Alberta is calling: what it was, and what is actually open now

What is Alberta is calling?

Alberta is calling is a Government of Alberta advertising campaign that ran from mid-August 2022 to 2026 and paid to place ads in other Canadian provinces, urging skilled workers already living in Canada to relocate to Alberta. It was marketing, not law: it created no visa, no work permit and no immigration stream, and at no point did answering the ads give anyone a right to enter or remain in Canada.

The pitch was consistent across all three phases and it was a fair one. Alberta sells higher wages, no provincial sales tax, cheaper housing than Ontario or British Columbia, shorter commutes and mountains within a couple of hours of two major cities. Phase 1 targeted health, trades and technology workers in Toronto and Vancouver. Phase 2 widened the target to Ontario and Atlantic Canada in 2023. Phase 3 launched on 1 May 2024, ran in British Columbia, Ontario and Quebec, and was the only phase that came with money attached. The province's standing information page for people relocating from elsewhere in Canada is Moving to Alberta from within Canada on alberta.ca, and it outlives the campaign.

It worked, at least on the headline measure. Statistics Canada recorded Alberta growing by 202,324 people in 2023, the largest annual increase in the province's history, including a net interprovincial gain of 55,107, of whom an estimated 38,236 came from Ontario (Statistics Canada figures reported by Global News, 8 May 2024). Alberta then added 168,221 residents between the first quarter of 2024 and the first quarter of 2025, with 36,082 arriving through interprovincial migration in 2024 (Statistics Canada figures reported by CBC News, 1 May 2025). Whether the ads caused that growth or simply rode it is a genuinely open question that Alberta's own newspapers have argued over, and this page does not take a side.

Is the Alberta is calling bonus still open?

No. The Alberta is calling bonus stopped accepting new applications at 4pm Mountain Time on 15 March 2026, the application portal was closed on that date, and the alberta.ca page that hosted it returned a page-not-found error when we checked it on 8 September 2026. The application guidelines remain published on the province's open government portal as Alberta is Calling: Moving Bonus application guidelines, which is a record of a closed programme rather than a live application route.

The programme was also never as large as the advertising implied. It was capped at 2,000 recipients and assessed first come, first served, yet only 731 of those 2,000 places had been filled by 19 January 2026, according to a press secretary for Alberta's Ministry of Jobs, Economy, Trade and Immigration quoted by Daily Hive. Alberta's 2024 budget had set aside $10 million for the bonus, which is the arithmetic of 2,000 payments of $5,000. Roughly two thirds of that money went unclaimed before the deadline passed.

Who qualified for the moving to Alberta bonus, and what did it pay?

The moving to Alberta bonus paid $5,000 as a one-time refundable tax credit to a skilled tradesperson who moved to Alberta between 1 May and 31 December 2024, was 18 or over, held Canadian citizenship or permanent residence, and was working full time in an eligible occupation when they applied. Applications opened on 1 May 2025, a full year after the arrival window began, because the province needed applicants to have filed an Alberta tax return first.

That last point is what most summaries got wrong. This was a tax credit claimed after the fact by someone who had already uprooted their life at their own expense, not a relocation grant paid up front to help with the move. You had to have lived in Alberta for twelve consecutive months and received your 2024 notice of assessment from the Canada Revenue Agency before you could apply at all.

What is the Alberta Affordability Grant?

The Alberta Affordability Grant is monthly operational funding paid to licensed childcare programmes so they can lower the fees they charge families, and it is not a payment to individuals and not connected to moving to the province. It goes to eligible preschools, daycares and approved family day homes caring for children up to kindergarten age, and families feel it as a capped fee rather than as a cheque.

The numbers are worth knowing if you are costing out a move with young children, because childcare is one of the few line items where Alberta is unambiguously cheaper than most of the country. Daycares and family day homes receiving affordability funding charge a flat monthly parent fee of $326.25 for full-time care, defined as a child registered for 100 or more hours a month, and $230 for part-time care of 50 to 99 hours a month. Preschools receiving the funding can get up to $100 per enrolled child per month to reduce parent fees. Those figures are published on the Affordability Grant page on alberta.ca and were read there on 8 September 2026.

