New Brunswick PNP in 2026: Which Streams Are Open, Who Is Shut Out, and What to Do Next

The New Brunswick PNP is open, but it is not inviting everyone. Since May 4, 2026, invitations under the Skilled Worker stream's New Brunswick Experience pathway go only to health care, education and construction occupations, and the Skilled Worker and Express Entry streams exclude 14 occupations outright plus candidates working in accommodation and food services.

Amir Ansari, RCIC, Ansari Immigration (Vancouver). Reviewed October 2026.

That matters more than it sounds. An expression of interest is free, so there is nothing to stop you filing one in an excluded occupation. It then sits in the candidate pool for 365 days and is never invited, and you have no way to tell the difference between "not selected yet" and "structurally ineligible." Worse, if you try to improve your odds by running more than one active file, Immigration New Brunswick's own guidance is blunt: "If you submit more than one active application, all of them could be refused." The fix is to read the restriction list before you file, not after. New Brunswick publishes it on one page, the Immigration New Brunswick important notices page.

Is New Brunswick PNP open now?

Yes. The New Brunswick Provincial Nominee Program is open and running scheduled draws, but two of its four streams carry live sector and occupation restrictions, one pilot is closed to anyone not employed by six named companies, and the Atlantic Immigration Program sitting beside it has paused employer designation for the rest of 2026.

There are four streams and two pilots. Only three of them are drawn on a schedule.

Stream or pilot	Who it is for	Status as at October 2026	Application fee
New Brunswick Skilled Worker stream	Workers with a full-time, non-seasonal NB job or job offer	Open, drawn on a schedule. New Brunswick Experience pathway restricted to health care, education and construction since May 4, 2026	$250
New Brunswick Express Entry stream	Highly skilled workers already in the federal Express Entry pool	Open, drawn on a schedule. Subject to the February 3, 2026 NAICS 72 and NOC restrictions	$250
New Brunswick Strategic Initiative	French-speaking candidates, including a remote-work pathway	Open, drawn on a schedule. Not named in either restriction notice	$250
New Brunswick Business Immigration stream	Entrepreneurs starting or buying a NB business	Open. Candidates needing net worth verification are now encouraged to contact Doane Grant Thornton LLP or MNP LLP	$2,000
New Brunswick Critical Worker Pilot	Employees of six participating employers	"Not currently open to broader participation." No direct candidate applications	Not stated
New Brunswick Private Career College Graduate Pilot	Graduates of participating private career colleges who cannot get a PGWP	Extended in a limited capacity to the end of 2027	$250

Source: Immigration New Brunswick, New Brunswick Provincial Nominee Program and Important notices. Verified October 2026.

The Critical Worker Pilot is the one worth settling first, because it is the more restricted of the two pilots. It is a five-year pilot, and New Brunswick states plainly that "the program does not accept direct applications from interested candidates." Candidate applications are made through the participating employer, and there are six: Cooke Aquaculture, J.D. Irving Ltd., Groupe Savoie, Groupe Westco, Imperial Manufacturing Group and McCain Foods, Ltd. If you do not work for one of those, the pilot is not a route for you this year. That is the same shape as the Yukon Nominee Program, where the answer to "how do I apply" is also "you do not, your employer does."

The sector and NOC restrictions on the New Brunswick PNP

Two separate restrictions are running at once, they were announced five months apart, and they do different things. They are easy to conflate, and conflating them is how a candidate ends up checking the wrong list.

February 3, 2026, sector restriction. Immigration New Brunswick is not considering any expressions of interest for issuing any invitations to apply to candidates working in the accommodation and food services sector, NAICS 72. It applies to both the New Brunswick Skilled Worker stream and the New Brunswick Express Entry stream. The notice lists 13 NOC codes and is explicit that the list "includes, but is not limited to" them, so the test is the employer's sector, not your job title.

The carve-out most people miss. The same notice says candidates in these types of jobs "can still submit an expression of interest if they are employed by a business not directly in the accommodation or food service sector (NAICS 72)." A cook employed by a hospital and a cook employed by a restaurant can hold the same NOC and sit on opposite sides of this line.

The occupation restriction, regardless of sector. Separately, Immigration New Brunswick is not considering expressions of interest or issuing invitations to candidates working in 14 named occupations, whatever sector their employer is in. No carve-out applies to this list.

