Rural Community Immigration Pilot (formerly RNIP)

The Rural and Northern Immigration Pilot is closed. It has been replaced by the Rural Community Immigration Pilot, which runs on the same idea, a job offer from an employer a community has designated, followed by a community recommendation and then a permanent residence application. If you have been reading about the RNIP, this is the programme you actually need to look at now. There is also a Francophone Community Immigration Pilot, which is the French language stream of the same design.

Run your own numbers against the published rules. Nothing you enter leaves this page.

There are three steps and they happen in this order. First, the community designates employers who cannot fill roles locally. Second, you get a job offer from one of those designated employers, and the employer sends your community recommendation application to the community, which checks that the job sits in a priority sector or occupation, that the offer is real, and that you meet the requirements of the pilot.

Third, with the community recommendation in hand, you apply to IRCC for permanent residence. There is also an optional work permit route so you can start the job while the permanent residence application is processed.

Notice where the decisions sit. The community decides whether to recommend you. IRCC decides the permanent residence application. Neither of them is a formality, and the first one is where most people are stopped.

You need a valid job offer from an employer designated by one of the fourteen communities, at least one year of related paid work experience, 1,560 hours, in the past three years, an approved language test, a Canadian educational credential or a foreign one with an equivalency assessment, and enough settlement money for your family.

The language minimum depends on the TEER category of the job offer: CLB 6 for TEER 0 or 1, CLB 5 for TEER 2 or 3, and CLB 4 for TEER 4 or 5.

Work experience has to line up with the offer. A TEER 0 or 1 offer accepts experience from TEER 0, 1, 2 or 3. A TEER 2 offer accepts TEER 1, 2, 3 or 4. A TEER 3 or 4 offer accepts TEER 2, 3 or 4. A TEER 5 offer only accepts experience under the same five digit NOC code. Self-employment and unpaid work do not count, and there are separate rules for healthcare workers and for graduates of a school in the community.

The most common failure is an offer that does not sit in a priority occupation for that particular community, which the applicant only discovers when the recommendation is refused.

Second is work experience that does not match the TEER rules above, or that cannot be evidenced properly with dates, hours and duties.

Third is a file that reads as a route to Canada rather than a move to that community. The pilot exists to bring people to places that need workers, and the recommendation stage is where that is judged.