IRCC's September 28, 2026 Express Entry round invited 733 candidates holding provincial nominations, with a cut-off score of 725. If your first reaction was that the bar has moved somewhere unreachable, the arithmetic is gentler than the headline. A provincial nomination adds an automatic 600 points to a candidate's Comprehensive Ranking System score, so a 725 cut-off in a nomination-only round means the lowest-ranked person invited had roughly 125 points from everything else — age, education, language, work experience, spouse factors. That is a very ordinary human-capital score. The nomination is doing the heavy lifting.
| Date | Category | CRS Cut-off | Invitations Issued |
|---|---|---|---|
| September 28, 2026 | Provincial Nominee Program | 725 | 733 |
Why the cut-off looks terrifying and isn't
The CRS is a single number, which makes it easy to compare scores that aren't actually comparable. In a PNP-specific round, every candidate in the pool being ranked already carries the 600-point nomination bonus. So the spread between the top and bottom of that round is decided entirely by the remaining human-capital points — the same points that, in a general round, would put someone nowhere near an invitation.
Put it the other way around. A candidate sitting at 425 CRS today, who might reasonably feel stuck watching general and category-based rounds go by, would land at 1,025 with a nomination attached. Comfortably above a 725 cut-off. That gap between "nowhere near" and "well clear" is the entire reason provincial nomination has become the most consequential single variable in an Express Entry profile for candidates whose base score isn't competitive on its own.
What the 725 figure does tell you is that the nomination-holding pool is not empty. There were enough nominated candidates in the system on September 28 that IRCC could set the bar at 125 human-capital points and still fill 733 seats. That's worth knowing if you're planning around timelines.
The 2026 pattern: many PNP rounds, modest volume
Across 2026, the draw pattern has been roughly 19 PNP rounds issuing in the neighbourhood of 9,270 invitations. Set that against the year's Canadian Experience Class and French-language rounds, which have been substantially larger in volume, and a picture emerges that candidates should take seriously.
PNP rounds are frequent but small. CEC and French-language rounds are less frequent in comparison but move far more people. These are different kinds of pathways, and they reward different kinds of preparation.
For someone already working in Canada with a year or more of skilled Canadian experience, the CEC stream is the broad road — high volume, no provincial application required, no second layer of processing. For someone with strong French, the French-language category rounds have been where the largest share of invitations at lower scores has gone. And for everybody else — candidates abroad, candidates in Canada whose experience doesn't fit CEC, candidates whose age or education caps their human-capital score — the provincial route is where roughly 9,270 invitations landed this year. Not enormous. But those are 9,270 people who, in most cases, would not have been invited any other way.
Who this actually changes the calculation for
The September round is most relevant to a few specific situations.
Candidates sitting in the pool with scores in the 350–450 range who have watched general rounds pass them by. For this group, the question is no longer "how do I add 30 points" — squeezing another language test result or another year of experience rarely closes a 100-point gap. The question is whether a provincial stream exists that matches their occupation, work history, or connection to a particular province.
Candidates with a job offer or existing employment in a province. Many provincial streams weigh employer connection heavily, and that connection is often worth more inside a provincial stream than it is in the federal CRS.
Candidates whose age is starting to cost them points. CRS age points decline after 30 and fall off sharply through the late thirties. A nomination doesn't reverse that, but it makes it far less decisive.
And candidates who already hold a nomination and are waiting. If that's you, the September figures suggest the nomination-holding pool is being drawn from regularly — 19 rounds through the year is not a program being quietly shelved.
What people underestimate about the nomination route
The 600 points are automatic. Getting to them is not.
A provincial nomination is a separate application to a separate government, with its own criteria, its own intake windows, and in many cases its own expression-of-interest system sitting in front of it. Some streams open and close within days. Some require a job offer from an employer in the province. Some are restricted to occupations on a provincial list that changes. The federal 600-point bonus attaches only to enhanced nominations — those aligned with Express Entry — and not every provincial stream is enhanced.
There's also a commitment attached. Provincial nomination carries an expectation that you intend to settle in the nominating province. That's not a small consideration if your family, job prospects, or professional licensing are anchored somewhere else in the country.
So the honest framing is this: a nomination is the single highest-value thing most low-CRS candidates can pursue, and it is also the most administratively demanding. Pursuing it seriously usually means researching which provinces have streams that align with your actual profile, rather than applying broadly and hoping something lands. If you want a structured starting point, you can check your PNP eligibility here before committing time to a specific province's process.
What to watch over the next several rounds
A few things are worth tracking rather than reacting to.
Round frequency more than cut-off. A 725 cut-off in one round tells you about the composition of the nominated pool that week. Whether PNP rounds keep running at a similar cadence into the rest of the cycle tells you something more useful about planning.
The balance between PNP volume and CEC or French-language volume. If the larger categories continue to absorb most invitations, the strategic advice for candidates with competitive Canadian experience or French ability stays the same — you may not need a nomination at all, and chasing one could cost you months for no gain.
Provincial intake announcements. Federal draw data is downstream of what provinces are doing. Streams opening, closing, or changing their occupation lists will show up in the nominated pool months later.
Questions this raises
Does a lower human-capital score hurt me in a PNP round? In the September 28 round, the bottom of the invited group sat at roughly 125 points before the nomination bonus. Candidates below that threshold in human-capital points would not have been reached in that specific round. Whether that matters to you depends on where your base score actually sits.
Should I stop improving my base CRS if I'm pursuing a nomination? Generally no. Language scores and Canadian work experience feed into provincial stream criteria too, not just the federal CRS, and a stronger base score keeps other pathways open if the provincial route doesn't work out.
Is 9,270 invitations across the year a lot or a little? It's a meaningful number of permanent residence pathways for people who had no other route, and it's small relative to the year's largest categories. Both things are true, and which one matters depends entirely on whether you have a realistic alternative.
Can I apply to more than one province? Rules vary by province and by stream, and some explicitly restrict concurrent applications. This is one of the areas where getting it wrong costs real time.
The September 28 round doesn't represent a policy change. What it does is make visible something that's been true all year: for a large share of the Express Entry pool, the realistic path to an invitation runs through a province rather than through another few CRS points. Whether that's the right path for your particular profile — occupation, location, family situation, timeline — is a case-by-case question, and an RCIC can assess your specific situation against the streams that are actually open.
If you want a professional read on where your profile stands and whether a provincial route is worth the effort in your case, book a consultation with our team.