3,350 invitations issued to Express Entry candidates by IRCC, Canada to Apply Permanent Residence with a minimum score of 452 or more as on 20th March 2019. This cut off is two points lesser than the previous draw held as on 6th March 2019. The government of Canada has issued a total of 21,200 ITAs till date in the year 2019 through the Express Entry system. If we compare the substantial increase in number of ITA’s in the year 2019 in accordance with the number of ITA’’s in the year 2018 then the figures comes out to be 21,200 in 2019 and 14,500 in 2018 that shows 6,700 more ITA’s this year.
It is expected that IRCC will set a new ITA record this year given Canada’s higher 2019 and 2020 admissions targets for the three Federal High Skilled economic immigration categories managed by the Express Entry system — the Federal Skilled Worker Class, Federal Skilled Trades Class and Canadian Experience Class.
Candidates who meet the eligibility requirements for these categories are entered into the Express Entry pool and issued a ranking score based on factors such as their age, education, work experience and proficiency in English or French.
IRCC then invites a set number of the highest-scoring candidates to apply for Canadian permanent residence through regular draws from the pool.
The tie-break in the March 20 draw was set at February 7, 2019, at 9:59:25 UTC. This means that all candidates with a CRS score of 452 or above who entered their profile in the Express Entry pool before the selected date and time received an ITA in this invitation round.
The cut-off CRS score has now dropped twice over the last two invitation rounds, which may have resulted from the fact IRCC only allowed two weeks to elapse between draws in both instances.
Larger draw sizes can also have an impact on the cut-off CRS score. Given IRCC’s higher admissions targets for 2019 and 2020, it is possible that we will see bigger draws in the second quarter of the year.
The second quarters of both 2017 and 2018 saw draw sizes increase and the CRS cut-off drop as a result.
