Express Entry

The Canadian Experience Class is for skilled workers who have Canadian work experience and want to become permanent residents.

Minimum Requirements

• English Language 
• 1 year of skilled work experience in Canada, in the last 3 years before you apply
• have gained your work experience by working in Canada while under temporary resident status with authorization to work
• Education (Foreign or Canadian Education)
• Be admissible

Benefits of CEC

• Canadian Experience Class candidates have built up at least one year of Canadian work experience. This is a highly-valued factor under the CRS, and, as such, gives these applicants access to CRS points for their Canadian experience.
• Because the required documentation is minimal, Canadian Experience Class applications are processed quickly, often within three to four months.
• Applicants under the Canadian Experience Class are not required to show proof of settlement funds, as FSWC and FSTC candidates are.

Canada launched the Federal Skilled Worker Program (FSWP) in 1967 to select immigrants from all over the world. Prior to the introduction of the FSWP, Canada selected skilled worker immigrants subjectively, based on the discretion of individual immigration officers who made a judgment call on whether they thought a candidate could integrate into the Canadian job market.

The Canadian government realized this old approach was problematic and so it introduced the world’s first points system to select immigrants. No longer would Canada use subjective criteria. Instead, it decided to use objective criteria to evaluate all candidates the same way: based on each candidate’s age, education, language skills, work experience, occupation, among other factors.

Minimum Requirements

• Skilled work experience
• Language ability
• Education
• Proof of Funds
• Admissibility

Selection Factors

• Age
• Education
• Work experience
• Whether you have a valid job offer
• English and/or French language skills
• Adaptability (how well you’re likely to settle here)

These factors are part of a 100-point grid used to assess eligibility for the Federal Skilled Worker Program. You earn points for how well you do in each of the 6 factors.

The current pass mark is 67 points.

The Federal Skilled Trades (FST) program is one of the three federal immigration programs managed by the Express Entry system. As with all Express Entry programs, FST uses the Comprehensive Ranking System(CRS) to rank interested candidates against one another, only inviting the most competitive candidates to apply for Canadian permanent residence.

The Federal Skilled Trades Program (FST), is a stream offered to certified and OR experienced applicants who possess the eligibility criteria within a specific type of skilled trade and want to apply to become permanent residents.

Minimum Requirement

In order to be eligible for the FSTP, you must:

• have valid job offers of continuous, paid, full-time employment (at least 30 hours a week) from up to two employers in Canada for at least one year OR a certificate of qualification* from a provincial or territorial body;
• provide proof of basic language proficiency from a designated language testing organization, demonstrating that the applicant meets the minimum threshold set by IRCC — Canadian Level Benchmark (CLB) 5 for speaking and listening, CLB 4 for reading and writing;
• have obtained 2 years of full-time work experience (or an equal amount of part-time work) in the skilled trade in the five years before applying; and
• be able to demonstrate the skills and experience and that they have performed the essential duties of the occupation.

Note: FSTP candidates must plan to reside outside the province of Quebec. The province of Quebec selects its own skilled workers through a unique immigration system.

This information is for applicants to the Provincial Nominee Program (PNP) who are applying through Express Entry. If a province or territory nominates you through an Express Entry stream, it will be listed on your nomination certificate. You can confirm this with the province or territory.

There are two ways to apply:

• You contact the province or territory and apply for a nomination under their Express Entry stream.
• If the province or territory agrees to nominate you, you create an Express Entry profile (or update your profile if you already have one) and show you have been nominated.
• You get a nomination through your account, which you accept electronically.

OR

• You create an Express Entry profile and show the provinces and territories you are interested in.
• If a province or territory sends you a “notification of interest” to your account, you contact them directly.
• You apply to their Express Entry stream.
• If you are nominated, they will offer it to you through your account, and you accept it electronically.

In both cases, you will need to create an Express Entry profile during the process, so you should do it right from the start.

In order to rank immigration candidates, the Canadian government developed a merit-based points system that assigns a score to each candidate in the Express Entry pool. This points system is called the Comprehensive Ranking System (CRS), and the score assigned to each candidate is called the CRS score.

It’s used to assess your:

• skills
• education
• language ability
• work experience
• other factors