Restriction	Basis	NOC codes named
NAICS 72, accommodation and food services	Employer's sector, list not exhaustive	60030, 62020, 62021, 62024, 62200, 63200, 63202, 64300, 64301, 64314, 65200, 65201, 65310
All sectors	Occupation itself	14400, 60020, 62010, 62101, 63201, 64100, 64409, 65100, 65101, 65102, 65202, 94142, 95106, 95107
New Brunswick Experience pathway, since May 4, 2026	Sector of the occupation	Not listed by code. Limited to health care, education and construction

Source: Immigration New Brunswick, Important notices. Verified October 2026.

The province says why, in one sentence, and it is worth quoting because it tells you how durable this is: "This measure is being implemented due to limited remaining allocation under this stream."

So which test applies to you?

Three questions, in order. Is your employer in accommodation and food services? If yes, the February 3 restriction applies unless your employer is not directly in that sector. Is your NOC one of the 14 all-sector codes? If yes, no stream carve-out helps. Are you applying through the New Brunswick Experience pathway? If yes, your occupation also has to sit in health care, education or construction. A worker can clear the first two tests and still fail the third, which is why checking the February list alone is not enough.

What New Brunswick's own draw data shows about the May 4 limit

New Brunswick's published round data shows the May 4 limit taking hold: the New Brunswick Experience pathway went from selecting all sectors on May 3, 2026 to construction trades and health care only in every round since in which that pathway was drawn without the Graduates pathway beside it. New Brunswick lists every invitation round, including the pathways drawn and the occupational categories selected, on its invitation and selection rounds page. Tabulate the ten Skilled Worker rounds of 2026 and the restriction stops being an announcement and becomes a measurement.

Round	Pathways drawn	Occupational categories selected	Invitations
January 13 to 15, 2026	NB Experience, NB Graduates	All sectors	244
February 11, 2026	NB Experience, NB Graduates	Health care	196
March 3 to 6, 2026	NB Experience, NB Graduates	Health care, education social and community services, construction trades, professional occupations	279
May 1, 2026	NB Experience, NB Graduates	Healthcare	87
May 3, 2026	NB Experience, NB Graduates	All sectors	113
June 3, 2026	NB Experience	Construction trades, health care	243
June 3, 2026	NB Graduates	Education social and community services, construction trades, health care, transportation	138
July 16 to 18, 2026	NB Experience, NB Priorities	Construction trades, health care	58
July 18, 2026	NB Graduates	Eight categories including manufacturing, other trades, professional and IT, sales and services, transportation	209
September 15 to 18, 2026	NB Graduates, NB Experience	Construction, education social and community services, manufacturing, other trades, professional and IT, sales and services	197

Source: Immigration New Brunswick, invitation and selection rounds. Verified October 2026. Total across the ten published rounds: 1,764 invitations.

Four things fall out of that table.

The last broad round was May 3, 2026, one day before the limit took effect: "All sectors," 113 invitations. Every round since in which the New Brunswick Experience pathway was drawn without the Graduates pathway beside it has been narrow. June 3 drew that pathway alone and selected two categories, construction trades and health care, for 243 invitations. July 16 to 18 drew it alongside New Brunswick Priorities and selected the same two categories for 58.

Second, and this is the part worth knowing before you count on the notice: education did not appear. In both rounds since May 4 where the New Brunswick Experience pathway was drawn without the Graduates pathway beside it, the published categories were construction trades and health care only, even though education is one of the three sectors the notice names. Ansari Immigration treats that round table as the operative document and the sector notice as a statement of intention, because an expression of interest sits in the pool for a year either way.

Third, the New Brunswick Graduates pathway was not restricted and the data shows it. Drawn separately on July 18, it selected eight occupational categories and issued 209 invitations, including health care but also manufacturing, other trades, professional and IT, and sales and services. If you are a graduate of a New Brunswick designated learning institution, the May 4 limit is not aimed at you.

Fourth, the latest round cannot be read by pathway at all. The September 15 to 18 round lists New Brunswick Graduates and New Brunswick Experience together in one row with six categories and no health care at all, and New Brunswick does not break the categories down by pathway. So from the published data alone you cannot tell whether that round respected the May 4 limit. No published New Brunswick page splits a round's categories by pathway, so until one does, that is an open question rather than a contradiction.

Also worth noting: there was no Skilled Worker round in April and none in August.

Has the sector limit changed what you were planning? If you were drawn, or passed over, in one of those rounds, the dates and categories in the comments help the next person reading this. Keep it general, and for advice on your own file use a consultation.

How to get PNP in New Brunswick?

