Key Eligibility Conditions
The April 28 round was restricted to Canadian Experience Class candidates and issued 2,000 Invitations to Apply. To be eligible, candidates had to satisfy two conditions simultaneously: a CRS score of at least 514, and an Express Entry profile created before 2:18 p.m. UTC on September 24, 2025. The profile-creation cut-off serves as a tie-breaker among candidates with identical CRS scores — a mechanism IRCC has continued to apply throughout 2026.
The department confirmed the draw was the eighth CEC-specific round of the year and the 25th Express Entry round overall in 2026.
A Year Shaped by Category-Based Draws and Provincial Nominees
A breakdown of 2026 draws by category makes the department's invitation strategy clear: all-program rounds have been absent throughout the year, and a combination of category-based draws and Provincial Nominee Program (PNP) selections has set the rhythm. Year-to-date Express Entry rounds by category are as follows:
- Provincial Nominee Program (PNP): 9 draws
- Canadian Experience Class (CEC): 8 draws
- French-language proficiency: 4 draws
- Physicians with Canadian work experience: 1 draw
- Healthcare and social services: 1 draw
- Senior managers with Canadian work experience: 1 draw
- Trades: 1 draw
Translated into ITA volume, IRCC has issued 67,627 invitations in 2026 to date, distributed as follows:
| Draw type | ITAs issued |
|---|---|
| Canadian Experience Class (CEC) | 34,250 |
| French-language proficiency | 22,000 |
| Healthcare and social services | 4,000 |
| Provincial Nominee Program (PNP) | 3,736 |
| Trades | 3,000 |
| Physicians with Canadian work experience | 391 |
| Senior managers with Canadian work experience | 250 |
| Total | 67,627 |
CEC and French-language rounds together account for roughly 83% of all 2026 ITAs, making them the twin engines of this year's Express Entry strategy. CEC draws target temporary residents already working in Canada, while French-language rounds — where the cut-off has at times dipped as low as 393 in 2026, according to multiple immigration analysts — offer a dedicated pathway aligned with Ottawa's official-language priorities. Taken together, the two categories illustrate IRCC's clear preference for candidates who are either already on Canadian soil or who reinforce the country's bilingual strategy.
CRS Trajectory: CEC Cut-Offs Now Anchored Above 510
Viewed against the year's broader CEC trend, the 514 cut-off fits a pattern of steady upward drift. In Q1 2026, the six CEC rounds saw cut-offs cluster between 507 and 511, with the lowest reading of 507 recorded on March 17. April brought a sharp shift: on April 14, the CEC cut-off jumped six points to 515 — the largest round-to-round increase of the year. The April 28 score eased back marginally to 514 but remained well above Q1 averages, underscoring an Express Entry pool that continues to grow more crowded with high-scoring candidates.
Equally notable is the shrinking size of CEC rounds in 2026. After larger early-year draws, recent CEC selections have settled around 2,000 ITAs each, and several Canadian immigration consultancies have observed that as long as IRCC maintains this "smaller, more frequent" cadence, the CRS threshold is unlikely to retreat meaningfully in the near term.
Policy Backdrop: Aligned with the 2026–2028 Immigration Levels Plan
The April 28 draw aligns closely with the 2026–2028 Immigration Levels Plan that Ottawa unveiled in late 2025. Under that plan, Canada's annual permanent resident admissions are set to remain stable at roughly 380,000 from 2026 through 2028. At the same time, economic-class immigration is projected to rise to 64% of total admissions in 2027 and 2028 — the highest share in decades. The plan also specifies that IRCC will adjust economic streams to prioritise the transition of workers already in Canada into permanent residence and will launch a one-time, two-year initiative (2026–2027) to fast-track skilled temporary workers in in-demand sectors, particularly in rural communities. Express Entry intake is to expand modestly while retaining its category-based focus.
Read against that backdrop, the April 28 CEC draw is a textbook execution of stated policy. CEC and PNP — the twin "in-Canada" pathways — are receiving the lion's share of invitations, while category-based draws have proliferated to cover physicians, senior managers, healthcare workers and tradespeople, and French-language candidates continue to receive dedicated rounds.
What It Means for Candidates
For prospective CEC applicants, the round delivers three reasonably clear signals. First, with CRS cut-offs now consistently above 514 and unlikely to soften in the short term, candidates relying solely on a bachelor's degree, CLB 9 English and one to two years of Canadian work experience will struggle to clear the bar — meaningful gains will more likely come from improving French to NCLC 7 or higher, adding additional credentials, accumulating more Canadian work experience, or securing a provincial nomination worth 600 CRS points. Second, the profile-creation cut-off (set at 2:18 p.m. UTC on September 24, 2025 in this round) means that even candidates scoring 514 may lose out on tie-breakers if their profile was created relatively recently. Third, with CEC (34,250 ITAs) and PNP (3,736 ITAs) together accounting for roughly 56% of 2026's ITAs, securing a provincial nomination remains the most direct route around the high CRS threshold for candidates whose scores hover around the 500-mark.
The next window to watch is the rest of Q2 2026 — specifically whether CRS cut-offs ease as the candidate pool digests recent rounds, and whether IRCC sticks to its bi-weekly CEC cadence. Both factors will shape invitation prospects for the second half of the year.
