Before you start

Language test results — IELTS General Training or CELPIP for English, TEF or TCF for French
An Educational Credential Assessment for qualifications earned outside Canada
A passport valid well beyond the intended stay
Proof of settlement funds for some Express Entry programmes

Step-by-step

1
Create an Express Entry profile first, whatever else you do
It is free, needs no employer, and is the pool a provincial nomination attaches to. Category-based draws targeting particular occupations — health care among them, which matters a great deal in a city where the hospitals are the largest employer — regularly clear well below the general cut-off.
OnlineWho: You
2
Read the current OINP page rather than any article about it
Ontario closed its previous nomination streams on 30 May 2026 and the Ontario Workforce Priority stream is now the only one open. Advice written before mid-2026, including material that still ranks well in search, names streams that have been withdrawn. Start from the province's own page.
OnlineWho: You
3
For a nomination, line up an employer — they start the application, not you
The surviving stream cannot be opened by the applicant. Your employer registers in Ontario's Employer Portal and submits the job offer, generating a job offer ID; you then have 30 calendar days to register an expression of interest, and 17 calendar days to apply if invited. Self-employed physicians with an OHIP billing number and College of Physicians and Surgeons of Ontario certification are the only applicants who can apply without a job offer — worth knowing in a city with three teaching hospitals and a chronic physician shortage in the surrounding counties.
Via employerWho: Your employer, then you
4
Sit the language test and get credentials assessed early
The Educational Credential Assessment commonly takes months and both it and language results expire. Start the assessment before the language test — it is the long pole, and regulated professions have their own separate recognition process on top of it.
OnlineWho: YouLanguage results ~2 weeks; assessment commonly 6–14 weeks
5
If you are a regulated professional, start the college process in parallel
Licensure in Ontario runs through the relevant regulatory college — the College of Nurses of Ontario, the CPSO, the Ontario College of Teachers — and is entirely separate from immigration. London's two largest employers are a hospital network and a school board, so for a large share of people moving here this is the practical bottleneck, and it does not wait for permanent residence.
OnlineWho: You
6
Gather police certificates for every country you have lived in
One for each country you lived in for six months or more since turning 18, not merely the most recent. Some issuing authorities take months and this is the most common reason a Canadian application stalls.
OnlineWho: You
7
Apply for a Social Insurance Number in your first week
Free, from Service Canada, with your passport and permit. Applying in person usually gets the number issued during the visit. No employer can run payroll without it, so this comes before the bank and before the health card.
In personWho: YouWeek 1

Documents you’ll need

Passport
Language test results (IELTS/CELPIP, or TEF/TCF)
Educational Credential Assessment for foreign qualifications
Police certificates for each country lived in six months or more since age 18
Immigration medical exam from a panel physician
Proof of settlement funds, where the programme requires it
A job offer ID from your employer's Employer Portal submission, for an Ontario nomination
Regulatory college registration documents, for licensed professions

Things most newcomers don’t know

Ontario closed every one of its nomination streams in 2026 and replaced them with one — and the replacement needs an employer.

The province withdrew its previous permanent-residence streams on 30 May 2026 and launched the Ontario Workforce Priority stream in their place; the OINP's own page now states that all other streams are closed. Two things follow. It stranded an enormous body of published advice — consultants' pages, forum threads and news articles all still describe streams you can no longer apply to, so if a source names a stream that is not on ontario.ca today, stop reading it. And the streams that needed no job offer went with the rest: the surviving route is employer-initiated, so a candidate sitting in the Express Entry pool with no employer no longer has a provincial door at all.

Source: Ontario — Ontario Immigrant Nominee Program

A provincial nomination is worth 600 points — but only on a TEER 0–3 occupation that also clears a federal stream.

The Comprehensive Ranking System tops out well below the score a nomination produces, so a nominated candidate is invited in the next relevant draw as a practical certainty. The catch in the new stream is that the Express Entry link is conditional: you get it if you applied on a TEER 0, 1, 2 or 3 occupation and separately meet the minimum criteria of a federal Express Entry stream. TEER 4 and 5 nominees are nominated outside Express Entry entirely, which is a different and slower path to the same status. Check which side of that line your occupation falls on before building a plan around 600 points.

Source: Ontario — Ontario Workforce Priority stream

In London the professional licence matters more than the visa for a very large share of arrivals.

Health care and education are not merely the biggest sectors here, they are most of the white-collar labour market: LHSC alone is nearly 15,000 people, St. Joseph's more on top, Western around 10,000 jobs and the Thames Valley board around 11,900 staff. For nurses, physicians, technologists, therapists and teachers, permanent residence is rarely the binding constraint — recognition by the Ontario regulatory college or the Ontario College of Teachers is, and it is a separate process with its own evidence requirements and its own queue. Starting it after landing rather than before is how people spend a year working outside their profession.

Source: community-reported, consistently corroborated

Choosing London over Toronto changes your rent, not your immigration position.

Ontario nominates for Ontario, and there is no regional immigration stream inside the province the way there is in Atlantic Canada or in British Columbia, where a nominee programme explicitly targets candidates outside the largest metro. Newcomers regularly ask whether a smaller Ontario city is an easier door. It is not — it is a cheaper city with exactly the same door.

Source: community-reported

Study permits here are a genuine route, and the post-graduation work permit rules have moved.

Western and Fanshawe between them are a large share of why anyone under 25 arrives in this city, and the study-then-work-then-PR path is the most common one locally. It is also the one where the federal rules have changed most since 2024 — caps on study permits, provincial attestation letters, and field-of-study restrictions on post-graduation work permit eligibility for some programmes. Verify eligibility on the IRCC page for the specific programme and the specific intake before paying tuition, not after.

Source: IRCC — Express Entry and study permit guidance

Common mistakes to avoid

Working from any OINP guidance written before mid-2026 — the streams it names were closed on 30 May 2026.
Waiting for an employer before creating a free Express Entry profile, which needs none — while assuming the reverse of the provincial route, which now needs one.
Missing the 30-day expression-of-interest window that opens when your employer submits the job offer.
Starting the regulatory college process after arrival rather than before.
Assuming a college programme leads to a post-graduation work permit without checking the current field-of-study rules.
Requesting only one police certificate when you have lived in three countries.
Starting work before the Social Insurance Number is issued and delaying your own first pay.

Some of this may be out of date. Spotted something inaccurate? Help us keep it right for the next newcomer.