The confusion is understandable. The word grant sits next to the word affordability, Alberta has run several unrelated affordability payments over the years, and search results mix all of them together. If you have arrived at this page hoping the Alberta Affordability Grant is a cash top-up for moving, it is not. It is a subsidy paid to your future daycare.

Is there a move to Alberta incentive open in September 2026?

There is no general Government of Alberta move to Alberta incentive open in September 2026, and no replacement for the Moving Bonus has been announced. What exists instead is a set of smaller, more specific things, each attached to a job, a community or an immigration stream rather than to the act of moving itself.

• Employer relocation packages: Many Alberta employers in construction, health care and aviation fund relocation directly as part of the offer, and this is now the most common way a move to Alberta actually gets paid for.
• Rural community incentives: Individual Alberta towns and counties run their own attraction programmes, which change often and are administered locally rather than by the province, so check with the specific municipality rather than with alberta.ca.
• Rural Renewal Stream endorsement: A designated Alberta community can endorse you for the AAIP Rural Renewal Stream, which is not money but is worth considerably more than $5,000 if permanent residence is your goal.
• The Affordability Grant:Alberta's capped childcare fees apply to any family using a participating licensed programme once you live here, with no application by the parent.
• Credential recognition support: Alberta funds fast-tracked foreign credential recognition in several regulated occupations, which shortens the gap between arriving and earning at your trained level.

What Alberta is calling never covered: the immigration side

Alberta is calling never granted immigration status, never issued a work permit and never fast-tracked a permanent residence application, because the province has no power to do any of those things on its own. Provinces nominate; Immigration, Refugees and Citizenship Canada decides. That division of labour is the single most important thing to understand about Alberta immigration, and the campaign's advertising deliberately said nothing about it because its audience was already in Canada.

If you are outside Canada, or inside Canada on a temporary permit, the campaign was never yours to answer. Your route runs through a federal programme such as Express Entry, a work permit, or Alberta's own nominee programme. The last of those is where an Alberta connection genuinely counts, and it is the part of the story that survived the campaign.

The AAIP is the route that is open, and it still has room in 2026

The Alberta Advantage Immigration Program nominates people for permanent residence in Alberta, and it had 2,043 of its 6,603 nomination spaces still available when alberta.ca last updated the figure on 25 August 2026. That allocation is set with the federal government, it is the province's hard ceiling for the year, and it is the number that decides how competitive every stream feels.

Alberta has told applicants where it intends to spend the rest. For 2026 the AAIP says it will prioritise draws and nominations in health care, technology, construction, manufacturing, aviation, agriculture and communities designated under the Rural Renewal Stream, while noting that this is a statement of priorities rather than an exhaustive list. Full stream detail sits on our Alberta immigration guide, and the live cut-off scores sit on our AAIP draws tracker.

The pressure in those numbers is on the demand side, not the supply side. Alberta reported 36,255 candidates sitting in the Worker Expression of Interest pool on the same date, of whom 22,648 had named the Alberta Opportunity Stream. That is roughly six candidates in the pool for every nomination Alberta will issue all year, which is why cut-off scores move and why a targeted occupation matters more than a high score alone.

Recent draws show how differently the streams behave. On 14 August 2026 the Alberta Opportunity Stream invited 743 candidates at a minimum score of 58. On 11 August 2026 the Rural Renewal Stream invited 127 at a minimum of 51. On 6 August 2026 the Accelerated Tech Pathway invited 95 at a minimum of 60. Alberta states plainly that its draws are not regularly scheduled and that the expression of interest score is not the only factor it uses to select candidates, so nobody, including us, can tell you what the next round will require.

How the AAIP works, in four steps

The Alberta route runs in a fixed order, and skipping a step is the most common reason a hopeful Alberta file goes nowhere. Alberta introduced a Worker Expression of Interest fee on 7 April 2026, so the current amounts are worth confirming on alberta.ca before you submit anything.

