OINP Employer Revenue Tiers: $1M / $500K / $250K Explained

By Dimple Verma, RCIC-IRB R708308 · VG Immigration Services Inc.

Published Sunday, June 28, 2026 · Updated to reflect Ontario Regulation 422/17 as consolidated June 25, 2026

Why Ontario built three employer revenue tiers — and which one applies to your file

Under the old OINP, an employer either operated in the Greater Toronto Area at $1 million in annual revenue or outside the GTA at $500,000. That two-tier structure quietly excluded a long list of mid-sized Ontario cities — Hamilton, Ottawa, London, Kitchener, Windsor — that economically anchor the province but were never given a thresholding tier of their own. The June 26, 2026 amendments to Regulation 422/17 rewrote that map. Three tiers now exist, and the smallest tier — $250,000 — opens OINP sponsorship to thousands of rural and small-town Ontario employers who were effectively shut out under the old $500K threshold.

This is Part 2 of our six-part series on the OINP redesign. We have already covered every change in Part 1’s complete before vs after comparison. Here we drill into a single change that touches every employer file: the revenue tier you fall into, the documentation each tier demands, and the multi-site and mobile-occupation edge cases that the regulation handles differently than the press release suggested.

Key Highlights at a Glance

• Three tiers, not two. $1M for the GTA, $500K for 14 named Tier-2 census divisions, $250K for everywhere else.
• The $250K tier comes with a tax on documentation. You must show $250K in each of the last two fiscal years — not just one. This is the only tier with a two-year lookback.
• Location is decided by where the candidate reports to work, not where the company is incorporated or headquartered. A Toronto-headquartered company sending the candidate to its London branch is a Tier-2 file.
• The Tier-2 list is closed, not formula-driven. 14 specific census divisions are named in s. 4(1)¶3 ii. Any reform requires another amendment.
• Headcount tracks the tier, not just the GTA. 5 FT PR or citizen employees at the work location for GTA, 3 for both Tier 2 and Tier 3.
• The 3-year business age rule is unchanged and applies across all three tiers (s. 4(1)¶1).
• Truck and bus drivers get a location-exemption carve-out (s. 4(1)¶2.1) plus the new “Excellent or Satisfactory only” CVOR rule (s. 4(1)¶2.2).

The Three Tiers at a Glance

Tier	Min. revenue	Revenue lookback	Min. PR / citizen employees at work location	Eligible work locations
Tier 1: GTA	$1,000,000	1 fiscal year (most recently completed)	5 full-time	Toronto, Peel, Halton, York, Durham — the Greater Toronto Area as defined in the regulation
Tier 2: 14 named census divisions	$500,000	1 fiscal year (most recently completed)	3 full-time	Ottawa, Waterloo, Hamilton, Simcoe, Middlesex, Niagara, Essex, Wellington, Greater Sudbury, Frontenac, Brant, Peterborough, Hastings, Thunder Bay
Tier 3: Everywhere else in Ontario	$250,000	2 fiscal years — each of the last two consecutively	3 full-time	All other Ontario census divisions — rural, small-town, far-northern, and any region not listed in Tier 2

Tier 1: GTA — $1,000,000 Revenue, 5 FT Employees

If your worksite is in the City of Toronto, Peel, Halton, York, or Durham, your file is a Tier 1 file. The thresholds are unchanged from the old regulation: $1,000,000 in gross annual revenue in the most recently completed fiscal year, and at least 5 full-time employees at the work location who are permanent residents or Canadian citizens.

Two documentation notes from our recent files: First, “gross annual revenue” includes service revenue and product revenue but excludes capital gains and intercompany transfers — Ontario looks at the same revenue number that appears on Schedule 125 of the corporate T2. Second, the 5-employee minimum is measured at the work location, not at the corporate entity. A Toronto-headquartered company with one Toronto site and four branch offices still needs 5 PR/citizen FT employees at the actual location the OINP nominee will report to.

Tier 2: 14 Named Census Divisions — $500,000 Revenue, 3 FT Employees

Tier 2 is the newest political design element of the regulation. Ontario named 14 specific census divisions in s. 4(1)¶3 ii — these are the urban-and-near-urban centres outside the GTA where Ontario wants to direct moderate-sized employer sponsorship. The threshold is $500,000 in annual revenue (most recent fiscal year only) and 3 FT PR or citizen employees at the work location.