New Brunswick runs an expression of interest system, not a first-come queue. You tell the province about yourself, it invites the candidates it wants, and only then do you file an application. Five steps:

1. Create an INB account and submit an expression of interest. It is free, and you choose a stream rather than a pathway. Your answers to the questionnaire determine your eligibility under all applicable pathways of that stream.

2. Wait in the candidate pool. Expressions of interest "remain valid for 365 days from the date of submission." Invitations go "only to selected individuals based on provincial labour market needs, available allocation and other priorities determined by the Government of New Brunswick."

3. If invited, submit a complete nomination application within the timeline in your invitation letter, and pay the non-refundable $250 application fee ($2,000 for the Business Immigration stream).

4. Survive the completeness check, then the assessment. New Brunswick warns that assessment "may take several months," and that you may be asked for more documents, "receive a phone call from an officer (private number)," or receive a procedural fairness letter outlining concerns about your eligibility.

5. If nominated, you receive a nomination certificate through the INB portal, then apply to IRCC for permanent residence.

Think of the expression of interest as putting your name on a list a hiring manager reads, not as submitting a job application. Nothing you send at that stage is assessed on its merits, nobody checks your documents, and no decision is made. The application is the interview, and you only get one if you are picked off the list. So if you renewed your language test or changed employers after filing, which of the two does New Brunswick actually have on file? The expression of interest, which is why it has to be kept current rather than filed and forgotten.

One active file per profile, and the trap in it

An INB profile can have only one active expression of interest or application. If you want to be in both the New Brunswick Provincial Nominee Program pool and the Atlantic Immigration Program pool, the province's own instruction is to "create a separate INB profile using a different email address for each program." That is the situation the page addresses. You can be in both pools, but you can only move forward with one. If you receive an invitation under a Provincial Nominee Program stream, you must withdraw all your other submissions, and if your Atlantic Immigration Program endorsement application is selected at the same time, you must choose one and withdraw the other. The sentence that follows is the one to remember: "If you submit more than one active application, all of them could be refused."

New Brunswick PNP requirements by stream

New Brunswick PNP requirements start at age 19 and a language test, with the required level running from CLB 4 in the Skilled Worker and Business Immigration streams to CLB 5 in the private career college pilot, CLB 7 in the Express Entry stream, and NCLC 5 in French in the Strategic Initiative. Education is set by stream or by pathway rather than across the program. The thresholds differ more than third-party summaries suggest, and two of the differences change who is eligible.

Requirement	Skilled Worker	Express Entry	Strategic Initiative	Business Immigration
Age	At least 19	19 to 55	At least 19	19 to 59
Language	CLB 4 in all four skills	CLB 7 in all four skills	NCLC 5 in all four French skills	CLB 4 in all four skills
Education	Set by pathway (high school for most)	Canadian high school diploma or foreign equivalent	Canadian high school diploma or foreign equivalent	Canadian high school diploma or foreign equivalent
Work experience	Set by pathway	1 year continuous in the past 10 years, one NOC, TEER 0 to 3	1 year in the past 5 years, waived for NB post-secondary graduates	2 years of qualifying experience in the last 5
Employer operating in NB	Past 24 months	Past 24 months	Past 12 months	n/a
Selection grid	None published	At least 67/100	At least 65/100	65/100
Fee	$250	$250	$250	$2,000

Source: Immigration New Brunswick stream pages, Skilled Worker, Express Entry, Strategic Initiative and Business Immigration. Verified October 2026.

The two differences that decide cases:

Six months with the same employer, or twelve months with any. The Skilled Worker stream's New Brunswick Experience pathway asks for "at least six months of full-time work experience with the same employer" and six months living in the province. The Express Entry stream's Employment in New Brunswick pathway asks for twelve months living and working full time in the province, in TEER 0 to 3 only, but explicitly "with one or many New Brunswick employers." If you have changed jobs inside New Brunswick, the longer requirement may be the one you actually meet.

TEER matters on one side only. The Express Entry stream is restricted to TEER 0, 1, 2 or 3 throughout. The Skilled Worker stream sets no TEER floor in its general criteria. That is why a worker in a lower TEER occupation can be eligible for a nomination in New Brunswick and still have no route through Express Entry.

