Quebec Immigration Eligibility: Skilled Worker Selection Program (PSTQ) Guide

The four PSTQ streams

Your main occupation decides which stream you fall under, and each stream has its own bar for experience, education, and French. It's worth reading all four, since the French requirement in particular surprises a lot of applicants who assumed English would be enough.

Accompanying spouses generally need spoken French of level 4 or higher on the Échelle québécoise, regardless of stream.

Requirements that apply no matter your stream

• You must be 18 or older
• You must intend to work in Quebec in a role you don't personally own or control
• Certain sectors are simply excluded, such as payday lending or the sex industry
• You'll sign a Financial Self-Sufficiency Contract confirming you can support yourself and your family for the first three months
• You'll complete an attestation confirming familiarity with Quebec's democratic values and its Charter of Human Rights and Freedoms, and so will any family member aged 18 or over joining you

How the Arrima invitation system works

This is the part most people misunderstand. You're not submitting a form and waiting in a queue, you're entering a ranked pool.

Scoring weighs three things: human capital (French, age, experience, education), Quebec labour market priorities (a Quebec diploma, Quebec work experience, a validated job offer), and adaptation factors (spouse's profile, family already in Quebec). Quebec hasn't published the exact point value of each factor in English, only in a French-language technical document tied to a notice in the Gazette officielle du Québec. Minimum scores shift with every round, so a score from January tells you little about what July will require.

Fees and what they cover

Applying for permanent selection isn't free, and the fee is charged when you submit your application, not when you first join Arrima. Submitting the initial declaration of interest costs nothing. The fees below apply to the examination of your application for permanent selection and are adjusted every January 1.

These fees are non-refundable once your application enters processing, and are paid by credit card through Arrima. They cover the Quebec stage only; the separate federal permanent residence application to IRCC carries its own fees on top, payable only after your CSQ is issued.

After you receive your CSQ

The Certificat de sélection du Québec confirms Quebec has selected you, but it isn't permanent residence. It's valid for 24 months from the date it's issued, and it needs to still be valid when your federal permanent residence application reaches Immigration, Refugees and Citizenship Canada (IRCC). If your CSQ expires before then, the federal application is considered incomplete and gets returned, meaning you'd need to reapply to Quebec first.

Once you submit your federal application, IRCC takes over the admissibility side of things: medical exams, police certificates, biometrics, and security and criminality checks. Quebec doesn't re-examine your qualifications at this stage, since that assessment was already completed when your CSQ was approved.

If you're already working for a Quebec employer under a valid work permit and have submitted your permanent selection application, a separate bridging work permit is currently available to let you keep working for that employer for up to 12 months while your file moves through the system. This particular bridging measure has an application deadline of December 31, 2026, so it's worth checking its current status with an advisor closer to that date if it applies to you.

Recent invitation rounds (official figures)

Rather than estimate a trend, here's what MIFI itself has published for specific rounds. Numbers move a lot depending on what Quebec needs at that moment.