Guide

Job-offer points may return to Express Entry — but only for high-wage occupations

IRCC pulled CRS points for most job offers in March 2025 to shut down a fraud problem. A new 2026 consultation proposes bringing a version of them back — narrower, wage-based, and still far from finalized. Here's what's actually on the table.

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Job-offer CRS points today

Since Mar 25, 2025

Proposed wage tiers

~2x / 1.5x / 1.3x median

Not final

Consultation stage only

As of Aug 2026

In April 2026, IRCC published a consultation paper sketching out possible changes to how Express Entry ranks candidates. One piece getting the most attention: a proposed way to bring job-offer points back into the Comprehensive Ranking System — but only for offers in occupations that pay well above the median, and only after a fraud-proofing rework of how those offers get verified.

Points tied to wage tier, not just having an offer

The version under review would not simply restore flat job-offer points. It would grade a verified offer against the national median wage, with roughly three tiers under discussion: about twice the median (illustrative examples floated include physicians and university professors), about 1.5 times the median (engineers, teachers, transport managers), and about 1.3 times the median (financial analysts, bricklayers, equipment operators). Nothing here is locked in — the tiers, the multipliers, and the occupation examples are all still subject to change before any regulation is finalized.

Why the old points were pulled in the first place

IRCC dropped job-offer CRS points for most candidates on March 25, 2025, after a wave of cases where an LMIA-backed offer was bought or fabricated purely to inflate a score — not because the employer needed the worker. The wage-tier approach is IRCC's attempt to bring back a genuine incentive for real, higher-paying job matches while making the same fraud harder to pull off.

Trades and regulated professions get their own lane

Separately from the wage tiers, the consultation floats recognizing only Red Seal-designated trade certificates for skilled-trades candidates (rather than any employer letter), adding credit for completed apprenticeship work, and letting candidates in regulated professions such as nursing or engineering rely on the language results they already submitted for their provincial licence instead of sitting a second, separate language test.

Still a consultation, not a rule

As of late August 2026, this is a published consultation document that IRCC says will inform future amendments to the Immigration and Refugee Protection Regulations — it is not a regulation, it has no in-force date, and IRCC has not committed to adopting it as written. Past Express Entry consultations have sometimes taken many months to turn into an actual regulatory change, and some proposals never make it into force at all.

What this means for your profile today

None of this is in effect yet. Your CRS score is still calculated under the current rules, where most job offers add nothing to your ranking. Don't turn down or delay an application while waiting to see whether these tiers become real — if they do go ahead, IRCC would need to finalize regulatory text and give a start date first, and existing pool profiles are typically re-scored automatically when a factor changes. The more useful move right now is making sure the score you already have is accurate.

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Official sources

Figures and rules in this guide are checked against IRCC program pages. If anything conflicts, trust the government page.

Track this alongside your own score

We'll update this guide as the consultation moves forward. In the meantime, the CRS calculator always reflects the rules currently in force.

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Canadian PRLedger is a free tracking and calculator tool — not a law firm, not an RCIC practice, and not affiliated with IRCC. These guides summarize public program rules for planning purposes only. For case-specific advice, speak with a licensed immigration consultant or lawyer.