C11 and ICT Entrepreneurs: Can You Score Express Entry Points After November 3?

Since IRCC's new Comprehensive Ranking System rules took effect on November 3, 2026, one question has reached me more than any other from business owners on C11 work permits and from intra-company transferees: if I run my own company in Canada and work in it as a manager, do I now score points? The honest answer is that this is two questions wearing one coat, and they have different answers. Points for Canadian work experience remain out of reach for most owners, because self-employment is still excluded. Points for a qualifying job offer come from a different section of the rules, and that section contains no ownership exclusion. This article walks through both, the precedent from the old 200-point system, two Federal Court decisions on what a senior manager is, and the alternatives I would examine before anyone claims the maximum.

Two questions, not one

Under section 15 of the new Ministerial Instructions, the Labour Market Integration factor gives a candidate the greater of two scores: points for Canadian work experience under section 15.1, or points for a qualifying job offer in a high-wage occupation under section 15.2. The two are never added. The factor is capped at 150 points for a candidate without a spouse or partner and 140 with one. Because the two sections have different rules, a business owner can fail one and still qualify under the other.

Canadian work experience: the self-employment wall is still standing

The November 3 amendment rewrote how Canadian work experience is scored, but it kept the rule that matters most to owners. Section 15.1(6)(b) says a period of self-employment is not included in calculating Canadian work experience. IRCC's C11 program delivery instructions, last updated May 27, 2025, are blunter: any period of self-employment is not counted toward Canadian Experience Class experience, and work experience gained as an entrepreneur does not qualify for the Canadian Experience Class. The same instructions tell officers to record an entrepreneur's occupation under the generic code 88888, which appears on no high-wage list.

• Incorporating does not settle it. Clients often assume that because their corporation pays them a T4 salary they are its employee. The instructions look past the paperwork at who controls the work. An owner who hires nobody outside the family is treated as self-employed; one who hires staff to run the business while they manage it is an entrepreneur. Neither label earns Canadian work experience points. Any argument that your own company's payroll makes you an employee for this purpose is, in my view, high-risk.
• What that costs. A candidate with one year of Canadian experience in an occupation at twice the median wage, and no spouse, would otherwise hold 40 points for the year plus 70 for the high-wage level, 110 in all. For an owner-operator the realistic figure under s. 15.1 is zero.
• The Canadian Experience Class is closed to the same experience. That decides the programme of entry, which I return to below.

Job-offer points: the section with no ownership rule

Section 15.2 awards 100, 70 or 50 points for a qualifying offer of employment in a high-wage occupation, depending on whether the occupation's median wage is at least twice, 1.5 times or 1.3 times the Canadian median. The level belongs to the occupation code, not to the salary the company decides to pay. I read the full section on November 8, 2026. It requires an offer for full-time work in Canada with a continuous duration of at least one year, in a TEER 0 to 3 occupation, from an employer that will pay wages, and it requires an officer to be satisfied that the offer is genuine. It says nothing about shareholders, ownership or control.

• No LMIA. IRCC's Express Entry job-offer page, updated November 3, 2026, says a Labour Market Impact Assessment is not needed for an offer to qualify, and that holding one earns no extra points.
• No prior year with the employer. The old one-year-with-this-employer condition for LMIA-exempt permits is gone. The same page says offers may be for an existing or a new position, with an existing or a new employer. A C11 owner does not have to work twelve months first.
• One year after permanent residence. The job must last at least one year after the permanent resident visa is issued. A company that cannot credibly carry the salary for that long has no qualifying offer.
• Genuineness is where an owner-issued offer lives or dies. Section 15.2(4) requires the officer to consider whether the employer is actively engaged in the business, whether the offer is consistent with the employer's reasonable employment needs, whether the employer can fulfil the terms, whether the candidate can perform the job, and whether the employer has complied with employment and recruitment laws.
• A system quirk, not a requirement. IRCC's page shows that the online profile still asks whether you hold a positive LMIA and instructs candidates without one to answer yes and enter LMIA number 00000 with the sample dates shown, so that the offer can be assessed without an LMIA. Follow the current page, not an older guide.

