Comparing the Express Entry Markedly Category Lists of 2023 Through 2026

“Wait, is agriculture still a category?” is a version of a question that comes up often enough to be worth a proper answer. Comparing Express Entry category lists by year turns out to be the fastest way to settle it, because the list genuinely has moved every single year since it started.

2023 — the launch year (from 31 May)

• French-language proficiency
• Healthcare occupations
• STEM occupations
• Trade occupations
• Transport occupations
• Agriculture and agri-food occupations

Six categories, all announced together as the first-ever round of category-based selection, with the first actual draw (healthcare) landing on 28 June 2023.

2024 — unchanged

• Same six categories as 2023, carried forward without additions or removals.

The category names stayed put through 2024 while, separately, general all-program draws stopped in April of that year — a bigger structural shift than anything happening inside the category list itself.

2025 — a genuine reshuffle (from 27 February)

• French-language proficiency
• Health care and social services (renamed and broadened from “healthcare occupations”)
• Trades
• Education (new)
• ~~STEM~~ — still technically eligible, but received no draws
• ~~Transport~~ — received no draws
• ~~Agriculture and agri-food~~ — received no draws

This was the year the six-category structure actually broke: one category was renamed and widened, one was added, and three effectively went dormant even though nothing officially confirmed they’d been retired.

2026 — the biggest single-year change yet (from 18 February)

• French-language proficiency — continuing
• Health care and social services — continuing
• Trades — continuing
• Physicians with Canadian work experience (added December 2025)
• Senior managers with Canadian work experience (new)
• Researchers with Canadian work experience (new)
• Transport occupations (new occupation list — pilots, aircraft mechanics and inspectors, not the 2023–24 list)
• Skilled military recruits (new)
• STEM and education remain listed as eligible categories but have not had a 2026 draw as of 23 July
• ~~Agriculture and agri-food~~ — removed from the current list entirely

What the comparison actually shows

Look at the four years side by side and a pattern emerges: only French-language proficiency, healthcare-related occupations and trades have run every single year since 2023. Everything else — STEM, transport, education, agriculture, and now the newer “Canadian work experience” categories — has come, gone quiet, been renamed, or arrived only recently. That’s not a criticism of the system; it reflects a Minister making fresh instructions each year based on that year’s labour-market priorities, which by design can shift annually. Looking at which categories were added or dropped each year, rather than trying to remember last year’s list from memory, is the fastest way to keep your own reading of the programme accurate.

What this means if you’re planning around a category

Don’t assume this year’s list is next year’s list. If your occupation sits on a category today, that’s useful right now, but it isn’t a guarantee for the following year. A licensed RCIC or immigration lawyer can help you think through a plan that doesn’t depend entirely on one category surviving unchanged.

Cape2Canada’s free guides get updated each time IRCC announces a new category slate, so you’re not stuck relying on a list from a year or two back.