Express Entry Draw: Canada holds Record breaking PNP draw

Canada held another Express Entry draw on January 19, inviting 1,036 prospective immigrants to apply for permanent residency.

Here are the details of the latest Canada Express Entry 2022 draw:

Drawing Number: 214
Draw Date: January 19, 2022
Immigration Program: PNP (Provincial Nominee Program) candidates only
CRS Score Cutoff: 745
Number of candidates invited to apply: 1036 ITAs issued

Immigration, Refugees and Citizenship Canada (IRCC) only invited candidates from the Provincial Nominee Program (PNP). For this reason, the Comprehensive Ranking System -CRS score limit was 745. PNP applicants automatically get 600 points added to their score when nominated, which is why the score seems high. All Express Entry draws since September are for PNP candidates only. The last time Canadian Experience Class (CEC) candidates were invited was September 14th.

So far in 2022, IRCC has welcomed 1,428 PNP Candidates under Express Entry. As a rule, the CRS cut-off has been removed from the 700-800 range during the last 10 PNP-explicit EE draws. The current cut-off of 745 was lower than the 808 CRS prerequisite for the first draw of this current year on January 5.

Until the pandemic, Canada normally conducted draws that included applicants in all three immigration programs, but at this time the last draw for all programs was December 23, 2020. So for now, in 2022, Canada appears to continue the approaches of relying on people who are already in Canada are more likely to achieve their immigration goals. Especially considering the massive CEC draw of February 13, 2021, where every candidate in the Express Entry pool eligible for the CEC program was invited to apply – that's 27,332 people in a CEC draw!

When will the next Express Entry draw take place?

There is no definitive timeline for when the Express Entry draws will take place or the next Express Entry draw date. But, looking at previous sets of invitations, draws are often about two weeks apart. The conventions changed in 2021, but about half of all draws before January 2021 took place exactly 14 days after the last one.