Express Entry Draw Predictions And Expectations For 2024

Last Updated On 28 July 2024, 11:27 AM EDT (Toronto Time)

We are into the seventh month of 2024 and IRCC has already sent 38,519 invitations to apply in the 24 Express Entry draws so far.

It is an intriguing question at this point in time: how many more Express Entry draws will be held in the remainder of 2024 or how many invitations to apply will be sent in 5.5 months?

While there is no set limit by Immigration, Refugees, and Citizenship Canada (IRCC) for this, with immigration targets and previous years’ invitations, we can expect a ballpark figure.

In this article, we do analysis of number of invitations for previous years, next express entry draw Comprehensive Ranking System (CRS) score prediction, and a general piece of advise for candidates in pool.

Express Entry Number of invitations in remainder of 2024

IRCC sent 85,750 invitations to apply in 2023 and 48% were Canadian Experience Class (CEC) candidates even at the time when no CEC-only draw was held.

CEC is the broader program and under it, candidates can be invited in the category-based draws introduced last year, but the above number does not include PNP candidates.

This year, detailed program-wise data is only available until May and 29% of the ITAs were sent to candidates with profiles under CEC, around 37% under FSWP and around 34% under PNP.

Below is the program-wise breakdown of invitations issued in the last 5 years. These are the invitations issued, not the permanent residency status granted.

Year	Total ITAs	Canadian Experience Class (CEC)	Federal Skilled Worker Program (FSWP)	Provincial Nominee Program (PNP)
2024 (until May)	27,350	7,980 (29.18%)	10,145 (37.09%)	9,225 (33.73%)
2023	85,750	41,450 (48.34%)	21,730 (25.34%)	22,575 (26.33%)
2022	37,335 (affected by TR to PR)	12,975 (34.75%)	5,200 (13.93%)	19,160 (51.32%)
2021	108,105 (affected by bumper CEC draw of 27,332 ITAs	85,755 (79.33%)	8,655 (8.01%)	13,690 (12.66%)
2020	81,145	44,665 (55.04%)	22,160 (27.31%)	14,125 (17.41%)
2019	71,615	25,630 (35.79%)	32,650 (45.59%)	13,220 (18.46%)

Our expectations are that IRCC will be sending around 80,000–90,000 permanent residency invitations based on historical numbers and annual immigration targets.

With 38,519 already sent, we can expect that around 40,000–50,000 invitations will be sent in the next 5.5 months, until or unless Canada is internally planning on reducing the immigration targets in November.

We expect that a decent number of invitations will be sent to CEC candidates, with most gearing up their profiles in alignment with category-based draws.

Express Entry Category-Based Expectations

One of the internal IRCC memos recently issued in May indicates that category-based draws will dominate in 2024.

Based on that memo and our expectation of a total of 80,000–90,000 ITAs this year, below are the category-based invitation expectations.

Category	Expected Number of ITAs in remainder of 2024	ITAs already issued in 2024	Breakdown of ITAs Projected in memo
Targeted draw for profiles with high proficiency in French	8,400-11,400	15,600	30%
Targeted draw for 24 STEM occupations	15,500-18,000	4,500	25%
General or All Program draws and PNPs	245-2,150	17,445 including CEC	21.5%
Targeted for 35 healthcare occupations	4,750-6,250	7,250	15%
Trades Targeted Draw	2,200-2,700	1,800	5%
Transport-targeted draw	1,425-1,725	975	3%
Agriculture and Agri-food draw	250-300	150	0.5%

Expected ITAs in upcoming rounds of invitations

Now all the numbers almost look good to us, except for general and STEM. The number doesn’t seem reasonable to us.

Immediately after publishing this article, an “X” user added context to reason out the numbers for general draw. Here is his context that we believe our readers would also like to know👇

not true at all, you need to subtract PNP invites from general draws!
If you do that then the invites sent to general+cec= 9289
Therefore, there is still 10k invitations pending!
— Gaurav (@it_s_gaurav_) July 16, 2024

If nothing has changed since the IRCC memo, then we can expect a large number of ITAs to be sent to the STEM category, while general or CEC draws seem to be quite few.

However, after this memo, IRCC resumed CEC only draws, and we believe that some quota might have been reallocated to make up for general and/or CEC draws.

Furthermore, we are also expecting that IRCC may announce reduction in annual immigration targets in November 2024.

CRS Cutoff Score prediction

Now let’s hop on to the best part of our expectations, “the CRS cutoff score prediction.”

Our previous Express Entry draw CRS score cutoff prediction was a success for all the rounds of invitations announced in July.

It was because IRCC announced the number of invitations as we expected, resulting in similar CRS cutoffs as per our prediction.

Below is our CRS score cutoff prediction if one or more of the below-listed draws are announced this or next week.

Program	CRS Cutoff
Transport targeted draw	410+
French focused draw	380+
Trades Targeted Draw	390+
STEM Targeted Draw	490+
Healthcare Targeted Draw	420+
Provincial Nominee Program (PNP)	700
No Program Specified	540+
Canadian Experience Class (CEC)	520+
Federal Skilled Trades (FST)	Not Expected

Next Express Entry Draw CRS Score prediction

Please note that these cutoffs are not guaranteed and the exact cutoff score in upcoming rounds of invitations can vary significantly from these.

When will be the next Express Entry Draw?

Next Express Entry draw is expected to be announced around July 23 based on bi-weekly schedule.

Kamal Deep Singh, RCIC

Kamal Deep Singh, RCIC (Regulated Canadian Immigration Consultant) licensed by CICC (formerly known as ICCRC) with member number R708618. He brings extensive knowledge of immigration law and new changes to rapidly evolving IRCC.