Ottawa Gives Provinces Until March 31, 2027 to Nominate Tens of Thousands More Workers for PR Ottawa has given Canada’s provinces and territories a firm
Ottawa Gives Provinces Until March 31, 2027 to Nominate Tens of Thousands More Workers for PR
Ottawa Gives Provinces Until March 31, 2027 to Nominate Tens of Thousands More Workers for PR
Ottawa has given Canada’s provinces and territories a firm deadline to put tens of thousands of additional workers forward for permanent residence. In a news release published on November 12, 2026, Immigration, Refugees and Citizenship Canada (IRCC) said the extra nominations must be issued by no later than March 31, 2027 — 139 days from the announcement.
Who the extra spaces are for
The additional spaces are aimed at workers already living in Canada outside Quebec, along with their accompanying family members, who can qualify for permanent residence through the Provincial Nominee Program (PNP). The move is part of a time-limited federal effort to help people who are already established in their communities, and already meeting local labour market needs, make the transition to permanent residence.
Where the spaces come from
The nominations draw on a pool of up to 100,000 economic permanent residence spaces created through the 2027 TR-to-PR transition measures announced in Budget 2026. These spaces sit on top of the regular 2027 targets set out in the Immigration Levels Plan, which allots 95,000 spaces to the PNP for permanent residence admissions that may come from outside Canada. The timeline is deliberate: with nominations due by the end of March 2027, IRCC will have roughly nine months to process the resulting permanent residence applications before the end of 2027, keeping the federal commitment on track.
Provinces choose how much to use
The extra allocations are optional. Each province and territory can decide how many of the available spaces it wants to use, and can issue nominations through both its base PNP streams and its Express Entry-aligned streams. As of the announcement, no details had been shared about which jurisdictions plan to take up the additional spaces, or how the spaces will be divided among them.
Workers who already applied may also benefit
Provinces and territories will also be able to point to workers in their jurisdictions who have already applied for permanent residence and are still waiting for a decision, so those applications can be processed under the additional spaces. That covers people who applied through the Atlantic Immigration Program, as well as through federal programs and pilots that are now closed to new applications — the Start-up Visa Program, the Self-Employed Persons Program, the Agri-Food Pilot, and home care worker programs such as the Home Child Care Provider Pilot.
What applicants need to do
Nothing, for now. IRCC has said applicants do not need to take any steps for their applications to be considered under these additional spaces. At NewSteps Immigration, we recommend that workers already in Canada keep an eye on announcements from IRCC and from their own province or territory, since each jurisdiction will decide how it uses its extra allocation.
Part of a bigger 200,000-space package
The worker measure sits alongside a companion initiative offering up to 100,000 further spaces: up to 32,000 people who applied under the Hong Kong permanent residence pathways, up to 18,800 under the Ukraine Family Reunification Pathway, up to 12,600 people already found eligible on humanitarian and compassionate grounds, and up to 45,000 spouses, common-law partners and dependent children of in-Canada permanent residents and Canadian citizens. Together, the 200,000 spaces are in addition to the overall permanent residence admissions target of 380,000 set for 2027.
Disclaimer: General information only, published by NewSteps Immigration. We accept no liability, as this information may be incorrect or change without notice. Please refer to IRCC for the final, official information.
