Canada's latest Express Entry draw had the lowest CRS requirement of 2020

Two days, two Express Entry draws. Today's draw rendered invitations for 3,782 immigration candidates and their families to apply for Canadian permanent residence.

Invitations to Apply (ITAs) for Canadian permanent residence were issued to Canadian Experience Class (CEC) program candidates with Comprehensive Ranking System (CRS) scores as low as 455 on April 16, 2020.

Today's draw follows the 118 ITAs already issued yesterday to Provincial Nominee Program (PNP) candidates, bringing the total of ITAs issued over the past two days to 3,900.

This is the fourth draw to target exclusively CEC candidates in the history of Express Entry. It is possible Immigration, Refugees and Citizenship Canada (IRCC) targeted CEC candidates because they are most likely to be already in Canada, given the current restrictions in place due to the coronavirus outbreak.

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Canada has now issued 30,400 ITAs so far in 2020. A total of 85,300 were issued through Express Entry in 2019.

Under its 2020-2022 Immigration Levels Plan, the Government of Canada is targeting the admission of 341,000 immigrants in 2020, 351,000 in 2021, and another 361,000 in 2022. PNP admissions are set to increase 20 per cent by 2022.

The latest draw saw the tie-breaking rule implemented on January 20, 2020, at 15:20:02 UTC. This means that all candidates with a CRS score of 455 and above who submitted their profile before this date and time received an ITA in this invitation round.

This was the eleventh round of invitations under Express Entry in 2020 and the 144th overall.

The vast majority of Express Entry draws involve candidates from all three classes and today’s draw was one of the rare exceptions to this rule.

Given Canada’s higher admission targets for its three Federal Skilled immigration programs in 2020 and 2021, it is expected that IRCC will hold more frequent and larger draws in the coming weeks and months.

All eligible Express Entry candidates are given a score under the CRS that is based on factors such as age, education, skilled work experience and proficiency in English or French. They are then entered into the Express Entry pool.

Unlike all-program invitation rounds, which draw from the entire Express Entry pool and tend to result in higher cut-off scores, niche draws for a specific cohort like Canadian Experience Class candidates can produce lower cut-off scores given they target a smaller pool of candidates.

Today’s draw cut-off score of 455 was 9 points lower than the cut-off score in the last CEC Express Entry draw, which was 464.

The following is a hypothetical example of someone who could have been invited in today's draw.

Shiv is 30 years old, completed his bachelor’s degree in Canada, and has been working as a technical sales specialist in Canada for the past 14 months. He wrote the IELTS and scored an 8 in listening and a 7 in each other category. Shiv’s CRS score of 457 would have been high enough to obtain an ITA during the April 16 Express Entry draw.

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Canada’s latest Express Entry draw has lowest CRS of 2020