Recent Express Entry draws indicate that Canada’s immigration department is delving deeper into its pool of French-speaking candidates to maintain draw sizes.

A combination of consistent Comprehensive Ranking Score (CRS) cut-offs, recent tie-breaking rules, and smaller draw sizes suggests a decreasing supply of French-speaking candidates in the system.

If this trend continues and results in fewer French-speakers available to meet Immigration, Refugees and Citizenship Canada’s (IRCC) permanent residence targets, it could significantly impact the number of invitations to apply (ITAs) issued to different candidate categories for the remainder of 2026.

Insights from Recent French-Language Proficiency Draws

On April 29, IRCC issued 4,000 ITAs to French-language candidates with a CRS cut-off of 400.

This cut-off is nearly 20 points lower than the previous French-language draw on April 15, which also issued 4,000 ITAs but at a cut-off of 419.

Typically, draw sizes and CRS cut-off scores exhibit a negative correlation, meaning that as draw sizes increase, CRS cut-off scores decrease, as the department prioritizes the highest-scoring candidates.

Analysis of the recent French category draws suggests that IRCC has selected a significant number of higher-scoring francophone candidate profiles in the past two weeks, despite the lower cut-off score.

Previous French category draws with CRS cut-offs around 400 points have seen larger draw sizes, ranging from 5,500 to 8,500 candidates. An exception is the March 18 draw, where 4,000 candidates were invited with a CRS cut-off of 393, but these candidates had entered the pool over five months prior to the draw date.

Date	ITAs issued	CRS cut-off