Canada invited 671 Express Entry candidates to send in their applications for permanent residence on March 8. Immigration, Refugee and Citizenship Canada (IRCC) invited candidates who had a minimum score of 739. Express Entry candidates who get a provincial nomination are automatically given 600 points on top of their original human capital score. Meaning those who had the minimum score of 739, had a Comprehensive Ranking System (CRS) score of 139 without the provincial nomination.
Candidates who had the minimum score of 739 were only included if they submitted their Express Entry profile before February 16, 2021 at 19:10:25 UTC, as per the tie-break rule.
So far this year, Canada has issued 38,657 Invitations to Apply (ITA). This is more than three times greater than the number of ITAs that IRCC issued at the same time last year.
The majority of these invitations came from when IRCC issued 27,332 ITAs from the previous draw on Saturday, February 13. This is not only the biggest Express Entry draw ever, but it also had a historically low CRS requirement of 75.
It is unusual to see draws happen more than two weeks apart. Today’s draw comes 22 days after the Saturday draw when every single candidate in the pool who was eligible for the Canadian Experience Class was invited to apply for permanent residence.