidates
  • demonstrated participation at job fairs

In addition, advertisements should be posted for at least four weeks prior to offering the position to the employee, be accessible to the general public and include:

  • business operating name
  • business address
  • position title and duties
  • skill requirements, which include education and/or work experience
  • wage (where a wage is posted, the wage must be at the required wage level)
  • location where the employee will work (city or town)
  • contact information: name, address, telephone number, email address
  • date posted and date advertisement will close (dd/mm/yyyy – dd/mm/yyyy)

Job offer requirements

Please refer to section 4 of Ontario Regulation 422/17 for more details on each requirement.

To qualify, you must provide a job offer to the applicant that meets the following requirements:

Full-time and permanent

The job offer must be for a full-time and permanent position.

  • full-time means the job must be a minimum of 1,560 hours a year and a minimum of 30 hours of paid work per week.
  • permanent means the job must have no end date (also known as an indeterminate duration). Job offers that are seasonal and/or contract based are ineligible.

Position is urgently necessary to your business

The position must be urgently necessary to your business. This means that the job offered must align with your existing business activities and the position must be required to be filled on a priority basis in order to maintain or grow your business.

Position must not affect a labour dispute

The job offer must not affect the employment of a person involved in a labour dispute.

Eligible occupation

Under the Ontario Workforce Priority stream, the job offered can be in any location in Ontario and in any National Occupational Classification (NOC) occupation.

Position is at the required wage level

The position offered must meet the required wage level. If the wage of the employment region where the employee will work or report to work is not available on the wage report, the Ontario wage should be used.

If the Ontario wage is not available either, historic data in the Job Bank or national level data can be used.

The wage offered for the position under the Ontario Workforce Priority stream must meet or exceed the wage level assigned to the specific region of Ontario where the employee will be working and be at or above either:

  • the median wage level
  • the low wage level, if the employee is a recent Ontario graduate and the job offer is in a TEER 0-3 category occupation

If the employee is already working in the position, the wage of the job offer must:

  • be equal to or greater than the wage level that you currently pay the employee in that position
  • meet or exceed the required wage level

Note that these wage levels do not apply if the job is covered by a collective agreement.

The program does not consider remuneration by piece work, bonuses, commissions, vacation pay or non-financial compensation as part of an employee’s offered wage. You may offer an employee piece work, bonuses, commissions or non-financial compensation in addition to base pay. However, these will not be considered part of the hourly base wage.

Submitting an application for approval of an employment position

If the employee’s EOI is selected, employers will be notified via email and will have 14 calendar days to submit the application for approval of an employment position via the Employer Portal.

Please refer to the Employer Portal User Guide for more information.

After you apply

After you submit the application, you will receive an email confirming that your application has been received. The status of the job offer will be updated on the Job offer and Application Dashboard to ‘Application Submitted’.

The employee will receive an email notifying them that you have submitted your application. They will then be able to make the payment and submit their application.

Changes to information provided

You must notify us if there are any changes to the information provided in your application. If you need to make any updates to a submitted application, please provide an explanation as to what changes need to be made via the webform. You will not be able to make changes to the submitted application in the Employer Portal.

Your request must be sent by the organization contact, signing officer or employer's authorized representative.

When the OINP assesses your application, we may request additional supporting documents from you to validate information included in your application.

If you wish to appoint or cancel an authorized representative after you've applied to the OINP, please refer to the Employer Portal User Guide for more information.

Withdrawing a job offer

You can withdraw a job offer at any time by clicking “Withdraw”.

If you withdraw the job offer after the employee has registered their EOI, the employee will receive an email notifying them that their EOI was automatically withdrawn.

If you withdraw the job offer after you have submitted the application for the approval of an employment position, the employee will receive an email notifying them that their application was withdrawn.

For the employee to be placed in the EOI selection pool again, you will need to submit a new job offer, and the employee will need to register a new EOI.

If the employment position is approved

If your application is successful:

  • you will receive an employment position approval letter
  • the employee (nominee) will receive a nomination approval letter, a work permit support letter and a nomination certificate by email.

The nominee must then apply for permanent residence to Immigration, Refugees and Citizenship Canada (IRCC) within 6 months.

Employer requirements for work permit

The nominee may use the work permit support letter to apply for a work permit from IRCC while their application for permanent residence is being processed.

Note that you will need to use IRCC’s Employer Portal and pay an employer compliance fee for the nominee to apply for a work permit with their work permit support letter.

Nominees can request an extension by submitting a webform with the following information:

  • a recent employment verification letter
  • copies of their 2 most recent pay statements
  • scanned copy of their work permit

The OINP will review the request and determine whether the conditions of nomination continue to be met. If the conditions are not met, the nomination may be cancelled.

Approval of an employment position

The approval of an employment position is subject to the conditions outlined in the employment position approval letter.

The approval of your employment position and/or the nomination may be cancelled if any of the conditions are not met, including if the nominee’s employment is terminated by you or the nominee.

Post-nomination follow-ups

The OINP intends to conduct post-nomination follow-ups with employers to confirm that conditions of approval continue to be met. Follow-ups are completed by the OINP’s Post-Nomination Verification Unit (oinp.verification@ontario.ca).

Changes in the position of the job offer

You may offer a promotion to the nominee. You will need to notify the OINP and submit a revised job offer signed by you and the nominee. In addition, the nominee will need to submit a copy of their current work permit and their two most recent pay slips. If necessary, the OINP will issue an updated work permit support letter indicating the new position.

You must also notify the OINP if you withdraw the job offer, the nominee declines the job offer or the nominee’s employment is terminated either by you or the nominee. The approval of the employment position and the nomination will be cancelled if the nominee is no longer working for you.

If the employment position is not approved

If your application is unsuccessful, we will inform you of the decision by email. If you think we made an error in our decision that led to your application being refused, you may request an internal review.

To request an internal review:

  1. Download and complete the Notice of Request for Internal Review form. Ensure that you carefully read the instructions on the form.
  2. In a separate document, clearly identify an error or errors in the director’s decision or order that, if not made, would have resulted in the decision or order being decided differently (see subsection 10(1)(a) of Ontario Regulation 421/17 (general).
  3. Send the completed Notice of Request for Internal Review form and all supporting documents by email to internalreview-revisioninterne@ontario.ca. You must email us within 30 days of receiving your notice of refusal.

Do not include any new information that you did not include in your original application, unless that information was not reasonably available to you at the time you submitted your application.

New information that you did not include in your application because of an oversight will not be considered.

Internal review requests must be sent by email. We will not accept requests by mail, fax or in-person.

Disclaimer

The OINP is governed by the Ontario Immigration Act, 2015 (Act) and its regulations. In the event of any inconsistency between the Act and its regulations and this page, the Act and its regulations take precedence.

Contact us

Ask us a question via webform or by phone from Monday to Friday from 9 a.m. to 5 p.m. at: