Express Entry Changes on November 3, 2026

• Canadian work experience leaves the core factors. Its points (up to 80 single, 70 with a spouse) move, unchanged, into the new factor as “work-length points”.
• Work in a high-wage occupation earns extra points: +70, +40 or +20 after at least 12 months (1,560 hours), depending on the occupation’s tier.
• Job offers count again, but only in high-wage occupations: 100, 70 or 50 points, with no LMIA required. Job-offer points have been zero since March 25, 2025.
• You get one path, not both: the higher of work-length plus high-wage points, or job-offer points — capped at 150 (140 with a spouse).

IRCC compares the points you could get from your Canadian work experience with the points from a qualifying job offer, and gives you the higher one. The work path adds two parts: work-length points (the same values as today’s Canadian work row) and high-wage occupation points.

The tier belongs to the occupation (its NOC code), not to your pay. There are 186 occupations on the list — look yours up, or find your NOC code from your job title first.

Candidates with no Canadian work and no qualifying offer are not affected directly — but everyone’s rank moves if others gain points. Skill transferability does not change, because it still uses only your years of Canadian work.

No. From November 3, 2026, a job offer earns CRS points only if its occupation is on the high-wage list, and an LMIA is not required (having one adds nothing). The offer must still be valid under Express Entry — generally full-time, continuous and for at least one year after you become a permanent resident — and an officer must find it genuine.

Eligibility is a separate question: a job offer used to qualify for the Federal Skilled Worker or Federal Skilled Trades programs can be in any TEER 0–3 occupation.

• Age, education, first and second official language points.
• Skill transferability — IRCC says these rules are not changing, and it keeps using the length of your Canadian work, not the high-wage points.
• Spouse factors — not mentioned by IRCC as changing, so we treat them as unchanged (up to 40).
• Additional points: provincial nomination 600, Canadian study 15 or 30, French 25 or 50, sibling 15.
• The rules for what counts as qualifying Canadian work experience.

When the change takes effect, IRCC’s system recalculates every profile in the pool automatically. IRCC says this could take up to two weeks and that invitation rounds pause until it is complete. We will update this section and our Express Entry draw tracker when rounds resume.

The high-wage tier is locked on the day you are invited: if the list changes after your invitation, the tier at the invitation date still applies.

• The cap. The changes page says “a maximum of 150 points” without mentioning spouses; its table and the backgrounder give 150 single and 140 with a spouse. We use 150 / 140.
• The total maximum. IRCC has not restated the CRS maximum (still “out of 1,200” on its tool) or whether the new factor sits inside the core subtotal. We don’t print a total maximum for the new rules.
• Combining months across tiers. We read “at least 12 months combined in occupations at least 1.5 times…” as also counting months in a higher tier. That is our reading, not IRCC’s wording.
• Special rules for skilled trades and physicians in publicly funded practice are mentioned but not detailed yet.
• The legal text. The Ministerial Instructions amendment had not been published as of Oct 18, 2026; these pages follow IRCC’s published guidance.