My reading: an offer issued by a corporation the candidate owns or controls is legally arguable under section 15.2, because the section does not exclude it, but it is not administratively confirmed. IRCC has published no statement, in either direction, on owner-issued offers under the new rules. An officer applying the genuineness factors to a newly incorporated company with no revenue, no staff and one shareholder-employee has every tool needed to refuse. The same factors, applied to an operating company with payroll, customers and a documented need for the role, point the other way.

Why the old 200-point rules matter

This is not a new idea. From 2015 until March 24, 2025, Express Entry awarded 200 points for a qualifying offer of arranged employment in NOC Major Group 00, the senior management occupations, and 50 points for any other qualifying offer. For LMIA-exempt employer-specific permits such as C11, the archived Ministerial Instructions allowed the offer to come from the employer named on the permit, provided the candidate had accumulated at least one year of full-time work for that employer. Ownership was never an exclusion. In a 2021 column, immigration lawyer Chantal Desloges analysed exactly this scenario, a 50 per cent owner on a two-year C11 permit completing twelve months in the company, concluded that the 200 points were available, and reported that IRCC had confirmed the reading through its mailbox for immigration representatives. Owner-operator LMIAs, which until 2021 let a controlling owner obtain a positive LMIA without advertising the job, produced the same 200 points with no waiting year. Arranged-employment points were removed altogether on March 25, 2025 and returned on November 3, 2026 in their current, wage-based form.

The precedent is persuasive but not binding. The old instructions were a different instrument, the LMIA route came with an ESDC assessment that no longer exists, and the new genuineness factors are written into the instructions themselves. I would describe the position in three words each: legally supportable, historically consistent, administratively untested.

Intra-company transferees: a stronger position, with one trap

An intra-company transfer permit under exemption code C12 is built on an employer-employee relationship. IRCC's instructions describe the essential element as the Canadian enterprise's right to order and control the foreign national's work. A transferee who genuinely reports to the Canadian company is its employee, so their time counts as Canadian work experience, and if the position is in an occupation at twice the median wage, such as NOC 00012, the first year alone can be worth 40 points plus 70, or 110 points without a spouse. A qualifying offer in the same occupation would be worth 100. Under section 15 the candidate receives the higher of the two, never both. The trap is ownership: the same instructions say a foreign national who, alone or with immediate family, owns a controlling interest in the enterprise is an owner-operator and is not eligible as an intra-company transferee unless the enterprise meets the requirements of a multinational company. An owner who controls both the foreign parent and the Canadian branch should expect the permit and any later claim to employee status to be examined on that basis. Our intra-company transfer page covers the permit itself.

Can the CEO of a two-person company be a senior manager?

The 100-point tier is where most owners look first, because NOC 00012, senior managers in financial, communications and other business services, sits at twice the median wage. The classification sets no minimum company size, and both 00012 and 00014 say senior managers may own and operate their own business. But the same lead statements say these managers plan, organize, direct, control and evaluate their organizations through middle managers, and 00012 adds that they are usually appointed by a board of directors. A founder who does the selling, the delivery and the bookkeeping is not directing through middle managers, whatever the title on the business card. Two Federal Court decisions make the point.

• Recursive Craft Inc. v. Canada (Employment and Social Development), 2022 FC 1206. A sole owner was President and Chief Technology Officer of a software company that had one employee when it applied for an LMIA under the former NOC 0013, senior managers. ESDC approved the LMIA under NOC 0213, computer and information systems managers, which at the time meant 50 Express Entry points instead of 200. The Court dismissed the challenge. It accepted that the NOC prescribes no company size, but held that the size and structure of an organization must be considered to understand what an executive actually does, that job titles are not determinative, and it noted the officer's observation that the owner could grow into 0013 duties as the company grew.
• Merijohn v. Canada (Citizenship and Immigration), 2025 FC 1003. The President and CEO of a British Columbia health-consulting company held a positive LMIA under NOC 0013, claimed 200 points for arranged employment and received an invitation under the Federal Skilled Worker Program. During processing IRCC asked for financial records, an organizational chart and employee information, found that the company had no employees and that he was essentially self-employed running a small consulting practice, and refused the application under section 11.2 of the Immigration and Refugee Protection Act. The Court dismissed the judicial review, holding that senior management means directing and coordinating operations through other managers.

