Healthcare and social services · 20 February 2026
Express Entry draw #398
On 20 February 2026, IRCC issued 4,000 invitations to apply in the Healthcare and social services category. The lowest-ranked candidate invited scored 467 on the Comprehensive Ranking System, 9 points below the previous Healthcare and social services round 10 weeks earlier. That was the second lowest of the 8 Healthcare and social services rounds held in the year to that date, which together issued 18,500 invitations at cut-offs between 462 and 510.
Minimum CRS score
467
Healthcare and social services
- Invitations
- 4,000
- Round
- #398
- Date
- 20 Feb 2026
- Tie-break
- 9 Dec 2025
Programs eligible
Federal Skilled Worker Program, Canadian Experience Class and Federal Skilled Trades Program
The pool that week
Where 467 fell through the pool
| CRS range | Candidates | Share of pool | Against the cut-off |
|---|---|---|---|
| 601–1200 | 280 | All invited | |
| 501–600 | 16,559 | All invited | |
| 491–500 | 13,504 | All invited | |
| 481–490 | 13,248 | All invited | |
| 471–480 | 16,531 | All invited | |
| Cut-off: CRS 467 | |||
| 461–470 | 15,426 | Split by the cut-off | |
| 451–460 | 14,900 | Below the cut-off | |
| 441–450 | 14,142 | Below the cut-off | |
| 431–440 | 14,239 | Below the cut-off | |
| 421–430 | 12,425 | Below the cut-off | |
| 411–420 | 12,183 | Below the cut-off | |
| 401–410 | 11,316 | Below the cut-off | |
| 351–400 | 53,650 | Below the cut-off | |
| 301–350 | 19,009 | Below the cut-off | |
| 0–300 | 8,283 | Below the cut-off | |
60,122 candidates sat in bands entirely at or above 467, or 25.5% of the pool.
A further 15,426 sat in the 461–470 band, which 467 falls inside. IRCC does not publish scores more finely than this, so how many of them cleared 467 is not knowable from the data.
In context
Healthcare and social services rounds in the year to 20 Feb 2026
- Lowest cut-off
- 462
- Highest cut-off
- 510
- Rounds
- 8
- Invitations
- 18,500
Reading this today
This is a record, not the current bar
You can score your profile on the current CRS grid, check which of the last twelve months of rounds that score would have won, and see how the pool has moved since this round was drawn.
Common questions
Round #398, answered
What was the CRS cut-off for Express Entry draw #398?
The cut-off for round #398, held on 20 February 2026, was 467. It was a Healthcare and social services round and it issued 4,000 invitations to apply, 9 points below the previous Healthcare and social services round 10 weeks earlier. Candidates who tied at 467 were ranked by the date they entered the pool, with the cut-off timestamp set at December 09, 2025 at 18:22:06 UTC, which means somebody sitting on exactly that score who submitted their profile after that moment was not invited. That tie-break is the part of a round most people never see, and it is the reason two candidates with identical scores can get different answers on the same day. It is also the argument for submitting a profile as soon as it is genuinely ready, since the ordering it creates costs nothing to be early in. The full record of this round, including the pool as IRCC published it that week, is set out on the rest of this page.
How many candidates ranked above the cut-off in draw #398?
On February 15, 2026, the Express Entry pool held 235,695 candidates. 60,122 of them sat in score bands entirely at or above the 467 cut-off. A further 15,426 sat in the 461-470 band, which the cut-off runs through. IRCC does not publish scores at a finer resolution than these bands, so how many of that middle group actually cleared 467 is not knowable from the published data, by us or by anybody else quoting a precise figure. What the numbers do support is a sense of the shape: how much of the pool was in contention, and how far the round reached into it. Anyone offering an exact count of candidates above a cut-off has estimated it. The bands as IRCC published them for this round are set out below, so you can read your own score against the same distribution the department did rather than against a summary of it.
Free CRS assessment
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