Only your hourly rate of pay is scored. The BC PNP does not count bonuses, commissions, profit-sharing, tips or gratuities, overtime wages, housing allowances, or room and board.

If your offer states an annual salary, the hourly rate is calculated as annual wage ÷ 52 weeks ÷ hours worked per week.

Your main work location is where you regularly and physically report to work and can reasonably perform the duties in your job offer. If you work from home, your area is determined by your residential address.

Area 1 — Metro Vancouver Regional District: Anmore, Belcarra, Bowen Island, Burnaby, Coquitlam, Delta, City of Langley, Township of Langley, Lions Bay, Maple Ridge, New Westminster, City and District of North Vancouver, Pitt Meadows, Port Coquitlam, Port Moody, Richmond, Surrey, Vancouver, West Vancouver, White Rock, Electoral Area A and Tsawwassen First Nation.

Area 2 covers only the areas inside the municipal boundaries of Squamish, Abbotsford, Agassiz, Mission and Chilliwack. Area 3 is everywhere else in B.C.

Every NOC code carries a TEER category shown by the second digit of the five-digit code. TEER 0 is the highest skill category and TEER 5 the lowest. Only TEER 0 to 3 appear here because a registration requires an eligible skilled occupation in that range.

Your job offer must also be for one regular full-time position (at least an average of 30 hours per week, year-round) and must be indeterminate — no defined end date. A small number of occupations are exempt from the indeterminate rule; see Appendix A of the program guide.

Always check the excluded list. These occupations are not eligible for nomination under any Skills Immigration stream, and an application classified under one of them will be refused:

• 12100 Executive assistants
• 12101 Human resources and recruitment officers
• 12200 Accounting technicians and bookkeepers
• 13100 Administrative officers
• 13110 Administrative assistants
• 13111 Legal administrative assistants
• 13112 Medical administrative assistants
• 62010 Retail sales supervisors
• 62020 Food service supervisors
• 63101 Real estate agents and salespersons
• 41302 Religious leaders
• 42204 Religious workers

Several of these sit in TEER 2 and 3, so they look eligible on skill level alone. This list applies to applications submitted after 13 June 2026.

This answer also decides which related occupations can be counted below.

The BC PNP defines directly related work experience as paid employment classified under the same NOC code as your B.C. job offer. It may have been performed inside or outside Canada, and must have been obtained within the last 10 years.

• Full-time means at least 30 regular hours per week.
• Part-time experience is credited at 50% of its duration — 24 part-time months count as 12.
• Time on a leave of absence or extended leave is not counted, even if you stayed employed. Reasonable vacation is not deducted.
• Work experience must have been paid. Unpaid work does not count.
• Any work experience obtained while on a study permit will not be accepted, for points or for meeting criteria. Paid co-op work terms may still count if you completed the program, the term was full-time, and it was in a skilled occupation.
• Unpaid doctoral-level work experience may be accepted if you completed a doctorate at a public Canadian university, or hold a doctorate and have a job offer in NOC 41200 at a public B.C. university.

Experience under a different NOC code can also count, but only if that occupation sits at a TEER category equal to or higher in skill than your job offer — that is, the same TEER number or a lower one.

There is one reversal: for a TEER 0 job offer, a related TEER 1 occupation may also be considered, because nothing sits above TEER 0.

You must be able to demonstrate at application how the experience is directly related to the job offered.

This is a separate 10-point bonus. It requires directly related experience in Canada with an employer established in Canada, and:

• only time when you were legally authorized to work in Canada counts
• at 30+ hours per week you need at least 12 months
• under 30 hours per week you need at least 24 months
• student work that is not part of a paid co-op work term does not count toward this bonus

If your Canadian history mixes both, the two thresholds are the same rule: 24 part-time months is exactly double 12 full-time months, which is the same 50% part-time credit used above. So enter each separately and the test becomes full-time months + half your part-time months, reaching 12. Eight full-time and eight part-time months meet it; eight and four do not.

This experience should also be included in the month totals above — the two are not separate pools.

A second 10-point bonus. You must currently be working at least 30 regular hours per week in B.C., in the same NOC code and with the same employer named in your registration.

You are not eligible if the occupation in the job offer is a future promotion from your current occupation with that employer, or if your employment is unpaid.

Points are given for the highest single level you indicate — nothing stacks. If you hold both a bachelor's and a master's, only the master's scores.

• The credential must be successfully completed. Partial completion is not recognised.
• The duration of study must exceed six months.
• A bachelor's degree and a post-graduate certificate or diploma are both worth 15 points. Where you hold both, the one you indicate as your highest is the one the location points attach to.

These 5 points require two things at once: a job offer in one of the listed occupations, and the matching B.C. designation. Holding a designation that does not correspond to the job offered scores nothing.

Language points are based on the lowest Canadian Language Benchmark score of your four abilities — listening, speaking, reading and writing. One weak ability sets your whole score.

If you have taken tests in both English and French, enter your stronger test here. The second test is dealt with separately below and only affects the bilingual bonus.

A test may not be required for your stream, but you must submit valid results to claim any language points at all.