Canada PR · Doctors Healthcare and social services category
Canada PR for Indian doctors: file through the healthcare category while your licence work runs at the same time
It is late at night. The OPD is empty at last. You are reading this on your phone before the night round. You have an MBBS, maybe an MD, and years of patients behind you. Your family keeps asking when the Canada plan will become real. Here is the honest answer. Your work as a doctor in India makes you eligible for the healthcare category in Express Entry. In 2026 this category has invited people at much lower scores than other rounds. The licence to work as a doctor in Canada is a second, separate process. You can start both today. The order you start them in decides how many years you lose.
- NOC 31102 · General practitioners and family physicians · TEER 1
- NOC 31100 · Specialists in clinical and laboratory medicine · TEER 1
- NOC 31101 · Specialists in surgery · TEER 1
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Is this you?
- I have an MBBS, three or more years in a hospital or my own clinic, and I want PR filed properly while I prepare for the MCC exams.
- I am a specialist with an MD or DNB and I want to know if a Practice-Ready Assessment province fits me before I choose residency matching.
- My spouse is also a professional and we want to know which of us should be the main applicant.
- I made a profile on my own, nothing happened after the 25 June 2026 round, and I need someone to tell me why.
The numbers, checked 2026-09-05
Where doctors stand in the 2026 draws
- Healthcare and social services round, 25 June 2026
- 4,000 ITAs at CRS 475
- This is the category a doctor from India uses. One more healthcare round was held on 4 September 2026. See the IRCC rounds page for its numbers.
- Physicians with Canadian experience, 19 February 2026
- 391 ITAs at CRS 169
- Needs at least 12 months of practice inside Canada in the last three years. Not open to a doctor working in India.
- Canadian Experience Class round, 18 August 2026
- 1,000 ITAs at CRS 523
- Needs one year of skilled work inside Canada. In 2026, healthcare cut-offs have been about 20 to 40 points lower than CEC rounds.
- Provincial nominee round, 31 August 2026
- 562 ITAs at CRS 697
- A provincial nomination adds 600 points. That is why every nominee crosses this high number.
Want your own score first? Use the free CRS calculator, then call us with the number.
Your degree, your papers
Your MBBS is assessed by the Medical Council of Canada, not by WES
An Educational Credential Assessment (ECA) is a report that tells IRCC your degree is equal to a Canadian degree. For a medical degree, the body that does this is the Medical Council of Canada (MCC). You apply through its physiciansapply.ca account, not through WES. The same MCC account is used later for your licence exams, so setting it up correctly is the first step for both PR and licence. Any other degree, for example a BSc before MBBS or an MBA, goes to WES or another approved body. ECA reports are valid for five years. Doctors who send the MBBS to WES by habit lose months and pay twice. This is one of the first things we check on a call.
Hospital letters must match the NOC, not read like a farewell note
Every NOC has a lead statement that describes what the job does. Your experience letter must describe your duties and weekly hours in words that clearly match it. It must be on hospital letterhead and signed by someone with authority. A government hospital letter should come through the establishment section. The usual Indian letter has two lines saying you worked there and were sincere. That does not prove twelve months of qualifying work. And twelve months is what the category asks for.
Own clinic or private practice: prove the patient volume
Self-employed doctors qualify, but you need more proof. Clinic registration, income tax returns, receipts, and some proof of patient numbers together take the place of an employer letter. Put together well, a private practice counts as full-time experience. Put together thinly, it is the most common reason a self-employed doctor gets a refusal for work experience. We would rather prevent that refusal than fix it later.
Talk to the family before the profile, not after
Proof of funds for the Federal Skilled Worker route counts your spouse and children even if they stay in India for now. The amounts, from the IRCC table of 7 July 2025, are CAD 15,263 for one person, CAD 19,001 for two, CAD 23,360 for three, and CAD 28,362 for four. The money must be yours, in a form you can withdraw, and not borrowed. Parents who plan to help should know this early. Our free estimate at /tools/canada-proof-of-funds-calculator is a good place to start the talk at home.