Census division (per Statistics Canada 2021 Census)	Major centres / context for employers
Ottawa (Census division)	City of Ottawa — Canada’s second-largest tech employer cluster outside Toronto
Waterloo (Regional municipality)	Kitchener, Waterloo, Cambridge — the “Toronto-Waterloo Corridor”
Hamilton (Census division)	City of Hamilton — steel, healthcare, McMaster University ecosystem
Simcoe (County)	Barrie, Orillia, Bradford, Innisfil — fastest-growing Ontario county
Middlesex (County)	London — Western University, automotive supply chain, healthcare
Niagara (Regional municipality)	St. Catharines, Niagara Falls, Welland — tourism, agriculture, manufacturing
Essex (County)	Windsor, Leamington — auto manufacturing, agriculture, cross-border logistics
Wellington (County)	Guelph, Fergus — University of Guelph, food and beverage manufacturing
Greater Sudbury / Grand Sudbury (Census division)	Mining, francophone services, Laurentian University region
Frontenac (County)	Kingston — Queen’s University, RMC, government services, healthcare
Brant (Census division)	Brantford, Paris — manufacturing, Wilfrid Laurier Brantford campus
Peterborough (County)	City of Peterborough — Trent University, healthcare, manufacturing
Hastings (County)	Belleville, Quinte West — Loyalist College, manufacturing, defence
Thunder Bay (District)	City of Thunder Bay — forestry, healthcare, Lakehead University

These 14 divisions cover most of Ontario’s second-tier urban economy — but not all of it. North Bay (Nipissing District) is not included. Sarnia (Lambton County) is not included. Sault Ste. Marie (Algoma District) is not included. Owen Sound (Grey County) is not included. Employers in those locations operate under Tier 3.

Tier 3: Everywhere Else — $250,000 Revenue (Two Years), 3 FT Employees

Tier 3 is the most consequential change in the new regulation. For the first time, OINP recognizes that a $500,000 revenue floor was a structural barrier for small-town and rural Ontario employers. The new $250,000 threshold opens employer sponsorship to a much broader base — local construction firms, regional auto dealerships, independent grocers, mid-sized agriculture operations, family-run hospitality businesses.

But Tier 3 also comes with the tightest documentation requirement in the regulation. Section 4(1)¶3 iii says the business must have gross annual revenue of at least $250,000 in each of its last two most recently completed fiscal years before the date of making the application. Tier 1 and Tier 2 require one year. Tier 3 requires two consecutive years. A business that cleared $250K last year but had $230K the year before is disqualified at Tier 3 — even though it would have cleared a one-year test by a margin.

Practically, this means Tier 3 employers need to plan two years ahead. If a small-town Ontario business wants to sponsor an OINP nominee in late 2027, the 2025 and 2026 fiscal years both need to be at or above $250K. The 3-year business-age rule from s. 4(1)¶1 still applies on top — so the earliest a brand-new business can sponsor is at the start of its fourth fiscal year, with two consecutive years of $250K+ revenue already documented.

Rural-Community Modifier: A Further Reduction Below $250,000 [Updated June 29, 2026]

The three tiers above are the dollar amounts written into the regulation. Ontario’s official program page goes one step further. The Ministry of Labour, Immigration, Training and Skills Development has confirmed that lower gross annual revenue requirements will apply to employers located in rural communities, and defines a rural community for the purposes of the Ontario Workforce Priority Stream as a community located in a census division with a population of less than 150,000 (2021 Census of Canada).

That definition is broader than the closed 14-name Tier-2 list above. It captures essentially every Ontario census division outside the GTA, Ottawa, Hamilton-Burlington, Waterloo, London-Middlesex, and Windsor-Essex — including most of Northern Ontario, Eastern Ontario, and the smaller Southwestern counties. The dollar amount of the reduced rural threshold has not been set out in Regulation 422/17 itself; it is operational program policy that the Ministry will publish alongside the relaunched EOI system. The structural commitment is clear though: a small-town employer in a sub-150,000 census division will not need to hit the full $250,000 two-year revenue test that applies to non-rural Tier 3 employers.

Action item for small-employer clients: pull your most recent two years of gross annual revenue figures and confirm whether your business address sits in a census division with population under 150,000. Statistics Canada’s 2021 Census population by census division is the authoritative source. If you qualify on geography, monitor the Ministry’s announcement of the reduced dollar threshold before filing.

Where Does My Employer Fall? — The Decision Table

Most employer files we are seeing this week fall into one of seven patterns. Here is how each is treated:

Your employer’s work-location reality	Tier and what you need to prove
Single office or worksite in the GTA (Toronto, Mississauga, Brampton, Markham, Vaughan, Oshawa, etc.)	Tier 1: $1M annual revenue in the most recently completed fiscal year; 5 FT PR or citizen employees at that location.
Single office or worksite in one of the 14 Tier-2 census divisions (e.g. Ottawa, Kitchener, Hamilton, London, Kingston, Windsor)	Tier 2: $500K annual revenue in the most recently completed fiscal year; 3 FT PR or citizen employees at that location.
Single office or worksite anywhere else in Ontario (e.g. North Bay, Sault Ste. Marie, Timmins, Sarnia, Chatham-Kent, Owen Sound)	Tier 3: $250K annual revenue in each of the last two most recently completed fiscal years; 3 FT PR or citizen employees at that location.
Multi-site employer; candidate reports to a GTA location	Tier 1 rules apply, even if some sites are in Tier 2 or Tier 3 regions.
Multi-site employer; candidate reports to a Tier-2 location but the company has revenue across all sites	Tier 2 rules apply. Revenue is measured at the corporate entity level, not per site, but the 3-employee minimum is location-specific.
Mobile occupation: truck driver (NOC 73300) or bus driver (NOC 73301)	Section 4(1)¶2.1 of the regulation exempts truck and bus drivers from the “primarily in Ontario” location restriction. Tier is determined by the location where the driver reports to work — usually the terminal or dispatch base.
New business under 3 years old	Disqualified. Section 4(1)¶1 requires the business to have existed and been active for at least 3 years before the application date.

