Provincial Nominee Program · 20 July 2026

Express Entry draw #427

On 20 July 2026, IRCC issued 511 invitations to apply in the Provincial Nominee Program. The lowest-ranked candidate invited scored 744 on the Comprehensive Ranking System, 36 points above the previous Provincial Nominee Program round 2 weeks earlier. That was the 11th lowest of the 26 Provincial Nominee Program rounds held in the year to that date, which together issued 11,497 invitations at cut-offs between 699 and 855. A Provincial Nominee Program cut-off includes the 600 points a provincial nomination is worth, so 744 here is roughly 144 before the nomination, and it cannot be compared with cut-offs in any other round.

Read and checked by Jay Sharma, Regulated Canadian Immigration Consultant R710507, licensed by the College of Immigration and Citizenship Consultants. Round #427 is reproduced from IRCC's official rounds feed and has not been edited.

Minimum CRS score

744

Provincial Nominee Program

Previous Provincial Nominee Program round: #423 on 06 Jul 2026 at 708 (+36)

Invitations: 511
Round: #427
Date: 20 Jul 2026
Tie-break: 26 May 2026

Programs eligible

Provincial Nominee Program

Candidates tied on 744 were separated by how long they had been in the pool. The tie-break was set at May 26, 2026 at 18:11:36 UTC. A profile submitted before that moment was invited, one submitted after it was not.

The pool that week

The pool behind this round

IRCC published the pool’s shape alongside this round: 231,533 candidates on July 19, 2026. No cut-off line is drawn across it, and that is deliberate, because a Provincial Nominee Program score is not on the same scale as the rest of the pool. The reason is below the table.

Express Entry candidates by CRS range on July 19, 2026, against the 744 cut-off of round #427
CRS range	Candidates	Share of pool
601–1200	511	0.2%
501–600	18,133	7.8%
491–500	12,880	5.6%
481–490	12,615	5.4%
471–480	16,119	7.0%
461–470	16,086	6.9%
451–460	14,879	6.4%
441–450	13,680	5.9%
431–440	13,437	5.8%
421–430	11,961	5.2%
411–420	12,460	5.4%
401–410	12,339	5.3%
351–400	51,107	22.1%
301–350	17,490	7.6%
0–300	7,836	3.4%

Why there is no line on this table. A provincial nomination is worth 600 CRS points, so the 744 cut-off in this round belongs to a candidate scoring about 144 without it. The pool above counts everyone at their base score, so draw a line at 744 and it would report that not one of 231,533 candidates qualified, on a day IRCC invited 511 of them.

Only candidates already holding a nomination could be invited in this round, and the published pool does not identify them. The distribution is still worth seeing, because it is the field this round was drawn from, but its scale and this cut-off are not the same scale.

In context

Provincial Nominee Program rounds in the year to 20 Jul 2026

A cut-off means little on its own. Against its own category’s previous twelve months, this one was the 11th lowest of 26.

744

Lowest cut-off: 699
Highest cut-off: 855
Rounds: 26
Invitations: 11,497

Reading this today

This is a record, not the current bar

Round #427 was held on 20 July 2026. IRCC has run 15 rounds since, and the current cut-off for this category is not 744.

The latest draw and the current pool All 442 rounds

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 #427, answered

Two questions this round gets asked, answered from IRCC’s own figures for it.

What was the CRS cut-off for Express Entry draw #427?

The cut-off for round #427, held on 20 July 2026, was 744. It was a Provincial Nominee Program round and it issued 511 invitations to apply, 36 points above the previous Provincial Nominee Program round 2 weeks earlier. Candidates who tied at 744 were ranked by the date they entered the pool, with the cut-off timestamp set at May 26, 2026 at 18:11:36 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.

Why can't the draw #427 cut-off be compared with the Express Entry pool?

Because a provincial nomination is worth 600 CRS points, and that puts this round on a different scale from the published pool. The 744 cut-off here belongs to a candidate whose score without the nomination was roughly 144. IRCC publishes the pool at base scores, before any nomination is added, so placing 744 on that distribution would suggest nobody in the pool qualified, on a day the department invited 511 people. The comparison is not close to right, it is meaningless. Only candidates already holding a nomination were eligible for this round at all, and the published pool does not identify who they are. So a provincial round tells you about the nominated population rather than about the pool, and the two cannot be read against each other. The pool chart on this page is shown for context rather than for comparison.

Free CRS assessment

Would this round have taken you?

The table above is the pool this round was drawn from. Whether your own score reaches a category, and what would move it, whether a language retake, a provincial nomination or a spouse’s credentials, is a different question, and it is the one worth answering.

Data: Immigration, Refugees and Citizenship Canada, under the Open Government Licence – Canada. Round #427, 20 July 2026; pool as published on July 19, 2026.

Three fields · about 30 seconds