Canada invited 462 Express Entry candidates to apply for permanent residency in Canada in its latest Provincial Nominee Program (PNP) invitation draw.
This round of the invitation draw, held on July 21, 2021, had a Comprehensive Ranking System (CRS) score requirement of at least 734 points for candidates to be issued an invitation to apply (ITA) for Canadian PR.
The draw was conducted by Immigration, Refugees and Citizenship Canada (IRCC), and had a high cutoff score due to candidates being nominated by Canadian provinces for immigration under different PNPs.
Because provinces in Canada nominated them, applicants were awarded an additional 600 points on their Express Entry profiles, which resulted in the high cutoff score for this round of the Express Entry draw.
Without the provincial nomination, the cutoff score for Canadian immigration in this invitation round would have been 134 points.
Candidates who were invited in this iteration of Canada’s periodic invitation draws had to have submitted their Express Entry profiles before April 11, 2021.
In the previous PNP-only Express Entry draw, Canada invited 627 candidates, but the cutoff score for that round was also higher at 760 points.
Throughout the COVID-19 pandemic, IRCC has been holding periodic invitation draws in which Canadian immigration applicants have been invited for permanent residency in Canada through PNP and Canadian Experience Class (CEC) draws.
This drive to invite applicants for permanent Canadian immigration is part of Canada’s commitment to welcoming 401,000 new permanent residents in 2021 as part of its new Immigration Levels Plan, which will see Canada admit 1.2 million new permanent residents by 2023.
Holding PNP and CEC-only draws has allowed IRCC to stay on course to meet its immigration targets for this year, as invited applicants are more likely to already be in Canada, thus allowing for fewer disruptions to the immigration plans due to public health measures such as travel restrictions and border closures.
So far this year, Canada has invited 94,304 Express Entry candidates for Canadian immigration – almost twice as many compared to the same stage last year.
The lion’s share of all invites issued this year comes from the historic February 13 draw, in which every eligible CEC candidate (27,332 in total) was issued an ITA for permanent migration to Canada.
Express Entry is Canada’s points-based application management system, in which immigration candidates submit their profiles to be evaluated based on various factors, including age, education level, skilled work experience, official language skills (English or French), and more.
Candidates are then awarded points based on these factors, and the highest-scoring profiles are invited to apply for permanent Canadian immigration in periodic invitation rounds held by IRCC.
Express Entry manages profiles for three Federal High Skilled programs: the Canadian Experience Class (CEC), Federal Skilled Worker Program (FSWP), and Federal Skilled Trades Program (FSTP).
Canada has also announced plans to reopen its borders for tourism, with fully vaccinated visitors from the United States being allowed into the country from August, and from the rest of the world by September.
