On July 21 462 Express Entry candidates were invited to apply for Permanent Residence.

The invited candidates had previously received a nomination from a Provincial Nominee Program (PNP). This was the main reason for the score cut-off to reach 734. In the Express Entry pool, Provincial Nominees automatically get 600 points added to their score. If any candidate with lower-scoring did not have the nomination, they might have had 134 points.

Cut-off time for the tie-break rule was also published by Immigration, Refugees and Citizenship Canada (IRCC). This is just an administrative requirement and it does not mean that there was an actual tie. Candidates with the minimum score were only invited when their Express Entry profile was submitted before April 11, 2021, at 10:56:32 UTC.

As per the previous PNP draw, 627 candidates were invited. The score requirement for this draw was 760. The new draw had fewer invitations with a lower cut-off score.

PNP and CEC Draws

During the pandemic, IRCC only held PNP and Canadian Experience Class (CEC) specific draws. The main reason was that it was more likely that these candidates were already living in Canada and less likely to be disrupted by public health measures like travel restrictions.

Canada is starting to lift its Coronavirus-related measures. The borders of Canada are re-opening to non-essential travel to fully vaccinated U.S. travelers in August. Later in September, the borders will be open to all the vaccinated people from all the other countries. The direct flights to India will remain suspended, until August 21.

According to Canada’s Immigration levels plan, Canada has set a target to welcome 401,000 new immigrants. About a quarter of these are allotted to come through the Express Entry system.

As of now in 2021, Canada has invited almost twice as many Express Entry candidates as compared to the same last year. 94,304 Express Entry candidates have been invited to apply so far. The large number comes from the historic February 13 draw where IRCC invited every eligible CEC candidate in the pool, which was total of 27,332 people.

According to an IRCC email, about 87% of the invited people on that day applied for PR before 90 days.

Both the PNP only and CEC only draws have very different requirements. The main reason behind this is that PNP candidates automatically get 600 points added to their score. CEC candidates do not compete for invitations from other programs. As a result, IRCC takes more off the top allowing cut-off scores to dip into the lower levels.