Immigration New Brunswick has published the results of its most recent selection activity, and the headline figure is 63 Atlantic Immigration Program (AIP) applications selected for processing across two rounds held on September 25 and October 2, 2026. If you have a profile sitting in either of New Brunswick's candidate pools, this is the page that tells you how the province is actually moving right now — which occupations it reached into, and how recently.
| Program | Draw dates | Cut-off date and time | Applications selected |
|---|---|---|---|
| Atlantic Immigration Program | September 25 and October 2, 2026 | September 24 and October 1, 2026, 11:59 p.m. (AST) | 63 |
Occupational categories selected in those rounds: Construction; Education, social and community services; Manufacturing; Other trades; Professional and IT; Sales and services; Transportation.
What this page actually is
New Brunswick runs two separate candidate pools, and the province's invitation and selection rounds page reports on both. They don't work the same way, and conflating them is one of the more common sources of confusion we see.
For the New Brunswick Provincial Nominee Program (NBPNP), Immigration New Brunswick invites candidates in the pool to submit complete applications. You're in a pool, you wait, and an invitation is what unlocks the right to file.
For the Atlantic Immigration Program, the province selects complete applications already in the pool for processing. The application is already built and submitted — what's being allocated is processing capacity, not permission to apply.
That distinction matters for how you read the number 63. Those 63 are not people being asked to start an application. They are completed AIP applications that moved into the next stage.
According to the province's own description, invitations and selections are based on provincial labour market needs, available allocation, and other priorities set by the Government of New Brunswick. That's the whole decision logic in one sentence, and it's worth sitting with, because it tells you the three levers that move: what employers in the province need, how much federal allocation New Brunswick has left, and what the province has decided to prioritize in a given period.
Reading the occupational categories
Seven categories were named in these rounds. Construction. Education, social and community services. Manufacturing. Other trades. Professional and IT. Sales and services. Transportation.
That's a fairly wide spread — it isn't a narrow, single-sector round. It covers skilled trades, the care and education side of the public and community workforce, goods production, a white-collar professional and technology grouping, front-line service work, and movement of goods and people.
What we'd caution against is reading a category list as a promise. A category appearing in one round is evidence of what the province reached for on those two dates, under the allocation and priorities it had at that moment. It is not a standing commitment that the same categories will appear next time, and it isn't a statement about any individual file. Category lists on provincial pages shift as labour market reporting and allocation shift.
What the list is genuinely useful for is calibration. If your occupation sits inside one of these groupings and you have an AIP-designated employer relationship, the province is demonstrably active in your area of the labour market. If your occupation is nowhere near any of the seven, that's information too — not a closed door, but a signal that your timeline assumptions may need a second look.
Who this update actually touches
People with a complete AIP application in New Brunswick's pool. The cut-off mechanics are the part to read closely. Each round had a cut-off date and time — September 24 and October 1, 2026, at 11:59 p.m. Atlantic time — ahead of the draw date. Completeness as of that moment is what put an application in the running. A file that was still missing a document at 11:58 p.m. was, functionally, not in that round.
People in the NBPNP candidate pool. Your pathway runs on invitations, not selections, and the figures above describe AIP activity. The province publishes both on the same page, so check the NBPNP section directly for the rounds relevant to you rather than reading across from AIP numbers.
People weighing New Brunswick against other provinces. Atlantic Canada's programs are employer-driven in a way Express Entry is not. If you're comparing options, the useful question isn't "which province draws the most," it's "where does my occupation and my employer relationship actually fit." Our New Brunswick PNP page, which includes a free eligibility check, is a reasonable starting point for that comparison.
Employers in the named sectors. If you're a designated employer in construction, manufacturing, transportation or any of the other listed groupings, these rounds say something about how provincial allocation is currently being spent. That's worth factoring into hiring timelines.
Why a number like 63 is hard to interpret alone
Sixty-three applications across two rounds is a modest figure next to federal Express Entry draws, and that comparison is where people often go wrong.
New Brunswick is a small province with a finite nomination and AIP allocation. Provincial programs run on a fixed annual envelope; federal Express Entry rounds don't work on the same arithmetic. A two-round total in the dozens is normal territory for Maritime provincial activity, not a sign of a program winding down.
The other thing a single data point can't tell you is trend. One figure is a snapshot. Whether 63 across two rounds represents an acceleration, a slowdown, or a steady pace only becomes visible when you line it up against the previous rounds the province also publishes on that page. We'd encourage anyone tracking their own file to look at the "previous rounds" section rather than fixating on the latest line.
What to watch next
A few things are genuinely worth monitoring, and they're all on the province's own page rather than anywhere else.
- Round frequency. These two rounds were a week apart. Whether that cadence holds, stretches, or pauses tells you more about remaining allocation than any single selection count does.
- Whether the occupational category list narrows. Provinces frequently tighten category lists as the year progresses and allocation gets scarce. A shorter list in a later round is a meaningful change.
- Cut-off timing. The cut-off sits the day before each draw at 11:59 p.m. AST. If you're assembling an application, treat that pattern as the deadline discipline your file needs to meet — while confirming the actual published timing for any round you're aiming at.
- Allocation announcements. Provincial allocations are set annually and can be adjusted. Changes there eventually show up in draw sizes.
Questions this update tends to raise
"My occupation is on the list — does that mean I'm in?" No. A category appearing in a round describes what the province selected from on those dates. It says nothing about the strength, completeness, or outcome of any individual file.
"Should I submit something immediately?" Speed matters less than completeness here. The AIP mechanism selects complete applications as of a cut-off. An incomplete file submitted quickly doesn't get you into a round; it just sits there.
"Does this affect my Express Entry profile?" Not directly. AIP and NBPNP are provincial and regional pathways with their own criteria. Some candidates pursue more than one route, and whether that makes sense depends entirely on the specifics of your work history, employer relationship and status in Canada.
"Is AIP the same as the PNP?" No — and that's the distinction the province draws explicitly on its page. Different pools, different mechanisms, different documents. Confirm which pool your file is actually in before drawing conclusions from any published round.
The practical takeaway
As of the October 10, 2026 version of the province's page, Immigration New Brunswick selected 63 AIP applications across rounds held September 25 and October 2, 2026, drawing from seven occupational groupings. The province remains active, it's selecting across a reasonably broad slice of the labour market, and its stated decision basis — labour market needs, allocation, provincial priorities — hasn't changed.
What that means for your file depends on which pool you're in, whether your application is complete, and what your employer relationship looks like. Those aren't things a published round result can answer, and we'd be doing you a disservice to pretend otherwise. An RCIC can assess your specific case against what New Brunswick is actually doing.
If you want a professional read on where you stand with either New Brunswick pathway, book a consultation with our team.