By Victor Ing,
Special to The Post

On February 18, 2026, the Department of Immigration, Refugees and Citizenship Canada (IRCC) released its finalized list of skills and occupational categories that will receive priority invitations to apply under Canada’s Express Entry system in 2026. For most of 2025 IRCC’s list included only six categories but it has now been revamped to include the newly created category targeting foreign medical doctors with Canadian work experience, which we recently blogged about, as well as four new additions for researchers and senior managers with Canadian work experience, candidates with experience in select transport occupations, and skilled military recruits. In this blog, we will review these major changes to the Express Entry system and let you know what to look out for in the coming months.

Firstly, the new occupational categories that made IRCC’s 2026 priority list are:

Transport occupations: This category targets workers with experience in the following National Occupational Classification (NOC) codes:

72600 (air pilots, flight engineers and flying instructors)

72410 (automotive service technicians, truck and bus mechanics, and mechanical repairers)

72404 (aircraft mechanics and aircraft inspectors)

22313 (aircraft instrument, electrical and avionics mechanics, technicians and inspectors)

Senior managers with Canadian work experience: This category targets senior managers working in occupations classified under the following NOC codes:

00012 (managers in financial, communications and business services)

00013 (managers in health, education, social and community services and membership organizations)

00014 (managers in trade, broadcasting and other services)

00015 (managers in construction, transportation, production and utilities)

Please pay close attention to the specific NOC classifications included in the “senior” managers category. In contrast to middle management positions, these NOC codes start with the digits ‘00’, which denotes positions occupied by high level executives who typically hold titles such as CEO, CFO, president, vice-president, or general manager.

Researchers with Canadian work experience: This category targets post-secondary teaching and research assistants (NOC 41201) and university professors and lecturers (NOC 41200).

Skilled military recruits: This category targets foreign skilled military applicants who have received an offer of arranged employment with the Canadian Armed Forces (CAF) in the following three NOC codes:

43204 (operations members of the CAF)

42102 (specialized members of the CAF)

40042 (commissioned officers of the CAF)

Each of these newly created categories has unique eligibility requirements relating to experience (foreign or Canadian) and/or educational requirements that must be met to receive an invitation to apply. For more information, please refer to the official IRCC website to review these requirements.

Elsewhere, the agriculture and agri-food occupations category, which previously only included butchers, was quietly and unceremoniously dropped from the Express Entry list of priority categories, bringing the current list to a total of 10.

Why is this such big news? Canada’s targeted permanent resident admissions for 2026 and beyond is 380,000 newcomers per year, including 239,800 (63%) economic immigrants. Can you guess where Canada finds most of our new economic immigrants? You’re right! Express Entry is the flagship application management system that dominates the immigration landscape – it includes admissions under the Federal Skilled Worker Program, Federal Skilled Trades Program, and Canadian Experience Class. For this reason, any changes made to the Express Entry system naturally garner significant public attention. However, things are not always what they appear, which is why it is important to pay attention to IRCC’s invitations in the next few months.

Though there are now 10 categories that receive priority treatment under Canada’s Express Entry system, it is very important to know that IRCC does not treat each category equally – some categories such as the French-language proficiency category see regular preferential draws, whereas other categories languish or get outright eliminated. In my opinion, the best example of this is the outcast of the bunch: the Science, Technology, Engineering and Math (STEM) category. Not only has the STEM list of occupations been slashed over time, reducing eligibility for those with experience in the industry, but there also hasn’t been a draw targeting STEM candidates since almost two years ago on April 11, 2024!

As we frequently emphasize on our blog, the Canadian immigration landscape changes all the time, and it is almost a full-time job to stay on top of them. This is one of the reasons I decided to dedicate myself to only practicing immigration law over a decade ago when I left my previous full-service law firm. IRCC’s latest announcement will be exciting news to prospective immigrants who have prior experience or currently work in the newly created occupational categories, but they should remain cautiously optimistic until IRCC begins to issue invitations later this year. Until then, we will not know exactly how much IRCC prioritizes each new category, nor what will be considered a strong Comprehensive Ranking System or CRS score to receive a prioritized invitation under them.

Victor Ing is a lawyer of Sas & Ing Immigration Law Centre. He provides a full range of immigration services. For more information go to canadian-visa-lawyer.com or email [email protected].