How defensible a senior-manager code is for a new C11 company depends on what sits beneath the title. This is my risk view, not an IRCC staffing threshold.

A better fit: functional management codes on the high-wage list

The high-wage list is wider than Major Group 00, and several functional management occupations carry the same 100 points or a solid 70. The owner of an IT consultancy who directs two developers may genuinely be a computer and information systems manager (NOC 20012). A sales-led business may support a corporate sales manager (60010). A small business-services firm often fits other business services managers (10029) far better than 00012. Choosing the code that matches the duties the company actually needs is the compliant approach and, in my experience, the one that survives an officer's questions. Type a job title below to check its code, and see our full guide to the high-wage list for the complete table.

Which programme gets you into the pool

Job-offer points only matter once you are in the Express Entry pool, and the pool has three doors. The Canadian Experience Class is shut to self-employed experience. The Federal Skilled Worker Program is not: IRCC's eligibility page, updated November 3, 2026, expressly counts work done while self-employed toward the selection-factor points, and the programme has no equivalent of the CEC exclusion. An owner-operator therefore usually enters through the Federal Skilled Worker Program, which means meeting its 67-point selection grid, its language threshold of CLB 7 in all four abilities, an educational credential assessment for foreign education, and proof of settlement funds unless the candidate is authorized to work in Canada and holds a valid job offer. Our Express Entry programme page sets the three programmes side by side.

What I would do before claiming the points

If a client on a C11 or intra-company transfer permit asks me to build a plan around an owner-issued offer, this is the order I work in.

• Decide the occupation from the duties. Write down what the business needs this person to do for the next three years, map that to the NOC, then check the high-wage list. Only then look at the points.
• Build the employer's file as if it belonged to a stranger. Certificate of incorporation and share register showing the ownership from day one, lease, business licences, bank statements, revenue or committed financing, payroll records for every employee, CRA and HST filings, an organizational chart, and a directors' or shareholders' resolution creating the position.
• Write the offer to the regulation. Full-time, at least 30 hours a week, continuous, for at least one year after permanent residence, with the wage stated, and signed by someone other than the candidate wherever the corporate structure allows.
• Expect the question. Prepare a one-page explanation of why the company needs this role, how it will pay for it, and who directs the candidate's work. Merijohn shows exactly what IRCC asks for.
• Score the profile both ways. If the points are not needed to reach the cut-off, consider leaving them out of the profile and keeping the offer in reserve. Claiming points you later cannot substantiate costs the invitation. Our CRS calculator already applies the November 3 grid, and the Express Entry Plan turns the result into a checklist.
• Keep the permit side straight. A C11 permit is capped at 18 months and tied to a temporary purpose; our C11 guide covers the business plan and renewal issues. Permanent residence points are built on top of status that has to hold up on its own.

What to watch

Three things will settle the open question. First, IRCC's program delivery instructions for the November 3 rules, which have not yet addressed owner-issued offers; the Express Entry job-offer page and the Ministerial Instructions page are where a clarification would appear. Second, the first invitation rounds under the recalculated scores, which our note on the changes coming into force explains; the cut-offs will show whether 50 to 100 points change outcomes for Federal Skilled Worker candidates. Third, any Federal Court decision on a refusal involving an owner-issued offer under the new section. When any of these appears I will write a new article and add a dated note here. Business owners in Ontario should also read our analysis of the proposed Ontario Entrepreneur Stream, which is the provincial side of the same question.