Latest Express Entry Draw and Full History

General, program and category-based draws

IRCC runs three kinds of Express Entry rounds. General rounds invite the top scores across the whole pool, whatever the program. There has not been one since April 2024. Program rounds invite only candidates eligible for one program: in 2026 that has meant the Canadian Experience Class and the Provincial Nominee Program. Category rounds invite only candidates who meet a category's extra condition, such as French at NCLC 7 or recent work in healthcare, trades or transport. So far in 2026 IRCC has held 59 rounds and issued 135,215 invitations across all three kinds.

How the cutoff is set

The CRS cutoff is not a target IRCC announces in advance. For each round, IRCC chooses the round type and the number of invitations. It then ranks everyone eligible for that round by CRS score and invites from the top down until the number is reached. The cutoff is simply the score of the last person invited. Two things move it: how many strong profiles are eligible, and how many invitations IRCC decides to issue. A small round in a crowded category produces a high cutoff; a large round produces a lower one.

How the tie-breaking rule works

Many candidates share the same score, so IRCC adds a tie-breaking rule to every round: a date and time. If several people have the cutoff score, only those who submitted their Express Entry profile before that moment are invited. In round #447, candidates at 476 who submitted their profile before May 28, 2026, 16:55 UTC were invited, and those who submitted later were not. If your score equals a recent cutoff, your profile date matters.

Why PNP cutoffs look so high

Everyone in a PNP round already holds a provincial or territorial nomination worth 600 points. A cutoff of 725 means a base score of 125 before the nomination. PNP cutoffs tell you about competition among nominees, not about your chances without a nomination.

How often are Express Entry draws held?

IRCC does not publish a calendar. Rounds often come in clusters, a PNP round, a CEC round and a category round on consecutive days, followed by a quiet week or two. That is why averages such as "a draw every few days" mislead. The useful number is the gap between rounds of the type you qualify for, which our estimate above uses.

If you missed the last cutoff by a few points

A cutoff is a result, not a pass mark. The next round can land above or below your score, depending on how many profiles joined the pool since, how many expired, and how many invitations IRCC issues. In 2026 CEC cutoffs have stayed between 507 and 523, a narrow band, so a gap of 20 points or more rarely closes by waiting. Points you can still add, usually from a language retake, a second official language or another year of Canadian work, move you faster than the calendar does.

What the latest draw means if you have strong French

The latest CEC cutoff of 518 is high: only 21,798 of the 229,904 profiles in the pool score above 500. For most CEC candidates, the realistic routes are either to add points or to qualify for a category with a lower cutoff. French does both. NCLC 7 in all four French skills adds 25 or 50 bonus points plus up to 24 second-language points, and it opens French-language rounds, which last cut off at 382 in August. A CEC candidate with NCLC 7 French and a score of 470 is 48 points short of the latest CEC round, but would have cleared the last French cutoff by 88 points.

That gap is why so many candidates sit the TEF Canada or the TCF Canada. If you are close, start with the skill that is furthest from NCLC 7.