A 10-year retrospective: The impact of Express Entry on Canadian immigration
The tenth anniversary of Canada's inaugural Express Entry lottery is January 31, 2025. Since then, more than 800,000 invitations to apply (ITAs) for permanent residency (PR) have been sent out by…
The tenth anniversary of Canada's inaugural Express Entry lottery is January 31, 2025. Since then, more than 800,000 invitations to apply (ITAs) for permanent residency (PR) have been sent out by Immigration, Refugees and Citizenship Canada (IRCC) using the Express Entry system. Since its introduction in 2015, Express Entry, a pool-based online application management system for permanent residency, has completely transformed Canada's immigration landscape.This article explores the modifications made to Express Entry throughout time and how they reflect Canada's changing immigration policies.
Why was Express Entry introduced?
Before Express Entry, skilled workers' applications for permanent residence in Canada were handled on a first-come, first-served basis. Any qualified foreign national may apply directly to the federal government under the previous system, and upon processing their application, they might anticipate being granted permanent status.However, this first-come, first-served approach led to a massive backlog of PR applications; at one point, it was anticipated that a PR application would take seven years to process.This long delay was detrimental to Canadian companies as well as applicants. Some applicants' circumstances changed to the point that they were no longer eligible for the jobs for which they were initially qualified by the time they were granted permanent residence status. The Canadian government reimbursed application costs for Federal Skilled Worker (FSW) applications that were returned unprocessed between 2012 and 2013.
In what ways did Express Entry alter the immigration environment?
The top-ranked applicants in the Express Entry pool receive invitations to apply for PR using a pool-based approach. A foreign national wishing to apply for permanent residence (PR) through Express Entry must first register an Expression of Interest (EOI) in the online system. They must then complete a profile that is compared to other profiles using the Comprehensive Ranking System (CRS), which awards a score out of 1200.Candidate profiles are scored by the CRS using objective standards, which include elements such as age, educational attainment, language skills, and work history. Through Express Entry drawings, the IRCC extends invitations to apply. The IRCC chooses how many candidates to invite in each draw and sends invites to the top-ranked applicants.The cut-off score for a certain draw is the CRS score of the applicant with the lowest ranking in that draw. The top-scoring foreign nationals can go straight to the "front of the immigration line" under the pool-based Express Entry system, and they can often anticipate that their applications will be approved in around six months. Employers and provinces have also favoured the concept since it creates a pool of potential PRs from whom they may select candidates to meet labour market demands.
