There have been certain major changes to British Columbia’s Provincial Nominee Program. The province has closed many streams, paused some draws, and will only accept 1,100 new applications in 2025.
In addition, British Columbia plans to limit these new applications to front-line healthcare workers, entrepreneurs, and skilled workers with high economic impact.
The province also declared a moratorium on general and priority occupation draws for 2025 and will only nominate approximately 100 high-impact people from its registration pool, which has over 10,000 applicants.
The BC PNP also declared that it will not process International Post-Graduate applications obtained between September 1, 2024, and January 7, 2025, but will put them on a waitlist. All other IPG applications received in 2024 and early 2025 will be processed in 2025.
The province states that it will not launch its three new student streams ‘until British Columbia’s allocation levels are restored.’
The PNP will continue to issue invitations to apply under its entrepreneur stream.
The Health Authority stream is now limited to front-line healthcare workers. Before this change, it was open to Health Authority employees of any profession.
Early Childhood Educator Assistants will no longer be included in targeted education draws. These draws will instead focus only on Early Childhood Educators.
The province noted that they began 2025 with 5,200 applications in inventory & obtained an allocation of 4,000 provincial nominations. Of these, the province plans to allocate 2,900 nominations to some of the applications which have already been received.
These changes were declared on April 14, 2025.
Background
Along with the changes to British Columbia’s Provincial Nominee Program, let us also discuss a bit of a background as well.
Well, in October 2024, the federal government halved the landing allocation to the Provincial Nominee Program, reducing it from 110,000 in 2024 to 55,00 in 2025.
In January 2025, the federal government notified PNPs of a corresponding 50% reduction in their allocations for 2025 under their Provincial Nominee Programs, along with cuts to the Atlantic Immigration Program for Atlantic provinces.
With a significantly reduced allocation, many PNPs paused the opening of streams. They also made significant changes to the program eligibility and application processes.
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