Express Entry Draw 373 – 2,500 Healthcare and Social Services Workers Invited on October 15, 2025

Key Takeaways for Express Entry Candidates from the October 15, 2025 Healthcare Draw

• Type of draw: Category-based draw targeting candidates with work experience in Healthcare and social services occupations
• Invitations issued: 2,500
• CRS score: 472
• Tie-breaking rule: May 12, 2025 at 23:17:30 UTC
• Prediction for the next draw: Unclear due to recent draw uncertainty, but we would suggest the next draw may be the Provincial Nominee Program bi-weekly round. 
• New to the excitement of Express Entry draws? Check out our guide to Express Entry.

Our Analysis of This Express Entry Draw

Today’s draw was the fifth category-based draw inviting healthcare and social services workers to apply for permanent residence in Canada in 2025. This is up from three dedicated draws each year in 2023 and 2024.

This draw was surprisingly large, given information from an IRCC ATIP request earlier this year that suggested we would see around 8,000 healthcare draws in 2025. Prior to this round, there had been around 7,500 ITAs issued to healthcare and social services workers this year. So, we were expecting to see a round closer to 500 for a healthcare draw. Today’s draw issued 2,500 invitations — which could indicate that IRCC has rejected more healthcare applicants than initially anticipated, or that it changed the number of ITAs it planned to issue this year. This again makes us very interested to see what comes out in the Immigration Levels Plan for 2026-2028, which should be published imminently. You’ll want to subscribe to our newsletter for timely updates on that, if you haven’t already.

That said, at 2,500 invitations, today’s draw is equal second for 2025 when it comes to overall size. The only larger healthcare draw happened on July 22, 2025 when 4,000 invitations were issued.

CRS Cut-Off For The Latest Healthcare Draw in Canada

Today’s draw resulted in a slightly higher Comprehensive Ranking System (CRS) score than the last healthcare draw in August 2025, which had a cut-off of 470. It is the second lowest CRS cut-off for a healthcare draw in 2025, however.

It is interesting that the CRS cut-off jumped up for a relatively large round for a category, with just two months between today’s draw and the last draw. We know that the Express Entry pool has an extremely high volume of people with a score of 451-500 — it’s sitting at 70,461 as of October 13, 2025. At the 471-480 range, there are 15,370 people.

Now, many of those won’t be eligible for healthcare category-based rounds — or even any category-based rounds. But, the takeaway here for people hoping to receive an invitation for Canada’s category-based Express Entry draws is to continually work on improving your score. As we can see here, 2,500 additional people either improved their score or entered the pool in just two months in eligible healthcare and social services occupations.

• Do you know what your CRS is? If not, use our online Express Entry CRS calculator to determine how many points you have.

Will There Be Another Healthcare Draw in 2025?

Possibly, but we wouldn’t hang all our hopes on it. We may have a better idea about healthcare draws after the Immigration Levels Plans for 2026-2028 are announced in the coming weeks.

As we outlined above, today’s draw does bring IRCC over its internal estimates for the number of healthcare invitations it would issue in 2025. This is separate to the quota it outlined for 2025 in last year’s Immigration Levels Plan.

Is There Hope for a Canadian Experience Class Draw This Week?

As always, we don’t have a direct line to the IRCC so we don’t know what they have brewing, but there are a few angles we can look at this from:

Recent Draws Trends

Historically, Moving2Canada used past draw trends to estimate what draws we might see next. In past years, this was relatively accurate. However, this year has been extremely inconsistent so we aren’t able to accurately predict what’s coming next based on past draws trends alone.

If we looked solely at recent draws, we would say that there’s very little chance of a Canadian Experience Class draw this week. This is because the current trend shows:

Draw week 1, each month: PNP and CEC (and maybe a French)

Draw week 2, each month: PNP and at least one category-based draw. Last month, we saw two — education then a trades draw.

In that case, we’d guess that there could be another trades draw this week but there may not be. There haven’t been months with consistent trends for us to lean on.

Trends in Invitations Numbers

Another way of looking at it is to consider the number of invitations issued each week. This can be helpful since IRCC tries to create some levels of consistency in the volume of applications it processes (though, again, this is not a consistent gauge of actual expected invitations).

In June, we saw 7,405 invitations issued across all draws.

In July, we saw 7,558 invitations issued across all draws.

In August, we saw 6,417 invitations issued.

In September, we saw 10,018 invitations.

Given the higher number of invitations in September, October may have slightly lower volumes of invitations.

In totality, we’d lean towards no further draws this week — but we’d love to be surprised!

What Is A Healthcare & Social Services Occupation Draw in Canadian Immigration?

To be eligible for an invitation through a category-based round, you must:

• Qualify for one of the three main immigration programs: Federal Skilled Worker (FSW), Federal Skilled Trades (FST), or Canadian Experience Class (CEC).
• Meet the minimum requirements for the round, including the Comprehensive Ranking System (CRS) cut-off and tiebreaker rules.

Additionally, you must have at least six months of full-time, continuous work experience (or an equivalent in part-time work experience) in one eligible occupation.

• Animal health technologists and veterinary technicians

• Audiologists and speech language pathologists

• Cardiology technologists and electrophysiological diagnostic technologists

• Chiropractors

• Dental hygienists and dental therapists

• Dentists

• Dieticians and nutritionists

• General practitioners and family physicians

• Licensed practical nurses

• Massage therapists

• Medical laboratory assistants and related technical occupations

• Medical laboratory technologists

• Medical radiation technologists

• Medical sonographers

• Nurse aides, orderlies and patient service associates

• Nurse practitioners

• Nursing co-ordinators and supervisors

• Occupational therapists

• Optometrists

• Other medical technologists and technicians

• Other professional occupations in health diagnosing and treating

• Other technical occupations in therapy and assessment

• Paramedical occupations

• Pharmacists

• Pharmacy technical assistants and pharmacy assistants

• Pharmacy technicians

• Physician assistants, midwives and allied health professionals

• Physiotherapists

• Psychologists

• Registered nurses and registered psychiatric nurses

• Respiratory therapists, clinical perfusionists and cardiopulmonary technologists

• Social and community service workers

• Social workers

• Specialists in clinical and laboratory medicine

• Specialists in surgery

• Therapists in counselling and related specialized therapies

• Veterinarians.

If your work experience spans multiple occupations, you will need to accumulate six months in a single occupation to qualify.

Of course, healthcare workers in Canada may also be selected in Canadian Experience Class draws but selection in this category may come with a more competitive CRS cut-off.

For more information:

• 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.
• Learn more about Express Entry healthcare draws.

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