Express Entry Category-Based Draws: Which Occupation Categories Are Being Prioritized?

A category-based round is IRCC inviting candidates who are already in the Express Entry pool and who match a category the Minister has established to meet an identified economic goal. The category decides who gets invited from the pool. It does not change the profile a candidate has already submitted, and there is no separate application to a category.

How categories are chosen

IRCC states it selects categories based on labour market information and projections, and on input from partners including provinces and territories and stakeholders across the country. It also reports to Parliament each year on the categories it chose, why and how it chose them, the instructions establishing each one, and the number of invitations issued for each.

What qualifies a candidate to be considered

Three things have to line up. The candidate has to meet the minimum Express Entry criteria and be eligible for one of the three federal programs, has to be in the pool, and has to meet the requirements in the instructions for that particular round.

For most occupational categories, the stated requirement is at least 12 months of full-time work experience, or an equal amount of part-time experience, accumulated within the past three years, in an occupation on that category's list of 2021 National Occupational Classification codes. IRCC notes the experience does not have to be continuous.

Three categories are different because they require Canadian work experience: physicians, senior managers and researchers.

Within a category-based round, candidates are still ranked against each other by Comprehensive Ranking System score at the time of the round. Matching a category gets you into the group being considered. It does not set aside the ranking.

The categories

IRCC's operational page lists current categories including French-language proficiency, healthcare and social services occupations, science, technology, engineering and mathematics occupations, trade occupations, education occupations, transport occupations, physicians with Canadian work experience, senior managers with Canadian work experience, researchers with Canadian work experience, and skilled military recruits.

We are going to be straight about a limitation here. IRCC's February 2026 announcement of that year's priorities and its later operational page do not list identical sets, and we could not reconcile the two from published sources. Categories are set annually and can change. Read IRCC's current page before relying on any list, including this one.

Our healthcare category page looks at how one named category works in practice.