Express Entry Draw – Latest Figures

The March 29 draw makes it 21,000 invitations issued to Express Entry candidates over three weeks. Candidates in all Express Entry programs were considered in this draw and the Comprehensive Ranking System (CRS) score cut-off threshold for this draw was 481 points.

7,000 invitations is a massive number for an Express Entry draw. The March 29 draw is the highest number of ITAs issued in an all-program draw, three-way tied with March 15 and March 23.

Please note: It can take up to 24 hours for an ITA to appear in your IRCC account.

CRS edging down with massive draw sizes

These draw sizes of 7,000 candidates are helping the CRS cut offs to go down.

When an Express Entry draw happens, IRCC picks the top scoring candidates. The CRS score depends on how many candidates score highly in the pool, and how many ITAs are issued at a time.

Given that Express Entry was paused following the NOC 2021 update in November, and before that all program draws had been paused for 18 months, the number of candidates in the pool grew.

This caused CRS cutoffs to be relatively high in recent months.

IRCC holding large draws and with increased frequency suggests the department is trying to work through the large number of Express Entry candidates in the pool.

Express Entry overstaffed

A recent report from the Parliamentary Budget Officer reveals that IRCC has more than enough staff to process Express Entry applications at the service standard until 2027. Which means, new applications should be seeing their Express Entry applications processed within 6 months in 80 percent of cases.

For this year, the department is about 65 percent overstaffed, but that will even out to 4 percent by the 2026-2027 fiscal year. Canada’s PBO based this calculation on the assumption that Express Entry would continue to grow at the same rate it has since it began in 2015. If it does, the PBO estimates that 123,552 Express Entry candidates could come to Canada in 2027.

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For more information on Express Entry and other Canadian immigration options, check out these resources:

CRS score distribution of candidates in the Express Entry pool

The following table shows the recent distribution of candidates in the Express Entry pool. As of March 29, there were a total of 234,947 candidates in the Express Entry pool. The score distribution may change as people submit new profiles and other profiles expire.

Want to improve your Express Entry CRS score? See our updated guide for tips you might not have thought of yet.

When will the next Express Entry draw take place?

There is no public schedule of future Express Entry draws, so it is not possible to know for certain when the Express Entry draw will take place. However, IRCC has historically tended to conduct Express Entry draws every two weeks on Wednesdays. That being said, Express Entry draws can, and do, take place on other days of the week, and sometimes there is a longer or shorter gap between one Express Entry draw and the next draw.

The quickest way to find out when an Express Entry draw has taken place is to create a free Moving2Canada account and sign up for our newsletter.

Express Entry CRS score cut-off all-time records

In the history of Express Entry, the following CRS score cut-off records have taken place:

Lowest CRS score cut-off in any Express Entry draw:

• All programs: 413 points
• Canadian Experience Class (CEC): 75 points — this was an exceptional draw that invited all CEC candidates in the Express Entry pool
• Federal Skilled Trades (FST): 199 points

Highest CRS score cut-off in any Express Entry draw:

• All programs: 886 points
• PNP Draw: 902 points

Express Entry draw list by year