Job Offer Points: Will They Ever Come Back to Express Entry?
Will job offer points return to express entry overview — that’s the exact question every candidate who lost points on 25 March 2025 keeps typing into a search bar, and the honest answer as of August 2026 is: maybe, for some people, but not yet and not automatically.
What actually happened in 2025
On 25 March 2025, IRCC removed CRS points for arranged employment entirely — the 200 points that used to apply to a qualifying senior-management job offer, and the 50 points for other skilled job offers. Points were stripped automatically from every profile already in the pool, current and future. IRCC framed the move as a temporary anti-fraud measure aimed at the illegal buying and selling of LMIAs, and gave no end date.
What the 2026 consultation actually proposes
Between 23 April and 24 May 2026, IRCC ran a public consultation — this is the express entry reform consultation 2026 reference worth knowing in detail. Its discussion paper floats a high wage job offer points proposal: new CRS points for Canadian work experience in high-wage jobs and for valid job offers in high-wage roles, using an occupational list benchmarked at 2×, 1.5× or 1.3× the national median wage. IRCC is explicit that this is meant as a way to bring job-offer points back while managing the fraud risk that caused their removal in the first place.
The same paper is also an ircc proposal merge fsw cec fstp into a single Federal High Skilled programme with shared minimums, and floats widening the LMIA exemption for offers judged low-risk — for example, where a candidate has already worked for that employer on a valid permit, including an open work permit, for at least six months.
How long the zero has held
By the time this consultation ran, in April and May 2026, the zero-point rule had already been in force for over a year. Every profile in the pool during that entire stretch — including any that once carried the old 200-point or 50-point job-offer bonus — competed on the same footing, regardless of whether a job offer sat behind their application or not.
What is real right now, and what isn’t
Real, as of today: zero CRS points for any job offer, of any kind. That has been true continuously since 25 March 2025.
Not real yet: everything in the consultation paper. High-wage job-offer points, the FSW/CEC/FSTP merger, and the wider LMIA exemption all require amendments to the Immigration and Refugee Protection Regulations and to the Ministerial Instructions. IRCC gave no implementation date for any of it, and explicitly excluded categories — the healthcare, trades, French-language and similar draws — from this consultation’s scope entirely.
The practical answer
The bottom line on whether job-offer points are coming back to Express Entry is this: possibly, eventually, and only for high-wage roles if the proposal survives the regulatory process unchanged. Nothing about it should factor into a plan being built today.
Until this becomes an actual Ministerial Instruction, treat any promise about your own CRS score with a healthy dose of scepticism, and check anything specific with a licensed RCIC or immigration lawyer. For now, the only number that matters is zero.