IRCC, Canada's immigration department, lists the Philippines among the leading source countries for economic immigration, family reunification and temporary foreign workers in its 2025 Annual Report to Parliament. Its admissions data rank nomination by a province first among recent ways Filipinos became permanent residents, ahead of sponsorship by a spouse or partner. Under the Provincial Nominee Program, provinces and territories nominate people whose skills their economies need. The Home Care Worker Immigration pilots, which offered permanent residence to caregivers in home child care and home support, are closed while IRCC processes existing applications.

Express Entry, the online system for skilled workers that some provincial streams use, counts a Philippine degree only through an educational credential assessment, which shows what it equals in Canada. The police certificate is the National Bureau of Investigation's NBI Clearance: IRCC says you request it online or at an NBI office and collect it in person, or from abroad through a Philippine embassy or by mail to the NBI in Manila. For a work permit, IRCC's Manila office checklist wants the original, with its dry seal and your thumbprint, not a personal copy. If a remark such as "record as stated" appears, IRCC also wants an NBI explanation, the full court decision or resolution (not a clerk of court's certification) and your own account.

The mistake to avoid is leaving a family member off your permanent residence application because they are staying behind, such as a child being raised by grandparents in the Philippines. IRCC requires your spouse or partner, dependent children and their dependent children to be included and to pass a medical exam and background checks, even if they are not coming. It also warns that a permanent resident who did not declare every family member risks losing that status, and with its temporary exception for undeclared relatives now ended, anyone left out cannot later be sponsored as family. List everyone from the start.