By 16 October 2026, IRCC had held 62 Express Entry rounds this year and issued 143,467 invitations to apply — almost double the 74,183 it had issued by the same point in 2025, across 43 rounds. More invitations sounds like good news, and for some candidates it is.
But for someone applying from Pakistan, the more important number this year is a different one: zero. That is how many rounds in 2026 were open to the whole pool.
Every round in 2026 was targeted
Each round this year invited from one group only: candidates with Canadian work experience, candidates with a provincial nomination, or candidates in a category IRCC chose — French speakers, or people working in a named field. Here is how the year divides, from IRCC’s own data:
| Round type | Rounds | Invitations | CRS cut-offs | Open to |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| Canadian Experience Class | 18 | 57,750 | 507–523 | Canadian work experience |
| French-language proficiency | 11 | 55,500 | 382–435 | FSW, CEC and FST |
| Healthcare and social services | 3 | 11,500 | 467–475 | FSW, CEC and FST |
| Provincial Nominee Program | 20 | 10,022 | 697–805 | A provincial nomination |
| Trades occupations | 2 | 6,500 | 476–477 | FSW, CEC and FST |
| Senior managers (Canadian experience) | 3 | 1,000 | 389–429 | Canadian work experience |
| Physicians (Canadian experience) | 3 | 891 | 169–223 | Canadian work experience |
| Transport occupations | 1 | 300 | 470 | FSW, CEC and FST |
| Skilled military recruits | 1 | 4 | 368 | — |
The two biggest groups — Canadian Experience Class and French — account for 113,250 of the year’s invitations between them. Provincial Nominee Program rounds were the most frequent, but small; their cut-offs look high because a nomination adds 600 points to a CRS score.
What this means if you are applying from Pakistan
Most applicants in Pakistan or the Gulf enter the pool under the Federal Skilled Worker Program, without Canadian work experience. For them, 2026 has worked like this:
- The largest single share of invitations was not open to you. Canadian Experience Class rounds need Canadian work experience, and so did the senior-manager and physician rounds.
- What was open: the French-language rounds, the occupation rounds for healthcare, trades and transport — IRCC published all of these as open to Federal Skilled Worker, Canadian Experience Class and Federal Skilled Trades candidates — and provincial nomination.
- A high score on its own was not enough. With no round open to everyone, a Federal Skilled Worker candidate who fitted no category, had no French result and held no nomination had no round this year to be invited in — whatever their score.
So the useful questions are not “what was the cut-off?” but these: does your work history genuinely sit inside one of the categories IRCC selects by? Would French be realistic for you? And is a provincial nomination a route you could actually qualify for?
The pool you are competing with
IRCC’s snapshot of the pool on 12 October 2026 counted 229,456 candidates. Of those, 22,387 scored above 500 — 749 of them above 600 — and another 71,612 scored between 451 and 500. The live figures, and every round since, are on our Express Entry draws page, which reads IRCC’s data every hour.
What a year of rounds does not tell you
None of this is a forecast. IRCC publishes no schedule, the categories are set by the Minister and can be added, changed or dropped, and a past cut-off commits IRCC to nothing. 2026 has been a year of targeted rounds; 2027 may not be. A plan that only works if this year’s pattern repeats is a fragile plan.
What does carry over is the method: know your score precisely, know which programmes and categories you genuinely meet, and know which provincial streams fit your profile. Work out your CRS score first — then the rounds above tell you something real about your position.