Express Entry Report for 2015

Immigration, Refugees and Citizenship Canada (IRCC), formerly known as Citizenship and Immigration Canada (CIC) has released a detailed report of the Express Entry System as of January 3rd, 2016. It has given valuable insight into a number of details that were previously unknown for most people applying to, or already in, the Express Entry Pool.

As of January 3rd, 2016, 31,063 invitations to apply had been handed out to applicants in the Express Entry Pool. From these invitations to apply, 21,562 applicants submitted their full Permanent Residency application. Of these 21,562 applications, 37,424 individuals were included, as the applications included the main applicant and their eligible accompanying family members. To date 14,058 applications have been approved, 2,433 have been rejected and 5,071 are still in process.

As of January 3rd, 2016, 191,279 Express Entry profiles had been submitted. Of those profiles 88,048 profiles were found to be ineligible. That is 46.03% of the profiles that were submitted. Of the remaining 103,231 profiles which were submitted only 60,042 are still active. The reason for the large amount of inactive profiles is due to the fact they could have expired, withdrawn from the pool, submitted their permanent residency application, or currently have an outstanding Invitation to Apply.

Of those in the Express Entry pool, as of January 3rd, 2016 the breakdown of scores was as follows:

Comprehensive Ranking System Score	Number of candidates
>1000	236
950 – 999	219
900 – 949	191
850 – 899	65
800 – 849	66
750 – 799	40
700 – 749	22
650 – 699	11
600 – 649	1
550 – 599	0
500 – 549	46
450 – 499	1,613
400 – 449 as follows	13,537
440 – 449	2,486
430 – 439	2,842
420 – 429	2,185
410 – 419	2,899
400 – 409	3,125
350 – 399	21,851
300- 349	18,433
<300	3,711
Total	60,042

As of January 3rd, 2016 there were 2,510 people in the Express Entry pool with a score of 450 or higher. Since January 3rd, 2016 a total of 9,465 Invitations to Apply had been issued. That means that 6,955 new people entered into Express Entry since January 3rd, 2016 with a score above 453 (as that has been the lowest score selected for 2016).

As of January 3rd, 2016 4,105 Provincial Nomination Invitations had been handed out. Of those only 3,960 were used, as some applicants received an invitation from more than one province, which did not end up being utilised. The following number of Provincial Nominations had been issued to candidates in the Express Entry Pool by Province:

 

Of those given an invitation to apply, the top ten occupations selected were as follows:

This does not mean that these occupations were given preference over other occupations. An important fact is that those chosen as Food Service Supervisors and Cooks mostly had low scores but had a valid job offer which gave them 600 extra points.

Of those given Invitations to Apply, the top ten countries of Citizenship of the applicant were as follows:

1. India (6,348 invitations)
2. Philippines (3,574 invitations)
3. People’s Republic of China (1,678 invitations)
4. United Kingdom (1,644 invitations)
5. Republic of Ireland (1,210 invitations)
6. United States of America (949 invitations)
7. Nigeria (609 invitations)
8. South Korea (605 invitations)
9. France (566 invitations)
10. Australia (540 invitations)

There have been a few changes since 2014. Previously Ireland, South Korea, France and Australia were not in the top ten. Also the number of chosen applicants from India, China and Nigeria has gone down. The number of chosen applicants from the Philippines, the United Kingdom and the United States of America has increased. This is most likely due to the composition of the Comprehensive Ranking System’s relying heavily on Official Language scores and Educational Credential Assessments. Some qualifications from certain countries are not given recognition and earn the applicant no points.

The processing times which the government had aimed for was for all applications to be processed in six months or less. Of the 16,491 fianlized applications, the average processing time for 80% of the applications was 4.4 months, with the Canadian Experience Class having the lowest processing time of 3.5 months.

The top destinations for those who submitted a Permanent Residency application were Alberta, Ontario and British Columbia. Each Province and Territory is ranked as follows:

Overall the Canadian Government has seen Express Entry as a success to date. They will continue to monitor the process to see if any changes are required to make Express Entry more successful. The Canadian Government expects all remaining Permanent Residency applications submitted under the economic classes in 2014 to be finalised this year. From then on all quotas for the economic classes will be filled by the Express Entry Pool of applicants.