In the current year, Canada has till date invited 7257 PNP candidates.

On 13^th April, 2022, Canada sent out 787 Express Entry invitations to candidates seeking permanent residency.

In the latest round of invitation, all the candidates had received a nomination from Provincial Nominee Program (PNP) beforehand. The candidates who held a Comprehensive Ranking Score (CRS) of minimum 782 points were only eligible to get invitations. Since the PNP candidates have the advantage of 600 bonus points while receiving their nomination, the cut off score was comparatively higher. Otherwise, the lowest score of the candidates would have been just 182 base points without the nomination.

In the previous round of invitation, Immigration, Refugees and Citizenship Canada (IRCC) considered 919 PNP Candidate applications with a cut off score of 785 points.

Why has the process been slow-moving for this year?

The first quarter of 2022 has been the slowest since the launch of Express Entry Program in the year 2015, inviting just 6,470 candidates to apply for immigration.

This is decline is due to the fact that IRCC, since September 2021, sent out invitations to only PNP candidates resulting in cessation of the draws for Canadian Experience Class (CEC) candidates. Also, no draws were held Federal Skilled Worker Program (FSWP) since December 2020.

Previously i.e. before the pandemic era, candidates from any Express Entry-managed program were allowed to be invited to apply for immigration.

Because of the travel constraints owing to COVID-19, Canada transitioned lot of temporary residents to permanent residents in order to meet its record-breaking immigration targets. As a result, the Express Entry applications stacked up especially the Federal Skilled Worker Program applications which are mostly put by overseas candidates. This accumulation of applications far overdid the standard processing time of six months.

However, Sean Fraser, the Immigration Minister of Canada earlier announced that the draws for these candidates would resume by this spring, there hasn’t been any update on that till date.

Data on the Number of ITAs issued in the time period from January 1 to April 13 for 2021 and 2022.

In 2021, approximately 50,000 ITAs were issued whereas

In 2022, approximately 7000 ITAs have been issued till date.

Data regarding the CRS cut off scores of 10 previous Express Entry draws (PNP only).

Time period (DD/MM/YYYY) CRS cut off score

10-Dec-2021 698 points

22-Dec-2021 720 points

05-Jan-2022 808 points

19-Jan-2022 745 points

02-Feb-2022 674 points

16-Feb-2022 710 points

02-Mar-2022 761 points

16-Mar-2022 754 points

30-Mar-2022 785 points

13-Apr-2022 782 points

A brief about Express Entry

The three federal high-skilled immigration programs named

The Canadian Express Class
The Federal Skilled Workers Program and
The Federal Skilled Trades Program

Are taken care of under the Canada’s application management system popularly known as The Express Entry.

A specific Comprehensive Ranking System (CRS) is designed to filter immigration applications and rank the candidates on the basis of their age, educational qualification, work experience, language test scores and few more. Candidates who manage to accumulate the maximum score fall eligible to receive invitations to apply for PR through regular Express Entry draws. It’s likely to get a PR invitation by applying directly through Express Entry. Nonetheless, a provincial nominee gets an edge of 600 CRS points which will eventually assure you an Invitation to Apply (ITA) in a consequent Express Entry draw.

Check Your Canada PR Eligibility Here