What changed
- On 18 February 2026 IRCC announced the year's categories, adding foreign medical doctors with Canadian work experience, researchers and senior managers with Canadian work experience, transport occupations, and skilled military recruits.
- Ten categories are current: French-language proficiency, healthcare and social services, STEM, trades, education, transport, physicians, senior managers, researchers and skilled military recruits.
- You do not apply to a category. IRCC identifies eligible candidates from the pool, ranks them by Comprehensive Ranking System score, and invites the highest.
What was announced on 18 February 2026
IRCC's release of that date set out the categories for the year. It named as new a category for foreign medical doctors with Canadian work experience, and new categories for researchers and senior managers with Canadian work experience, for candidates with work experience in transport occupations including pilots, aircraft mechanics and inspectors, and for highly skilled foreign military applicants recruited by the Canadian Armed Forces in roles such as military doctors, nurses and pilots.
The release also said invitation rounds would continue for candidates with strong French skills and for those with experience in categories already in place in 2025, naming health care and social services and the trades.
The first round for foreign medical doctors with Canadian work experience was said to be coming in the days after the announcement.
The ten categories as they stand
IRCC's category-based selection page lists them: French-language proficiency, healthcare and social services occupations, science, technology, engineering and math 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.
Four of those ten turn on Canadian work experience by their own titles, which is a different shape from a category defined by an occupation wherever it was worked.
The permanent residence page on this site carries what each one asks for alongside the rest of the Express Entry position.
How does a category round actually work?
The same pool, a narrower cut. A profile goes into the Express Entry pool if it is eligible for one of the three programs the system covers, and carries a Comprehensive Ranking System score.
In a category round IRCC identifies candidates in the pool who are eligible for the category the Minister established, ranks those candidates by their score, and invites the highest-ranking among them. The score still decides the order. The category decides who is in the queue at all.
That is why a category round can invite at a score well below a general round. The pool being drawn from is smaller.
An invitation carries 60 days to submit the application for permanent residence.
What actually puts a profile in a category
Work experience, measured in a way worth reading closely. Taking the healthcare and social services category as IRCC states it, a candidate has to have accumulated, within the past three years, at least 12 months of full-time work experience or an equal amount of part-time experience.
Three details in that sentence do the work. The experience has to be in a single occupation on the category's list, whatever the candidate's primary occupation is. It counts whether it was gained in Canada or abroad. And it does not need to have been continuous.
IRCC adds that full details come in the instructions for each round, so the round instruction rather than the category page is the document that governs a particular draw.
The detail sits on Permanent residence, which is kept current as the rules move.