The Strategic Initiative is the least discussed of the three streams that run scheduled draws, and for a francophone candidate it is the one most worth checking. It needs NCLC 5 in all four French skills rather than an English test, it accepts employers who have operated in New Brunswick for 12 months rather than 24, and it has a pathway for people who have lived in New Brunswick for 12 months while "working remotely for a Canadian employer located outside of Quebec" for that entire period. For a francophone candidate already in the province, it is a genuinely different door.

If your occupation is shut out, here are the honest options

If your occupation is restricted, four routes are worth checking before you give up on New Brunswick: the accommodation and food services carve-out, the francophone Strategic Initiative, the Graduates pathway, and an Atlantic Immigration Program endorsement. Not all four will apply to you, and they are listed in the order worth working through.

• Check whether your employer is really in NAICS 72. The February 3 carve-out is the cheapest fix available, and it turns on the employer's sector rather than your job title. If your work is in a hospital, a school board, a manufacturer or a retailer's head office, the restriction may not reach you even though your NOC is on the list.

• If you have French at NCLC 5, look at the Strategic Initiative. It is named in neither restriction notice, and its rounds are not small. It issued 251 invitations on September 11, 2026 and 254 on July 16, 2026, more than the Skilled Worker stream's 197 in its most recent round.

• If you studied in New Brunswick, check the Graduates pathway rather than the Experience pathway. The May 4 limit names only the New Brunswick Experience pathway, and the Graduates pathway's July 18 round selected eight occupational categories.

• Consider the Atlantic Immigration Program, with your eyes open. Endorsement is now available for all occupations except NOC 14400, 60030, 62020 and 94142, but TEER 5 occupations are not eligible, employer designation intake is paused for the rest of 2026, and endorsement for anyone residing outside Canada is limited to Government of New Brunswick recruitment in health care, education and construction. Our guide to AIP designated employers covers what designation does and does not get you.

If your work permit is the thing running out, do not wait for a provincial answer to arrive in time. Immigration New Brunswick states that it "is unable to provide processing times for individual applications and cannot guarantee that an application will be evaluated or approved before a work permit expires," and in the Atlantic Immigration Program section of the same notices page it points employers and workers to federal options, "including the Temporary Foreign Worker Program (TFWP) and Labour Market Impact Assessment (LMIA) to support work permit extensions, where applicable." Separately, a nominee can contact Immigration New Brunswick to "ask for a work permit support letter," which is a different route again. Keeping status is your responsibility throughout, and our work permit page sets out which extension applies when.

Three signs your New Brunswick file needs a professional read before you spend another 365 days in the pool: your NOC appears on either restriction list, your employer sits near the NAICS 72 line rather than clearly inside or outside it, or you are already nominated and something about your job has changed. Any one of those is worth a 30-minute eligibility check with Ansari Immigration's licensed RCIC ($80).

Check whether you are still eligible

What the New Brunswick PNP does not publish

Four of the most-searched questions about this program have no published answer, and knowing that saves you from trusting a number somebody invented.

No processing times. On its notices page New Brunswick states that it "is unable to provide processing times for individual applications and cannot guarantee that an application will be evaluated or approved before a work permit expires." Separately, on the nomination page, it says assessment "may take several months to complete" because of a high volume of applications. Neither page gives a figure for any stream.

No cut-off score for the Skilled Worker stream. There is no score to beat. The Express Entry stream, Strategic Initiative and Business Immigration stream each have a selection factor grid you must reach to be eligible, 67/100, 65/100 and 65/100, but those are eligibility thresholds, not draw cut-offs, and the Skilled Worker stream publishes no grid at all. New Brunswick selects on labour market need, allocation and provincial priorities. If you are used to Manitoba or British Columbia publishing a cut-off after every round, this program does not work that way, and no New Brunswick PNP points calculator can tell you your odds. Our BC PNP calculator guide explains what a scored system looks like by contrast.

No New Brunswick allocation figure. IRCC's supplementary information for the 2026 to 2028 Immigration Levels Plan (page modified October 13, 2026) sets a national Provincial Nominee Program target of 91,500 admissions for 2026, with a range of 82,000 to 105,000, and rises to 92,500 for 2027 and 2028. It publishes no per-province nomination allocations. So when New Brunswick explains a restriction by pointing to "limited remaining allocation under this stream," there is no published number against which a candidate can check how limited. Any specific 2026 New Brunswick allocation figure you see quoted elsewhere is an estimate, not an official one.

