Our Top 5 Predictions for Express Entry Draws in 2025

A quick note before we begin: While this information can help you plan your pathway to Canada, it’s ultimately unhelpful to only use predictions for CRS as your focal point for your immigration journey. Why? Because the CRS score chosen by IRCC each week is entirely out of your control.

Instead, we recommend focusing on factors that are within your control – like learning French to become eligible for a category-based draw, improving your English skills, or increasing your education. We suggest using our free online Express Entry points calculator to learn more about what you could do to improve your CRS in 2025.

Key Takeaways

• Express Entry draws will likely look quite different in 2025, especially for Provincial Nominee Program candidates.
• High CRS cut-offs prevailed throughout 2024 – and we think this is likely to continue throughout 2025.
• French draws will likely continue at a rate of around once per month, with around 2,000-3,500 invitations on average.
• Trades and healthcare draws will likely happen around once per quarter.

Prediction One: There Will Be Larger Bi-Weekly CEC Draws

The federal government announced in late October that it would be prioritizing in-Canada applicants (many of whom will come through CEC Express Entry draws) throughout 2025. So many of us expected to see relatively large CEC draws for Q4 of 2024. But that hasn’t happened, and October and November in 2024 were strange months in the Canadian Experience Class draws. The largest CEC draw we saw was 500, which is extremely small considering Canada aims to attract 39,000 to 89,000 permanent residents through it’s in Canada focus.

We suspect that in 2025, we will likely see CEC draws totaling 3,000 to 7,000 per month. In other words, we don’t think the tiny draws we’ve seen in October and November will persist.

Prediction Two: The High CRS Cut-Offs Will Persist

Unfortunately, we do foresee the high CRS cut-offs persisting through 2025. There are very high levels of temporary residents still in Canada, and this backlog is likely to remain high through 2025 and into 2026. This means the CRS cut-off, especially for CEC draws, will likely remain quite high – above the 510 mark.

It’s also likely that the CRS for PNP draws will see an increased CRS cut-off. The allocation for PNP immigration in 2025 was significantly reduced so, it’s possible that provinces will reserve nominations for candidates with higher ranking factors, like work experience in Canada or having studied in Canada.

Prediction 3: Around 3,000 French Speakers Invited Each Month

We suspect we’ll continue seeing around one French draw per month with an average of around 2,000-3,500 invitations per month. That said, we might see a larger draw earlier in the year (like the massive 7,000 invitation draw we saw in February of 2024. This is because the targets in 2025 are still very high but draw activity has been relatively slow in Q4 of 2024.

As a result, we think that there will likely be increased interest from potential Express Entry applicants in French language courses. We predict that we may see increased competition for these French-speaking slots, starting from around June or July 2025.

Prediction 4: Trades and Healthcare Draws 2-3x in 2025

We know that IRCC plans to continue targeting those working in Trades and Healthcare occupations through Express Entry draws in 2025. But, we don’t expect IRCC to increase its draw activity for workers in these occupations. In other words, we expect to see around 2-3 draws for healthcare workers and 2-3 draws for trades workers in 2025.

Prediction 5: Points For Job Offers Will Be Eliminated

It seems likely that the 50-200 points for job offers will be eliminated, given that Marc Miller has spoken publicly about it and the rampant LMIA fraud currently taking place.

In 2023, 20,716 invitations were issued to candidates who met the criteria for additional points for having a valid job offer.

There were 110,266 invitations issued in total, so this means around 18% of candidates invited to apply for permanent residence through the Express Entry system had these additional points. This is a significant proportion, so it’s likely that this potential change would impact many of you reading this list.

If you had hoped to use an eligible job offer to increase your points in 2025, you might find our guide to improving your CRS score and how learning French can help you immigrate to Canada interesting.