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The Visa Tales

Physicians · 3 September 2026

Express Entry draw #440

On 3 September 2026, IRCC issued 229 invitations to apply in the Physicians category. The lowest-ranked candidate invited scored 198 on the Comprehensive Ranking System, 25 points below the previous Physicians round 10 weeks earlier. That was the second lowest of the 3 Physicians rounds held in the year to that date, which together issued 891 invitations at cut-offs between 169 and 223.

Read and checked by Jay Sharma, Regulated Canadian Immigration Consultant R710507, licensed by the College of Immigration and Citizenship Consultants. Round #440 is reproduced from IRCC's official rounds feed and has not been edited.

Minimum CRS score

198

Physicians

Previous Physicians round: #421 on 24 Jun 2026 at 223 (-25)

Invitations
229
Round
#440
Date
03 Sept 2026
Tie-break
6 Aug 2026

Programs eligible

Federal Skilled Worker Program, Canadian Experience Class and Federal Skilled Trades Program

Candidates tied on 198 were separated by how long they had been in the pool. The tie-break was set at August 06, 2026 at 19:40:38 UTC. A profile submitted before that moment was invited, one submitted after it was not.

The pool that week

Where 198 fell through the pool

IRCC published the Express Entry pool’s shape alongside this round. On August 30, 2026 it held 226,673 candidates across 15 score bands, and the cut-off ran through them here.
Express Entry candidates by CRS range on August 30, 2026, against the 198 cut-off of round #440
CRS rangeCandidatesShare of poolAgainst the cut-off
601–12005590.2%All invited
501–60019,5428.6%All invited
491–50012,9525.7%All invited
481–49013,2735.9%All invited
471–48016,9817.5%All invited
461–47016,0997.1%All invited
451–46014,8006.5%All invited
441–45013,4635.9%All invited
431–44013,2335.8%All invited
421–43011,8115.2%All invited
411–42011,1834.9%All invited
401–41010,7234.7%All invited
351–40046,82420.7%All invited
301–35017,4957.7%All invited
Cut-off: CRS 198
0–3007,7353.4%Split by the cut-off

218,938 candidates sat in bands entirely at or above 198, or 96.6% of the pool.

A further 7,735 sat in the 0–300 band, which 198 falls inside. IRCC does not publish scores more finely than this, so how many of them cleared 198 is not knowable from the data.

In context

Physicians rounds in the year to 03 Sept 2026

A cut-off means little on its own. Against its own category’s previous twelve months, this one was the second lowest of 3.
198
Lowest cut-off
169
Highest cut-off
223
Rounds
3
Invitations
891

Reading this today

This is a record, not the current bar

Round #440 is the most recent round IRCC has held, but the pool moves every week and the next round sets its own cut-off. What 198 tells you is where this category was drawing, not what you need.

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 #440, 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 #440?

The cut-off for round #440, held on 3 September 2026, was 198. It was a Physicians round and it issued 229 invitations to apply, 25 points below the previous Physicians round 10 weeks earlier. Candidates who tied at 198 were ranked by the date they entered the pool, with the cut-off timestamp set at August 06, 2026 at 19:40:38 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 #440?

On August 30, 2026, the Express Entry pool held 226,673 candidates. 218,938 of them sat in score bands entirely at or above the 198 cut-off. A further 7,735 sat in the 0-300 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 198 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

Would this round have taken you?

The table above says where 198 fell through the pool. 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 #440, 3 September 2026; pool as published on August 30, 2026.

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