Following a busy month of August and several historic draws throughout July, Canada’s Express Entry system has seen changes in the composition of candidates – and also in the newcomers who have received Invitations to Apply (ITAs) for Permanent Residence (PR).

To better inform Express Entry Pool candidates and those interested in Canadian immigration, the following details the current composition of the pool – as well as a look at the cut-off scores for various draws over the past month.

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Current Status of the Express Entry Pool

What draws took place in August?

Five Express Entry draws were held throughout the month of August, issuing over 10,000 ITAs, as Immigration Refugees and Citizenship Canada (IRCC) returned to the established method of holding Express Entry draws every other week.

The draws held in August include changes announced by Immigration Minister Marc Miller. For example, the prevalence of CEC and PNP draws follows statements made by Miller last March, when the minister announced his intention to pursue more “domestic” draws through the federal immigration system. Miller said in the same press conference that he would urge his provincial counterparts to do the same with Canada’s PNP.

The move was aimed at easing the burden on housing stock and minimizing the potential impact on affordability by not bringing in new immigrants to Canada. Instead, the department is working on prioritizing those who are already in Canada as temporary residents (primarily on work permits) who are eligible to transition to PR. This will also help IRCC meet its annual immigration target for permanent residents.

Additionally, Canada has recently emphasized the importance of Francophone immigration to the country by announcing that it will increase the percentage allocation of Francophone immigrants to provinces outside of Quebec within annual targets. This percentage allocation will increase from 6% this year to 7% in 2025 and 8% in 2026. There have been seven French language proficiency draws this year, issuing over 19,000 ITAs so far in 2024.

What is the current points distribution in the pool?

As of August 27 (the date of the most recent draw at the time of writing), the score breakdown within the Express Entry pools is as follows:

The above data is also presented as a bar graph for easier viewing:

This graph shows the distribution of scores within the Express Entry pool

How does each score compare to the overall distribution?

The table below takes the top end of each CRS score range, and assigns it a percentile, with the assumption that the top score will have a percentage point of the total number of candidates within that score range (for example, within the 0-300 score range, it is assumed that there are 5,491 candidates (the total number of candidates in that score range) in the Express Entry pool with lower scores than candidates with a score of 300).

As we can see from the current distribution, half of the candidates in the Express Entry pool have a current CRS score of 420 or below.

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