Invited, and the wait.
Sign in and claim your timeline to see your real dates and wait in every “You are here” block below.
The bar you have to clear.
This is the part that keeps people awake. Express Entry ranks everyone in the pool by CRS score and invites from the top down, so the whole thing can feel like standing on a line that keeps moving. The question underneath every refresh of the draw page is simple and human: is the bar rising, and does my score clear it? The charts here won’t promise you an answer, but they will show you honestly how the bar has actually behaved, who is getting invited, and which lanes tend to sit lower than the general pool.
Who gets invited, by program and year
Number of invitations (ITAs) issued each year, by program · 807,570 in total across all years
Details
| Canadian Experience Class | Federal Skilled Trades | Federal Skilled Worker | Not Stated | Provincial Nominee Program | |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| 2015 | 8,045 | 1,845 | 8,665 | 0 | 2,980 |
| 2016 | 10,320 | 1,305 | 6,970 | 0 | 7,130 |
| 2017 | 29,220 | 340 | 29,090 | 0 | 9,095 |
| 2018 | 25,070 | 300 | 36,225 | 0 | 10,130 |
| 2019 | 25,635 | 115 | 32,655 | 0 | 13,225 |
| 2020 | 44,670 | 195 | 22,155 | 0 | 14,130 |
| 2021 | 85,760 | 0 | 8,650 | 0 | 13,685 |
| 2022 | 12,970 | 0 | 5,200 | 0 | 19,150 |
| 2023 | 41,455 | 0 | 21,710 | 0 | 22,580 |
| 2024 | 43,870 | 0 | 21,040 | 0 | 25,095 |
| 2025 | 35,190 | 0 | 29,165 | 0 | 10,195 |
| 2026 (YTD) | 41,650 | 0 | 24,620 | 0 | 6,075 |
Each stacked bar is a count of real invitations for that year, not a share or an average. The shape of the stack has shifted over time as IRCC has leaned more on category-based rounds, so the program that dominated a few years ago may not be the one issuing the most invitations today. If your program looks like a thin slice, don’t read that as bad news. It usually reflects how IRCC chose to split its draws that year, not your personal odds.
CEC draw cut-off, recent trend
Minimum CRS needed to be invited in each CEC round (recent draws, a score, not a count)
Each point is the cut-off from one CEC round, so this line is the bar itself, moving in real time. It rises and falls with how many invitations IRCC issues and how large the pool is that week, which is why a single high draw shouldn’t be read as a verdict on your chances. Watch the trend rather than any one dot. If you’re a few points under a recent cut-off, the honest read is “keep improving your profile,” not “give up.”
Latest cut-off by draw category
Most recent CRS cut-off in each draw category (a score, not a count) with the draw date
Details
| French (2026-08-19) | 382 |
|---|---|
| Other (2026-09-16) | 389 |
| Agriculture (2024-02-16) | 437 |
| Education (2025-09-17) | 462 |
| Transport (2026-08-07) | 470 |
| Healthcare (2026-09-04) | 475 |
| Trades (2026-04-02) | 477 |
| FSW (2023-02-02) | 489 |
| STEM (2024-04-11) | 491 |
| CEC (2026-09-29) | 518 |
| General (2024-04-23) | 529 |
| PNP (2026-09-28) | 725 |
CRS score bands of invited candidates
Number of candidates invited in each CRS score band (all years, counts rounded to the nearest 5)
Details
| Score 351 - 400 | 25,235 |
|---|---|
| Score 401 - 450 | 132,100 |
| Score 451 - 500 | 314,185 |
| Score 501 - 600 | 156,440 |
| Score 901 - 1000 | 82,520 |
| Score 1001 - 1100 | 67,590 |
How long it really takes.
The wait is the hardest part, so we’ll be honest about it from two directions at once. On one side is what real applicants in the community actually lived through, the median gap between AOR and eCOPR for people who shared their timelines. On the other is what IRCC’s own throughput, the raw count of COPRs it issues, says about how fast the queue in front of you is clearing. One is lived experience, the other is machinery. Neither is a promise, and reading them together is far more honest than trusting a single number from either.
AOR to eCOPR: community timelines
Median days from AOR to eCOPR across 657 shared community timelines
COPRs issued: IRCC throughput
Number of eCOPRs IRCC issued in the latest month it reported
Source: IRCC — IRCC: Express Entry invitations (ITAs). Data through 2026 · published 2026-09-15 View on open.canada.ca · Open Government Licence – Canada
Source: IRCC — IRCC: operational processing (COPRs issued). Data through Jul 2026 · published 2026-09-15 View on open.canada.ca · Open Government Licence – Canada