Convert your paid work hours into qualifying months and see, side by side, how Express Entry and the Ontario Immigrant Nominee Program count the very same work. The two systems use different rules, and the difference can decide which program fits your profile.
Enter the paid work you actually did. See how Express Entry counts it, and how Ontario’s OINP counts the very same work. This tool counts hours only; it does not decide whether you qualify.
Work experience is one of the most valuable factors in Canadian immigration, but there is no single national definition of how much of it you have. Express Entry and the provinces each count the same hours by their own rules, and the results can be far apart. Understanding the gap early stops you from assuming that a strong Express Entry history automatically translates into a strong provincial one, or the reverse.
Express Entry is an hours-based system. It adds up every paid hour of eligible skilled work and converts the total to full-time months at 30 hours a week, so one year of full-time work is 1,560 hours. Because hours are summed rather than scaled, part-time work is generous here: two years at 20 hours a week reaches the same 2,080 hours as one year at 40. The only ceiling is that any single week is capped at 30 hours, so extra overtime does not add up.
The Ontario Immigrant Nominee Program is a weeks-based system. It never adds raw hours together. Instead it looks at each week on its own and converts it: a week of 30 or more hours is one full-time week, a single job running 15 to 29 hours a week is credited at half a week, and a week under 15 hours in one job earns nothing. There is no sliding scale between 15 and 29 hours, so a 15-hour week and a 29-hour week are treated identically. This is why a candidate with years of light part-time work can look qualified under Express Entry and still fall short under OINP.
Enter one period for each stretch of work where your weekly hours stayed roughly the same, and start a new period whenever your hours changed. If you remember your start and finish dates, the dates option works them into weeks for you, and a start in the middle of a week is handled the same as one on a Monday. The job-setup choice only changes the Ontario answer, because Express Entry treats one job and several jobs held at once the same way once the 30-hour ceiling is applied.
Read the two totals as planning numbers, not eligibility decisions. If your Express Entry months are well ahead of your OINP months, part-time work is the reason, and it may be worth checking whether a different provincial stream suits you better. Once you know your experience totals, estimate your full federal ranking with the CRS calculator, convert your language results with the CLB calculator, and compare provincial pathways with the PNP calculators. For the newest confirmed rounds, see the latest Express Entry draw results.
Express Entry adds up your paid hours and converts them to full-time months, where full-time means 30 hours a week. One year of full-time work is 1,560 hours. Part-time hours are added together and are not scaled down, so 20 hours a week for two years counts the same as 40 hours a week for one year, up to a ceiling of 30 hours in any single week.
The Ontario Immigrant Nominee Program never adds up raw hours. It looks at each week on its own and turns it into full-time weeks. A week of 30 or more hours is one full-time week, a single job of 15 to 29 hours is credited at half a week, and a week under 15 hours in one job counts for nothing. There is no sliding scale between 15 and 29 hours.
The gap is widest for part-time work. Express Entry counts every paid hour, while OINP treats a 15-hour week and a 29-hour week identically at half credit, and gives nothing below 15 hours. A worker with a long history of part-time hours can qualify comfortably under Express Entry yet fall short under OINP.
No. Both programs cap a week at 30 hours, so working 40 or 50 hours in a week is still counted as one full-time week. The extra hours do not add to either total.
No. It counts hours only. Eligibility depends on the occupation, the skill level, whether the experience is continuous, documentation and other rules that each program sets. Always confirm the current requirements on the official IRCC and Ontario government pages.
This calculator reflects the published counting rules for full-time and part-time work, but each program decides for itself which experience is eligible, based on occupation, skill level, continuity and documentation. Confirm the current requirements before relying on any figure.
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