British Columbia Skills Immigration Streams

The following requirements apply to all streams unless indicated:

• Demonstrate the intent to live, work and economically establish in British Columbia.
• Provide economic benefit to British Columbia, for example by maintaining or creating jobs for Canadians, transferring knowledge and skills to Canadians, supporting the development of new products or building the workforce for a major project.
• Have legal immigration status in Canada if already in the country.

The following requirements apply to all streams that require a job offer:

• Language requirements
  • Candidates with a job offer under NOC TEER 2, 3, 4 or 5 require Canadian Language Benchmark level 4 in English or French for listening, speaking, reading and writing.
  • Candidates with a job offer under NOC TEER 0 or 1 are not required to submit language test results unless they are claiming points for language.
• A signed, full-time, indeterminate job offer letter from an eligible British Columbia employer.
  • Job offers in BC Tech occupations or for NOC 41200 (university professors and lecturers) do not need to be indeterminate.
• The candidate’s job offer must be from an eligible British Columbia employer (see below).
• The candidate must be qualified for the job being offered, including mandatory certification if required. Transport and healthcare jobs have specific licensing requirements.
• Wages must be at the market rate for the occupation and comparable to Canadians and permanent residents.
• Candidate does not own 10 percent or more of the organization making the job offer.
• Candidate’s work offers a direct economic benefit to British Columbia.

Candidate must meet minimum income requirements, depending on the location of their job offer and number of dependents.

• Generate economic benefit to B.C. by:
  
  • maintaining or creating jobs for Canadians.
  • transferring knowledge and skills to Canadians.
  • supporting the development of proprietary new products.
  • Building the workforce for a major project.
• Be established as an employer in B.C. for at least one year (two years for Entry Level and Semi-Skilled category).
• Have at least five indeterminate full-time employees or equivalent if located inside Metro Vancouver and three if located elsewhere in B.B.
• Provide full-time, indeterminate (permanent or with no set end date) employment to the applicant.
• Have a history of good workplace and business practices.
• Sign an employer declaration.
• Meet domestic labour market recruitment requirements, where applicable.

This stream provides a pathway to permanent residence for workers in professional, management, technical, trade or other skilled occupations.

In order to qualify for this category, in addition to the general requirements, an interested candidate must also:

• Have at least two years of full-time work experience in any skilled occupation (NOC TEER 0, 1, 2 or 3).
• Hold an offer of indeterminate, full-time employment from an eligible BC employer in a skilled occupation ((NOC TEER 0, 1, 2 or 3) at suitable wages.

Applicants may be eligible for this category if they have a full-time job offer in any occupation from a public health authority in B.C. If they are a physician, nurse practitioners or midwives and are not directly employed by a public health authority, they may also be eligible to apply under the Health Authority category.

In order to qualify for this category, in addition to the general requirements, an interested candidate must:

• Be offered an indeterminate, full-time position in any occupation at any NOC TEER category, as a direct employee of one of B.C.’s public health authorities:
  
  • Provincial Health Services Authority
  • First Nations Health Authority
  • Fraser Health
  • Interior Health
  • Island Health
  • Northern Health
  • Vancouver Coastal Health
  • Providence Health Care
• For jobs in one of the eligible BC PNP Tech occupations, the offer does not have to be indeterminate.

Physicians and nurse practitioners:

Physicians or nurse practitioners who are, or will soon be, working in B.C. with the support of a public health authority, may be eligible for this category. They must provide a recommendation letter from a B.C. health authority.

Midwives:

Midwives, may be eligible under the Health Authority category if they have worked for an established practice group in British Columbia for at least six months. They require a letter of confirmation from the practice.

Qualifications:

Candidates must meet the education, training, experience and qualifications outlined by the public health authority. Candidates must also meet any certification, licensing or registration that is required to work in the offered position in B.C.

International student who graduated from a university or college in Canada within the past three years may be eligible for the International Graduate stream.

In order to qualify for this category, in addition to the general requirements, an interested candidate must:

• Hold a degree, diploma, or certificate from an eligible post-secondary institution in Canada.
  • The candidate must have graduated in the last three years and completed at least 50 percent of their studies within Canada.
• Have a job offer under NOC TEER category 1, 2 or 3.
  • Jobs under TEER category 0 are not eligible for this stream.

This program allows qualified graduates of a British Columbia post-secondary institution to settle in the province. No job offer is required to apply in this category. 

In order to qualify for this category, in addition to the general requirements, an interested candidate must:

• Hold an eligible Masters or Doctoral degree from a recognized post-secondary institution in British Columbia from which they graduated in the last three years.
  • Masters degrees must be in one of the following fields:
    • Agriculture
    • Biological and biomedical sciences
    • Computer and information sciences and support services
    • Engineering
    • Engineering technology
    • Health professions and related clinical sciences
    • Mathematics and statistics
    • Natural resources conservation and research
    • Physical sciences 
  • Doctoral degrees can be in any field. Candidates may also qualify if they are registered as a PhD student in a public B.C. post-secondary institution

Candidates may be eligible for this stream if they are currently working in British Columbia in an eligible occupation (see below) in the tourism/hospitality, or food processing sectors.

Candidates may also qualify if they are currently working in the North-East Development Region of the province in any NOC TEER 4 or 5 occupation other than live-in caregivers (NOC 44100).

In order to qualify for this category, in addition to the general requirements, an interested candidate must:

• have been working full-time for their employer for a minimum of nine consecutive months before applying.

Eligible Occupations

Occupations in travel and accommodation
64314 Hotel front desk clerks
 
Tour and recreational guides and casino occupations
64320 Tour and travel guides
64322 Outdoor sport and recreational guides
64321 Casino workers
 
Occupations in food and beverage service
64300 Maîtres d’hotel and hosts/hostesses
64301 Bartenders
65200 Food and beverage servers
65201 Food counter attendants, kitchen helpers and related support occupations
 
Cleaners (employed directly by hotels/resorts*)
65310 Light duty cleaners
65311 Specialized cleaners
65312 Janitors, caretakers and heavy-duty cleaners
65210 Support occupations in accommodation, travel and facilities set-up services
 
Other service occupations (employed directly by hotels/resorts)
65320 Dry cleaning, laundry and related occupations
65329 Other service support occupations
 
Food processing
94140 Process control and machine operators, food and beverage processing
94141 Industrial butchers and meat cutters, poultry preparers and related workers
94142 Fish and seafood plant workers
94143 Testers and graders, food and beverage processing
95106 Labourers in food and beverage processing
94142 Fish and seafood plant workers