Where doctors lose a year
Choosing 31100 when your work says 31102, or the other way
A general physician in a corporate hospital who picks a specialist NOC, or a specialist whose letters describe general OPD work, creates a gap between the code and the proof. The healthcare category checks that your twelve months are in one eligible occupation. Get the code wrong and the invitation either never comes, or it comes for a file that cannot pass review.
Counting eleven months as twelve
Since 18 February 2026 the category needs a full year, 1,560 hours, in the last three years. Doctors who left a job a few weeks early, or who count the internship year as practice, find the gap only after an ITA. A ten-minute check of dates against the rule, before the profile goes in, is worth more than hope.
Starting licence work after landing
The PR file takes months. The licence takes years. Doctors who treat the MCCQE as a Canada problem instead of an India problem arrive and then wait. Many work outside medicine while they catch up. Every exam passed before the flight protects a year of income.
Points you can still win
Language: CLB 9 is where the big points start
The Comprehensive Ranking System (CRS) is the score that ranks everyone in the pool. Your language result counts twice. Once as direct points. Again as skill-transferability points, which combine language with education and work experience. These extra points open fully at Canadian Language Benchmark (CLB) 9 in every ability. The minimum for the Federal Skilled Worker route is CLB 7. But a doctor at CLB 7 or 8 leaves a large block of points on the table. IELTS General Training, CELPIP-General or PTE Core all work for PR. A retake for one weak band, at about ₹16,000 to 18,000, is often the cheapest points you can buy.
Your spouse’s score is not a small thing
If your wife or husband is coming with you, their language result and assessed education add points to your profile. Indian families often treat the doctor as the applicant and the spouse as a passenger. The maths often says something else. A spouse with strong English and an assessed degree can be worth more than one more year of your experience. On the call we run both versions and tell you who should lead the file.
A nomination is worth 600 points
A provincial nomination adds 600 CRS points. That is why the nominee round on 31 August 2026 closed at 697. Canada plans to admit 91,500 provincial nominees in 2026, up from 55,000 in 2025. But for doctors, most provincial health streams depend on a job offer. So we treat nomination as a possible extra, not a promise. Try the free score check at /tools/canada-crs-calculator. Then let us tell you what the number means for your category.
Provinces
Nova Scotia
Physician stream
Needs an approved job offer from Nova Scotia Health or the IWK Health Centre. This route depends on a job offer, and getting that offer is outside what we arrange.
Saskatchewan and Alberta
Healthcare pathways
Mostly built around a job offer from an employer in the province. We can file the nomination papers once you hold an offer. We cannot get the offer for you.
British Columbia
Health Authority stream
Run through a BC health authority as the employer. Depends on a job offer, which is outside our scope.
PR is one process. Your licence is another.
The exams: MCCQE Part I and the NAC Examination
PR lets you live in Canada. It does not let you treat a patient. The licence process starts with the MCCQE Part I, the qualifying exam of the Medical Council of Canada. After that, most routes need the NAC Examination. Residency programmes and some provincial practice-ready programmes use the NAC to judge if you are ready to work. Both exams are fully separate from the PR file. You can prepare for them while your Express Entry profile waits in the pool. Doctors who arrive with exams already passed start earning much sooner.
Practice-Ready Assessment: for doctors who already practise on their own
Seven provinces run Practice-Ready Assessment (PRA) programmes. They are British Columbia, Alberta, Saskatchewan, Manitoba, Nova Scotia, New Brunswick, and Newfoundland and Labrador. These are for foreign-trained family doctors and some specialists who already have independent practice experience. The programme is a supervised assessment of about twelve weeks. It leads to a provisional licence. Usually you must promise to work in a community the province chooses for some time. Manitoba no longer asks foreign graduates for the MCCQE1 before provisional registration. Whether your years in India fit a PRA, and which province suits your family, needs a conversation, not a paragraph.
No independent practice yet? Residency matching is the path
A doctor who has just finished internship, or who has only worked under supervision, usually cannot use a practice-ready programme. Such a doctor must compete for a residency seat through matching. This is a longer and harder road. It makes timing more important. Your PR file should be moving while you build the exam record that residency selection looks at. We will not hide this from you. If you are in this group, we will tell you on the call plainly how many years it may take. We will also check if your spouse should be the main applicant instead.
