Provincial Nominee Program · 31 August 2026

Express Entry draw #438

On 31 August 2026, IRCC issued 562 invitations to apply in the Provincial Nominee Program. The lowest-ranked candidate invited scored 697 on the Comprehensive Ranking System, 63 points below the previous Provincial Nominee Program round 2 weeks earlier. That was the lowest of the 26 Provincial Nominee Program rounds held in the year to that date, which together issued 12,389 invitations at cut-offs between 697 and 855. A Provincial Nominee Program cut-off includes the 600 points a provincial nomination is worth, so 697 here is roughly 97 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 #438 is reproduced from IRCC's official rounds feed and has not been edited.

Minimum CRS score

697

Provincial Nominee Program

Previous Provincial Nominee Program round: #435 on 17 Aug 2026 at 760 (-63)

Invitations: 562
Round: #438
Date: 31 Aug 2026
Tie-break: 12 Apr 2026

Programs eligible

Provincial Nominee Program

Candidates tied on 697 were separated by how long they had been in the pool. The tie-break was set at April 12, 2026 at 04:32:26 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: 226,673 candidates on August 30, 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 August 30, 2026, against the 697 cut-off of round #438
CRS range	Candidates	Share of pool
601–1200	559	0.2%
501–600	19,542	8.6%
491–500	12,952	5.7%
481–490	13,273	5.9%
471–480	16,981	7.5%
461–470	16,099	7.1%
451–460	14,800	6.5%
441–450	13,463	5.9%
431–440	13,233	5.8%
421–430	11,811	5.2%
411–420	11,183	4.9%
401–410	10,723	4.7%
351–400	46,824	20.7%
301–350	17,495	7.7%
0–300	7,735	3.4%

Why there is no line on this table. A provincial nomination is worth 600 CRS points, so the 697 cut-off in this round belongs to a candidate scoring about 97 without it. The pool above counts everyone at their base score, so draw a line at 697 and it would report that not one of 226,673 candidates qualified, on a day IRCC invited 562 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 31 Aug 2026

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

697

Lowest cut-off: 697
Highest cut-off: 855
Rounds: 26
Invitations: 12,389

Reading this today

This is a record, not the current bar

Round #438 was held on 31 August 2026. IRCC has run 2 rounds since, and the current cut-off for this category is not 697.

The latest draw and the current pool All 440 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 #438, 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 #438?

The cut-off for round #438, held on 31 August 2026, was 697. It was a Provincial Nominee Program round and it issued 562 invitations to apply, 63 points below the previous Provincial Nominee Program round 2 weeks earlier. Candidates who tied at 697 were ranked by the date they entered the pool, with the cut-off timestamp set at April 12, 2026 at 04:32:26 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 #438 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 697 cut-off here belongs to a candidate whose score without the nomination was roughly 97. IRCC publishes the pool at base scores, before any nomination is added, so placing 697 on that distribution would suggest nobody in the pool qualified, on a day the department invited 562 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 #438, 31 August 2026; pool as published on August 30, 2026.

Three fields · about 30 seconds