1. 01

   Check the stream fits

   Alberta runs four worker streams and four entrepreneur streams, each with its own eligibility rules, and most worker pathways need a qualifying Alberta job offer. Alberta publishes an Eligibility Explorer tool, launched 17 June 2026, and our Alberta immigration guide walks through each stream in plain English.

2. 02

   Submit a Worker Expression of Interest

   You lodge an expression of interest scored out of 100 against Alberta's grid and it sits in the pool until the province draws. There were 36,255 candidates in that pool as at 25 August 2026, so the score you enter with matters. Estimate yours on our AAIP calculator first.

3. 03

   Receive an invitation and apply for nomination

   Alberta invites selected candidates to apply, and only then do you file the nomination application with the documents behind every claim you made. Alberta was assessing Alberta Opportunity Stream applications received on or before 9 May 2026 as at 25 August 2026, which is the most honest available guide to the wait.

4. 04

   Apply to IRCC for permanent residence

   A nomination is a provincial endorsement, not permanent residence. You file a separate federal application, and IRCC makes the final decision on admissibility and status. Our Alberta processing times page tracks where each stage currently sits.

What Alberta actually offers a mover now, in numbers

Strip away the campaign and the province's underlying case for itself has not changed, and it is published on alberta.ca rather than invented by us. These are the figures the province itself puts forward on its Opportunity Alberta pages, read on 8 September 2026, and they are the honest replacement for a $5,000 cheque.

One caveat from where we sit. Those provincial averages do not describe the Bow Valley. Canmore and Banff are among the most expensive places to live in Alberta, and the gap between the provincial average and a mountain-town rent is the first unpleasant surprise most people who move here experience. We have written honestly about that in moving to Canmore and about where the jobs actually are in jobs in Canmore and Banff. If cost is the deciding factor, look at the wider list of Alberta towns and cities before you commit to a postcode.

Where these figures come from, and how this page is kept current

Every number on this page is attributed in the sentence or the table caption that carries it. The AAIP allocation, stream-by-stream nominations, expression of interest pool and draw results come from the AAIP processing information page on alberta.ca, last updated by the province on 25 August 2026 and read by us on 8 September 2026. Stream structure comes from the AAIP programme page. Cost of living, income, housing and job vacancy figures come from Opportunity Alberta, and the childcare fee figures from the Affordability Grant page, both read on 8 September 2026.

Moving Bonus rules and dates come from the Government of Alberta application guidelines as reported by CBC News on 1 May 2025, by Daily Hive with a ministry comment dated 19 January 2026, and by the Alberta Business Grants listing that records the 15 March 2026 closure. We verified independently on 8 September 2026 that alberta.ca no longer serves a Moving Bonus page. Campaign phases, budgets and migration figures come from Global News reporting of 8 May 2024, Canadian HR Reporter of January 2024 and Government of Alberta news releases. Where a claim is journalism rather than a government document, it is named as such.

This page is reviewed whenever Alberta updates its AAIP processing figures, which has been roughly monthly through 2026, and immediately if the province announces any successor to the Moving Bonus. If you find a figure here that alberta.ca no longer supports, tell us and we will correct it.

Compliance note. Wild Mountain Immigration is a licensed RCIC practice based in Canmore, Alberta, led by Nicola Wightman, CICC R706497, working online with clients across Canada and abroad. This page is general information about alberta is calling and about Alberta immigration, not advice on your own file, and nothing here predicts or promises an outcome on any application. We do not advise on Quebec programmes, and we do not represent clients before the Immigration and Refugee Board or the courts. A consultation with a licensed RCIC is free.

The short version, if you take nothing else from this page: alberta is calling was an advertising campaign for Canadians already in Canada, its $5,000 bonus closed on 15 March 2026 with two thirds of the money unclaimed, and the thing that still opens the door to Alberta is a nomination, not a cheque. Alberta had 2,043 of those nominations left for 2026 at the end of August. That is the number worth acting on.