The Multi-Site Employer Trap

The single most common employer-file mistake we are catching post-June 26 is misidentifying the work location for multi-site employers. The regulation language is consistent across all three tiers — the tier is determined by where the candidate “will work at a location” or “report to work at a location.”

That means a Toronto-headquartered manufacturer with a $30M revenue base sending the candidate to its 12-employee Welland (Niagara) facility files under Tier 2 rules — not Tier 1. The Welland facility needs to show 3 FT PR or citizen employees at that location. Revenue is measured at the corporate entity level (the $30M qualifies easily for any tier), but the 3-employee count is location-specific.

Conversely, a Hamilton-headquartered consulting firm at $400K revenue sending the candidate to a Toronto client site weekly is in a grey zone. If the candidate’s reporting location (their home base, where they begin and end their workday) is Hamilton, the file is Tier 2. If their reporting location is the Toronto client site, the file becomes a Tier 1 file at $1M — and the $400K firm cannot support that threshold. Employers should be very deliberate about the work location declared in the EOI and supporting documents.

What This Means for You

If you are a candidate trying to find an OINP-eligible employer

The new Tier 3 threshold dramatically widens the field of small-town and rural Ontario employers who can sponsor you — provided you are willing to live and work outside the major cities. Local independent businesses with $250K to $500K in revenue across two consecutive years now qualify where they could not before. For TEER 4-5 candidates in trades, hospitality, food service, and transport, this is a serious opportunity in towns that have been hiring but could not file PR sponsorships.

If you are an employer in the GTA or a Tier-2 city

Your thresholds did not change. What did change is that you now compete against a much larger pool of newly-eligible Tier-3 employers, especially for healthcare, construction trades, and food and beverage NOCs. The targeted-draw pattern means employer eligibility on its own does not produce an invitation — the file still has to pass through the EOI scoring system Ontario will publish when the EOI relaunches later in summer 2026.

If you are an employer in a small or rural Ontario town

This is your moment. Audit your last two fiscal years now. If both cleared $250K and your business is at least 3 years old, you are positioned to sponsor an OINP candidate in 2026 or 2027 — likely under TEER 4-5 first, since those NOCs are where regional draws have historically targeted. Get your fiscal-year financial statements, T2 corporate tax returns, and the employee count records ready before the EOI relaunches.

How VG Immigration Can Help

VG Immigration Services Inc. has built employer sponsorship files for clients across every Ontario region — GTA, Tier-2 cities, and the small-town and northern Ontario economies that benefit most from the new $250K threshold. Our authorized representative is Dimple Verma, RCIC-IRB R708308.

For employer files, we typically begin with a one-hour intake where we audit the last two years of financials, confirm the work location, count PR/citizen employees at that location, and recommend whether the file is best filed under the GTA, Tier-2, or Tier-3 framework. We then assemble the EOI and supporting employer documentation package.

More from this series and adjacent coverage:

• Part 1: OINP Then vs Now — every change in Regulation 422/17 in one place
• Day-one announcement: Ontario Workforce Priority Stream Launches
• Keep Your Express Entry Profile Updated — for clients pursuing federal pathways while OINP transitions

Coming next in this series (tomorrow):

• Part 3: TEER 0-3 pathway deep dive — the four work experience options, the CLB 5 occupation list, and the recent Ontario graduate carve-outs in detail
• Part 4: TEER 4-5 pathway deep dive — the 9-month same-employer rule, every now-eligible NOC, and the recent graduate angle
• Part 5: Self-Employed Physician deep dive — CPSO licensing classes, OHIP eligibility, and why no job offer is required
• Part 6: AMP, bans, and the 30-day response window — deemed delivery, penalty calculation, and how to protect your employer file

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VG Immigration Services Inc. · 2 County Court Boulevard, Suite 400, Brampton, Ontario L6W 3W8 · Authorized representative: Dimple Verma, RCIC-IRB R708308. This article is general information about Ontario Regulation 422/17 as consolidated June 25, 2026 and is not legal advice for any specific file. Confirm details with a licensed Canadian immigration consultant or lawyer before acting.