How the median-wage rule counts your job

Every job in Canada has a five-digit National Occupational Classification (NOC 2021) code. IRCC looks at the median wage of everyone in Canada working under that code and compares it with the median wage of the whole Canadian workforce. If the occupation’s median is at least 1.3 times the national figure, it is a high-wage occupation.

• It is about the occupation, not your pay. A nurse earning less than average still counts; a highly paid cook does not, because cooks as a group are not on the list.
• Your NOC code must be the right one. Use the code that matches your actual duties, the same one you put in your Express Entry profile.
• Three years of data. IRCC uses Job Bank, Labour Force Survey and Census wage data from the last three years (2023 to 2025 for the first list). Each occupation gets the highest tier it reached in any of those years.
• Your tier is locked when you are invited. If IRCC later moves your occupation up, down or off the list, the tier on the day of your invitation still applies to that invitation.
• 186 occupations are on the first list. IRCC has not published the dollar value of the national median it uses.

See all 186 occupations and their tiers

The high-wage add-on sits on top of the points you already get for years of skilled work in Canada (up to 80, or 70 with a spouse). To earn it you need at least 12 months of eligible Canadian experience in high-wage occupations.

• Eligible experience: paid, authorised work in Canada, in the last 10 years, in a TEER 0, 1, 2 or 3 job.
• 12 months = 1,560 hours. Full-time or the equivalent in part-time hours. It does not have to be continuous.
• Several jobs can be combined. Holding two jobs at once only counts up to 30 hours a week in total.
• Checked from the top tier down:
  1. 12+ months in 2× occupations earns 70.
  2. Otherwise, 12+ months combined in 1.5× or 2× occupations earns 40.
  3. Otherwise, 12+ months combined across all high-wage occupations earns 20.
• Skill transferability is unchanged. Those points still use your total years of Canadian work, whatever the occupation.

A written job offer in a high-wage occupation is worth 100 (2×), 70 (1.5×) or 50 (1.3×) points. No Labour Market Impact Assessment (LMIA) is needed from November 3, 2026.

• Paid, full-time (30 hours a week or more), not seasonal, and continuous.
• For at least one year after you become a permanent resident.
• In a TEER 0, 1, 2 or 3 job, from an employer IRCC can confirm is genuine.
• No minimum experience. The 12-month rule applies only to the experience add-on. A qualifying offer earns its points even with less than a year in the job, or none at all.
• Your current job can be the offer. It does not have to be a new or future job. Your current employer can give you a recent letter offering continued full-time work for at least a year after you become a permanent resident. The letter you got when you were hired usually is not enough on its own, especially if it ends with your work permit.
• Experience is not an offer. Working in a high-wage job, for any length of time, never earns job-offer points by itself. You need the written offer.
• Offers outside the high-wage list earn no CRS points, though they can still count for program eligibility.
• Higher route wins. You get the job-offer points or your work-experience points, whichever is higher. The maximum for this factor is 150, or 140 with a spouse.
• Physicians offering publicly funded services have their own rules.

All examples are without a spouse unless stated. Salaries are illustrative: your own pay never changes these points.

Pay does not change the points, but duties matter. IRCC checks that what you actually do matches the NOC description, not just your job title, and that a job offer is genuine and follows employment law. A wage far below what the occupation normally pays will not remove points by rule, but it can prompt questions about whether the job really belongs to that NOC. Make sure your reference and offer letters describe duties that match it.