Express entry candidates issued 3,350 invitations in the latest express draw with drop in CRS cut-off

Latest express draw held on April 3 by federal government of Canada issued total 3,350 invitations to the candidates registered under express entry draw for Canadian permanent residence visa.

CRS cut-off for this draw was set at one point lower than the previous draw CRS cut-off which was at 452 points and for this draw CRS cut-off is set at 451 points. Seeing the trend of the express draws, this is the third consecutive time when the CRS score has been dropped. Main reason behind this can be the time interval between the draws that is two weeks.

Express entry program is a point-based system that manages the profiles of the candidate’s who have applied for Canada PR visa by applying under Canada’s three skilled immigration program – Federal Skilled Worker Program (FSWP), Federal Skilled trades Program (FSTP) and Canadian Experience Class (CEC). Candidate’s profiles are ranked in the express pool with the help of Comprehensive Ranking System (CRS) with the points awarded to them based on some factors like age, educational qualification, language proficiency etc. Highest ranked profiles are then issued the Invitation to Apply (ITA) via which they are able to apply for Canada PR to the Immigration, Refugees & Citizenship Canada (IRCC).

The latest draw has brought the total number of invitations issued for this year to 24,550 ITAs, which is currently setting the pace ahead of the previous year 2018, which was record breaking year for issuing most number of invitations in a single year – 89,800 ITAs.

Time stamp used for the express draw held on April 3 was set at January 9, 2019, at 07:35:09 UTC. This means the candidates who have applied under express entry program before the used date and time and have score more than 451 CRS points were issued the ITA’s in the draw.

This draw was the fifth consecutive draw with same size of 3,350 ITAs issued by the IRCC. But this can be changed in coming days given the Canada’s three year immigration plan of increasing the admission rates into the Country under the federal government’s express entry program.