Express Entry Draw: IRCC Issues Invitations in Latest Round

Express Entry does not issue invitations continuously. IRCC invites candidates from the pool in rounds, and each round is published as a numbered Ministerial Instruction. Knowing how to read one is more durable than memorising the figures from any single round.

The three kinds of round

• General. Top-ranking candidates eligible for any of the three Express Entry programs.
• Program-specific. Candidates eligible for one particular program.
• Category-based. Candidates matching a category the Minister has established for a specific economic goal.

What each round publishes

Every round records the round number, the date, the round type, the number of invitations issued, and the Comprehensive Ranking System score of the lowest-ranked candidate invited. Those figures describe that round and nothing else. They are a record of what happened, not an indicator of what a later round will do.

There is also a tie-breaking rule, which is frequently missed. IRCC states that if more than one candidate has the lowest score, the cut-off is based on the date and time they submitted their Express Entry profiles. Two candidates on identical scores are separated by when they entered the pool.

Why we do not list the latest numbers here

Deliberate choice. Round results change regularly, and a figure copied onto a consultancy website is wrong as soon as the next round runs, while still looking authoritative to whoever reads it. IRCC publishes the full table itself and keeps it current.

The official rounds table is the place to check, and it is linked below. Read the round type before reading the score: a low cut-off in a category-based round and a low cut-off in a general round mean very different things, because the pools being drawn from are not the same.

Rounds draw from a pool, not from applicants

This is the part that reframes the whole thing. A round does not choose between people who have applied for permanent residence. It chooses between candidates sitting in the Express Entry pool, each of whom has already met the minimum criteria for one of the three federal programs Express Entry manages. Being in the pool is the precondition. The round is the selection event.

That is why a cut-off score cannot be read as a pass mark to aim at. It is the score of the lowest-ranked candidate who happened to be invited in that particular round, from that particular pool, on that particular day. Change the round type and the same score means something different.

What a candidate can actually act on

Very little in a round is within a candidate's control. The date, the type, the size and the cut-off are all set by IRCC. What is within their control is the profile: whether the language testing is current, whether the educational credential assessment is done, whether work experience is documented, and whether the profile is in the pool at all when a round runs.

The tie-breaking rule is worth restating for that reason. When candidates share the lowest score, the separator is the date and time their profiles were submitted. A profile that has been sitting in the pool is ahead of an identical profile created later.

What we can usefully say is what sits behind the score. Our Express Entry page explains how a profile is built and how the ranking is put together, and our article on the ranking system covers the four factor groups.