Express Entry Draw 337: The First French Draw of 2025 on February 19

Key Takeaways for Express Entry Candidates

• Type of draw: French Category-Based Draw
• Invites issued: 6,500
• CRS score: 428
• Tie-breaking rule: February 10, 2025 at 16:41:38 UTC
• Prediction for the next draw: Canadian Experience Class Draw on February 20.

If you’re new to the excitement of Express Entry and you’re not sure what French draws are, check out our dedicated page covering French Language Category-Based Express Entry draws. You can also dive into some stats about where Canada’s French speakers are coming from for some inspiration to learn French. (Hint: France isn’t the number 1 source country!)

Our Analysis of This Week’s French-Language Express Entry Draw

Today’s French draw shows an interesting trend — the first French language Express Entry draw each year is huge. At 6,500 invitations, today’s French draw is the second largest French draw ever. It’s a little smaller than the first draw of last year, which saw 7,000 invitations issued on February 1, 2024.

In terms of recent French draws, we haven’t seen a French draw inviting more than 1,000 people since August 15, 2024 — when 2,000 French-speaking candidates were invited.

However, at 428, the CRS is much higher than last year’s large draw — which had a score of 365. More on what this means for competition in the pool below.

As a reminder, this is what French category draws looked like in Canada in 2024:

As you can see, the CRS varied widely during throughout 2024. The lowest CRS cut off to date for a French draw is 336 on February 29, which saw 2,500 invitations issued. Scores crept up through 2024 and have been trending higher (as you’d expect).

The draw on February 1, 2024, which invited 7,000 offers a glimpse into how competition is heating up in the French category. That draw had a score of 365. Today’s draw, inviting 6,500 was 63 CRS points higher — which is significant.

That being said, the CRS cut off for this round is much lower than we’re seeing for the Canadian Experience Class draws, which have been higher than 520 since September last year. So, learning French is still a strong strategy for getting permanent residence in Canada in 2025.

Keen to learn more about how your CRS compares? Check out our free CRS calculator to learn what your odds of receiving an invitation are, as well as where you get your points (and how you could improve your CRS).

Will French Draws Be Common This Year?

Yes! IRCC plans to welcome more French-speaking immigrants outside Quebec, increasing the target from 6.3% to 8.5% of all immigrants.

The French proficiency category was the most used category in 2024, a trend likely to continue in 2025 and 2026. What does this mean? Learning French now may be the best thing you can do to boost your chances of getting an invitation to apply.

Demonstrating French ability is a great way to secure your invitation. Use our CRS calculator to see your CRS score if you learned French.

For more information on Express Entry:

• Learn more about the latest Express Entry draws.
• Learn more about the state of the Express Entry pool.
• Learn when to expect the next Express Entry draw.

For up-to-date information about Express Entry draws, consider creating a free Moving2Canada account and subscribing to our newsletter. We share news about the draws and our analysis as it happens, so you’ll never miss the latest results.