Canada has changed the rules for selecting candidates in the Express Entry professional categories. Immigration, Refugees and Citizenship Canada (IRCC) officially announced the changes on February 18, 2026, and updated the category selection criteria page on February 20. The main news is that for most professional categories, you now need to have at least 12 months of work experience in the relevant profession within the last three years.
What has changed
Previously, the rule was more lenient. The IRCC report to Parliament for 2024–2025 and the Express Entry Year-End Report 2024 clearly state that for occupation-based categories, at least 6 months of continuous experience in one of the approved occupations over the previous three years was previously sufficient. In other words, the transition from 6 months of continuous to 12 months of cumulative experience is a change confirmed by official documents, not an interpretation on social media.
Under the new rules, candidates for the professional category must accumulate 12 months of full-time experience or the equivalent of part-time experience over the past 3 years. An important difference from the old approach is that this experience does not have to be continuous. IRCC also specifies that the experience must be gained within one profession from the list of a specific category, regardless of which profession is listed as the primary occupation. For most categories, experience can be gained in Canada or abroad, but for certain new categories — doctors, senior managers, and researchers — it must be Canadian.
Important nuance
At the same time, there is an important nuance here. The wording “the new requirement applies to all Express Entry categories” is not entirely accurate. The French-language proficiency category continues to be based primarily on language criteria — NCLC 7 is required in all four language skills, rather than a separate year of experience in the profession. Similarly, skilled military recruits have separate conditions related to service, job offers from the Canadian Armed Forces, and education. Therefore, the 12-month rule applies specifically to occupation-based categories and new categories with Canadian experience, and not literally to all categories without exception.
What remains unchanged
Another point that remains unchanged is that the candidate must still first meet the minimum requirements of one of the three Express Entry programs — the Federal Skilled Worker Program, the Canadian Experience Class, or the Federal Skilled Trades Program. Only then can IRCC consider them as falling under a specific category and eligible for an invitation in a category-based draw.
How work experience is counted
How does IRCC count full-time and part-time employment? In the basic Express Entry rules, the agency continues to use the standard of 30 hours per week. For example, in the Federal Skilled Worker Program and Canadian Experience Class, one year of experience corresponds to 1,560 hours, and part-time work can be added to this equivalent. For FSWP, IRCC specifically emphasizes that hours over 30 per week are not counted, meaning that it is not possible to “work overtime” to gain a year of experience in a shorter period of time.
Express Entry priority categories in 2026
IRCC has identified the following Express Entry priority categories for 2026:
- French-language proficiency
- Healthcare and social services
- STEM
- Trades
- Education
- Transportation
- physicians with Canadian work experience
- senior managers with Canadian work experience
- researchers with Canadian work experience
- skilled military recruits
These categories are officially published on the Canadian government website.
Why did Canada make this change?
Why did Canada make this change? The IRCC's 2025 public consultation report states that the agency directly asked participants whether the requirement should be increased from 6 to 12 months. 58.2% of respondents supported this increase. Among the arguments were that six months is often not enough to develop in-depth professional skills, and that 12 months better confirms the candidate's real experience and seriousness of intent.
Conclusion
So, in short: the news is true, and it is based on official IRCC documents. But it would be more accurate to say that, starting February 18-20, 2026, Canada has increased the work experience requirement for Express Entry category-based selections from 6 months of continuous experience to 12 months of total experience over the last 3 years. Work experience can be gained through full-time or part-time employment, it does not have to be continuous, but it must be in one relevant profession. At the same time, the French-language category and skilled military recruits operate according to a separate logic.