OINP Scoring Criteria: New Updates for Employers

• New opportunities to retain skilled employees. The TEER 4 to 5 pathway requires nine months in the offered position with you as the employer, so it cannot be used to bring in someone new. Two of the three TEER 0 to 3 routes also require the person to already be working for you.

• Your long-tenured employees score highest. More than 24 months in the offered position is worth 18 points. A valid work permit adds 10 and a study permit adds 5.

• Timing is something you can plan. Because eligibility turns on months of service in a specific role, you can often work out when an employee becomes eligible rather than finding out after the fact.

• Retention continues after nomination. Your employee must stay in the approved position until permanent residence is granted or refused. If that employment ends, the approval may be cancelled and the process restarts.

• You can also hire more broadly. Job offers across all TEER categories, 0 through 5, may now be in scope, where the former In-Demand Skills stream restricted eligible roles to a published list.

• Your Employer Portal registration holds, but approvals do not. Every job offer and employment position has to be resubmitted under the new stream.

Review your international workforce with BorderPass

Start with anyone on temporary status. Work permit holders, post-graduation work permit holders and recent graduates from Ontario institutions are the groups the new rules were written around, and several of them may be closer to eligible than you would expect.

Recent Ontario graduates are the group worth checking first. If they completed an eligible credential within the last three years, the service requirement may drop to three months, they may be exempt from the language test, and you may be able to meet the regional low-wage level in place of the median.

Find out who on your team qualifies

Your eligibility as an employer, the validity of the job offer, and your obligations after nomination are three separate compliance surfaces, assessed at different times by different parts of the program. A job offer that qualifies at submission can still fail later if the terms of employment change.

The requirements that carry the most exposure, and what we do about each:

• Business standing. Three years in active business, premises in Ontario where the work happens, and no outstanding orders under the Employment Standards Act, 2000 or the Occupational Health and Safety Act. We assess your standing against the current regulation before anything is filed.

• Revenue and headcount thresholds that vary by job location, plus a minimum number of full-time employees who are Canadian citizens or permanent residents. We check whether your locations qualify for the lower rural thresholds, which now apply in census divisions under 150,000 people.

• Wage compliance. The offer must meet the required level for the occupation and region. Recent Ontario graduates under TEER 0 to 3 may be offered the regional low-wage level instead of the median, a new provision that is easy to apply incorrectly. We review every offer before submission.

• Occupation classification. Your employee's NOC code sets their pathway, language bar, education requirement and service threshold. We match it to the duties they actually perform.

• Deadlines. You have 14 calendar days after an invitation, your employee has 17, and they cannot submit until you have. We manage the sequence.

• Post-nomination obligations. Any change to duties, wage, hours or term must be reported to the OINP immediately, and verification follow-ups run through a dedicated unit. We track what has to be reported and when, so a routine change does not cost you a nomination.

One more change worth knowing. The response window for a Notice of Intent to issue an Administrative Monetary Penalty or a Ban order dropped from 60 days to 30, and notices may now be deemed delivered without proof of receipt. Confirm the OINP has current contact details for your business.

"Employers rarely fail on eligibility. They fail on a wage change nobody thought to report," says Varinder Johal, immigration lawyer at BorderPass.

Book a compliance review

You move first, and the sequence is fixed:

1. You register the job offer in the Employer Portal and your employee receives a job offer ID.

2. Your employee registers an expression of interest within 30 days.

3. Ontario issues invitations from the pool.

4. You submit your application for approval of the employment position within 14 days of the invitation.

5. Your employee submits and pays within 17 days, after you have submitted.

6. If nominated, they apply to IRCC for permanent residence within 6 months.

Both applications have to be approved. If yours is refused, the nomination cannot proceed no matter how strong your employee's profile is.

Job location is one of the largest single factors. For employers with multiple sites, where a role is based can change an employee's chances materially.

Wage is the other factor you control directly. An offer at $40 per hour or more scores 15 points, dropping to 5 in the $20 to $24.99 band and 0 below $20. Tenure in the offered position is worth up to 18 points, which is where long-serving employees have the advantage.

All eight are permanently closed: Employer Job Offer (Foreign Worker, In-Demand Skills and International Student), Master's Graduate, PhD Graduate, and the three Express Entry streams. Applications already submitted will be assessed under the rules in effect when they were filed. Expressions of interest and job offers that never led to an invitation are being withdrawn, and affected employers and representatives receive notice directly.

Ontario has described this as the first of two phases, with further streams under consideration and no confirmed rules or dates.

Note that the Ontario Public Service and OPS entities cannot participate as employers. Other government employers not staffed by OPS employees are assessed as separate legal entities.

The people already doing the work are the ones the new rules favour. Find out which of your employees may qualify, what each of them still needs, and when they become eligible, before the portal reopens.

Talk to BorderPass about your workforce

Your employees can read our companion guide on what the new OINP rules mean for applicants.

Q: Can we use the Ontario Workforce Priority stream to keep an employee whose work permit is expiring?

  A: That is largely what the stream is designed for. Ontario has said the redesign is intended to help employers retain proven talent in hard-to-fill roles, and most pathways require the employee to already be working for you in the offered position. Timelines matter, so an employee approaching the end of their status should be assessed early rather than close to expiry.

Q: Can we hire externally into a TEER 4 or 5 role and nominate that person?

  A: Generally not right away. The TEER 4 to 5 pathway requires nine months of cumulative experience in the last two years in the offered position with the employer making the offer. There is no licensing exemption and no reduced requirement for recent graduates under this pathway, so an external hire would usually need to build that history with your business first.

Q: Do we need to register in the OINP Employer Portal again?

  A: No. Employers who previously registered do not need to register again. You will need to submit a new job offer and a new application for approval of an employment position under the Ontario Workforce Priority stream once the portal reopens, because job offers and employment position approvals from the former streams do not carry over.

Q: What happens if a nominated employee leaves or changes roles?

  A: Your employee must remain in the approved employment position until their permanent residence application is granted or refused. Any change to duties, wage, hours or term must be reported to the OINP immediately. If the employment ends and the approval is cancelled, pursuing permanent residence under this stream would require a new expression of interest.

Q: What changed about OINP penalties and enforcement?

  A: The response time for a Notice of Intent to issue an Administrative Monetary Penalty or a Ban order was reduced from 60 days to 30. Notices may now be issued by email, mail or in person and deemed delivered without requiring proof of receipt. Employers should confirm the OINP has current contact details on file.