A question licensed representatives kept asking. An internal IRCC record released under the Access to Information Act, listing the subject lines in the department's Representative Support mailbox for January and February 2026 (file A-2026-19052, 1,177 distinct subject lines across 3,431 messages), contains the subject "inquiry regarding federal stage pr application after provincial nomination" under six separate subject-line variants, alongside "query about enhanced nomination proof of fund requirement" and "question about enhanced nomination eligibility with teer 4/5 job." Licensed representatives were writing to the department about the post-nomination federal stage repeatedly inside a two-month window. The release is an index of subject lines and metadata, not the replies, so it shows which questions were being put to IRCC and not how IRCC answered them. Treat it as a measure of where candidates and their representatives were looking for guidance, not as proof that none exists.

After you are nominated: what the certificate does and does not let you do

A nomination is not the finish line, and the rule most worth knowing before you are nominated is the one about withdrawing.

You cannot withdraw a nomination in order to reapply inside New Brunswick. Two live official pages say so in different words. The nomination page states: "Once nominated, you and your family members cannot apply, or withdraw the nomination certificate to reapply, under any other program or stream in New Brunswick." The Critical Worker Pilot page puts the same rule more precisely: "If you have already received a nomination certificate from the Province of New Brunswick, withdrawing that certificate for the purpose of reapplying under another immigration program or stream administered by Immigration New Brunswick is not permitted." The rule bites on the purpose rather than the act. Withdrawal itself still exists, and New Brunswick publishes the form for it, NB-011 Withdrawal of Nomination Application or Certificate, on every stream page. What you cannot do is use it as a route into a different New Brunswick stream.

So if the May 4 sector limit reaches your occupation, the time to change stream is before a nomination is issued, not after. Picture it as a turnstile rather than a door: it lets you through to the federal stage, and it does not let you back out into the provincial queue.

The six-month clock is published, but not where you would look for it. The Critical Worker Pilot page states: "The nomination certificate will be valid for six months from the date of issuance and is considered valid if you submit a complete application for PR before the expiry date on the nomination certificate." The main New Brunswick Provincial Nominee Program page gives no duration at all. It says only that a nominee is expected to apply to IRCC "before your endorsement certificate expires." Checked on the main nomination page this month, the words "six months" do not appear anywhere on it, and on the Skilled Worker stream page they appear only in the work experience and residency criteria. The number that governs your filing deadline sits on a pilot page most candidates will never open.

What you have to tell the province, and what you have to ask for. The nomination page lists five reasons you must contact Immigration New Brunswick: to "report changes in employment", to correct an error on your nomination certificate, to "ask for a work permit support letter", to "ask to extend the validity of your nomination certificate", and to withdraw from the program. The Critical Worker Pilot page states the standing obligation in one line: "you must maintain the conditions of your nomination while you are awaiting a decision on your PR application." An extension is a request you have to make, not something that happens on its own, and a change in your job is something you report rather than something you hope goes unnoticed.

Your family members are decided at this point, not later. The nomination page requires that your family members "must be included in your permanent residence application, either as accompanying or non-accompanying", and your certificate will say whether you apply through the Express Entry process or the non-Express Entry process.

If you are holding a nomination certificate and unsure what it obliges you to do, our explainer on what a confirmation of nomination is and on whether you must live in the province that nominated you both pick up where this section ends. For the federal stage itself, the permanent residence and provincial nominee program pages set out what happens after the certificate arrives.

Frequently asked questions about the New Brunswick PNP

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Related Posts

• Yukon Nominee Program in 2026: Why the Yukon program cannot be applied to directly, and what its EOI points actually score.

• Atlantic Immigration Program designated employers: What employer designation decides for an Atlantic candidate, and what it does not.

• Nova Scotia EOI validity period: How a neighbouring province's 12-month expression of interest rule compares with New Brunswick's 365 days.

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Why work with Ansari Immigration

Doing this alone: you read two restriction notices, guess whether your employer counts as NAICS 72, and may learn 365 days later that your expression of interest was never going to be invited.

With Ansari Immigration: the firm's licensed RCIC checks your NOC and your employer's sector against both notices first, and says plainly when no New Brunswick stream fits. Express Entry with a provincial nomination is a flat $4,000, quoted upfront.

Which stream did you land on after reading this, and did the restriction lists change your answer? Tell us in the comments, keep it general, and for advice on your specific case book a consultation.

Book a 30-minute consultation ($80)

This article is for general information only. It is not legal advice. Program criteria, requirements, processing times, and selection approaches can change without notice. Always confirm details on official government websites or consult a licensed Regulated Canadian Immigration Consultant (RCIC) for advice specific to your situation.