Expect one to three years, running side by side with PR
From the first exam to registration with a provincial regulator, the licence process often takes one to three years. The PR file has a six-month service standard from IRCC, and it is often longer in practice. If you run both at the same time, they finish close together. If you do one after the other, you add years of not working as a doctor. Registration with the provincial regulator is the last step, and only the regulator can grant it. We do not do licensing work. What we do is line up your PR timeline with your licence timeline, so that landing day is not the day you start from zero.
How long it takes
- 1
Language test and MCC credential assessment 3 to 6 months
Book the IELTS or CELPIP date first. Then open the physiciansapply.ca account and send the MBBS for assessment. Collect hospital letters in the same months.
- 2
Profile enters the pool A few days once documents are ready
Your CRS is fixed when the profile is submitted. It changes only when a new result is added. A wrong NOC here means the healthcare category never sees you.
- 3
Waiting for a healthcare round Not known; IRCC sets the dates
Rounds in 2026 have not followed a fixed pattern. Use this time to sit the MCCQE Part I instead of checking the IRCC page every day.
- 4
Invitation to Apply and the 60-day file 60 days
Police certificates, medical exam at about ₹5,000 to 8,000 per person, proof of funds, and every experience letter in final form. The deadline cannot be extended.
- 5
IRCC processing Service standard six months, often longer
Biometrics, background checks, and requests for more papers. We answer them. You keep preparing for the NAC.
- 6
Landing, with licence work continuing After arrival
Provincial registration or a practice-ready seat continues from where the exams ended. Doctors who started early land with a plan.
What we do for doctors, and what we do not
- Check your NOC against your real letters, and help rebuild the letters where they fall short.
- Send the MBBS to the MCC and other degrees to WES, and plan a language retake if one band is holding you back.
- File the full Express Entry profile and PR application for the whole family for ₹89,999 all-in, with instalments if you need them.
- Line up the PR file with your MCCQE and NAC preparation so neither one waits for the other.
- Arrange hospital jobs, job offers, LMIAs or work permits. We hold no MEA Recruiting Agent licence and never will.
- Register you with the Medical Council of Canada or any provincial college. The licence is between you and them.
- Promise an invitation, a cut-off, an approval or a date. IRCC alone decides.
Full Canada PR filing is ₹89,999 all-in, GST included, spouse and children included. See what is inside.
Questions doctors ask us
That category, created on 18 February 2026, is only for doctors with at least twelve months of practice inside Canada in the last three years. Its draws on 19 February 2026 (391 ITAs at 169) and September 2026 (229 at 198) are for people already there. From India, your route is the healthcare and social services category. It last invited at 475 on 25 June 2026.
Yes, and many do. But then you spend your first years in Canada not working as a doctor. PR and the licence are separate processes with separate bodies. Our advice is to run them together: exams from India while the profile waits in the pool. On the call we plan both against how ready you are for the exams.
From 30 April 2026, IRCC charges CAD 990 processing plus CAD 600 right of permanent residence per adult, CAD 270 per dependent child, and CAD 85 biometrics per person, with a family cap of CAD 170. Add the MCC assessment, language test and medical exam. Government fees are paid at cost and are never part of our fee.
No. Arranging jobs or LMIAs needs an MEA Recruiting Agent licence. We do not hold it and will not apply for it. Provincial physician streams that need an offer are marked on this page as job-offer-dependent, so you can plan honestly.
ECA and language strategy, the Express Entry profile, CRS optimisation, and the full PR application for you, your spouse and your children. 18 percent GST is included. One provincial nomination application is included at ₹1,19,999. Instalments are available.
Other professions
- DentistsHealthcare & social services
- NursesHealthcare & social services
- PharmacistsHealthcare & social services
Checked 2026-09-05 against: Medical Council of Canada · IRCC — Express Entry rounds of invitations · IRCC — category-based selection. Draw scores change with every round; we re-check before you file.