Express Entry Draw 341: Biggest French Draw Ever on March 21, 2025

Key Takeaways for Express Entry Candidates

• Type of draw: French Category-Based Draw
• Invites issued: 7,500
• CRS score: 379
• Tie-breaking rule: March 06, 2025 at 02:53:27 UTC
• Prediction for the next draw: Provincial Nominee Draw on March 31, 2025.

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

After multiple large French draws already in February and March 2025, IRCC just completed its largest ever category-based draw with 7,500 invitations going to French speaking candidates in the Express Entry pool.

This is a fitting move for the week of International Francophonie Day, which happened on March 20, 2025. (Though we can’t help but wish that IRCC held this draw yesterday to mark the day instead!)

IRCC did mark International Francophonie Day by announcing 12 new projects to support Francophone minority communities across the country. You can learn more about those on the official government website.

This brings the total number of invitations to French speaking candidates in 2025 to 18,500, in three draws.

For context, just 2,297 invitations have been issued to Provincial Nominee Program candidates in 2025, and 9,350 invitations have been issued in Canadian Experience Class draws so far this year.

In other words, French-speaking candidates are seeing far more invitations than other programs and categories so far in 2025.

As for the massive CRS drop for this round — it’s safe to say we were wrong with our prediction that the CRS may not drop below 400. At 379, this is the fourth lowest CRS for a French draw ever.

In fact, we haven’t seen scores lower than this since March 2024. The only other rounds with lower scores all took place in February 2024 (36 for 7,000 invitations on Feb 1, 2024 and 336 for 2,500 invitations on February 29, 2024, plus one draw on July 12, 2023 with a score of 375 and 3,800 invitations issued).

So, what does this mean for French draws for the rest of this year?

Invitations may slow a little, but we wouldn’t be surprised to see multiple more draws around the 2,000 mark. Canada’s Immigration Levels Plan outlines that it is aiming for 29,325 French-speaking permanent residence admissions outside Quebec. With this draw (and a few more in the coming months), plus some of the permanent residence programs like the Francophone Community Pilot, Canada should be on track to meet or exceed that target this year.

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 (likely even through to 2028 and beyond). 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.