Category-Based Express Entry Draws (2026)

Last verified: September 5, 2026 · Official source: canada.ca/rounds of invitations

General information, not legal or immigration advice. For advice on your situation, consult a licensed RCIC or immigration lawyer.

What are category-based draws?

Starting in 2023, IRCC introduced category-based selection — the ability to hold draws that target candidates with specific characteristics (occupations or language skills) rather than just the overall highest CRS scores. A category draw invites only candidates who meet the category criteria, often at a lower cutoff than a general draw.

In 2026, IRCC is favouring category draws over general draws, making it important to understand which category (if any) your profile fits.

⚠️ Do not rely on fixed CRS cutoff numbers. Cutoffs change with every draw. Use the Draw Tracker for live data on recent category draw cutoffs.

2026 Active Categories

IRCC runs 10 categories in 2026. Getting the names right matters: where a category name ends in "with Canadian work experience", that condition is baked into the name.

The five new ones were announced on February 18, 2026.

Agriculture and agri-food is not on the 2026 list. That said, we could not find a sentence where IRCC states it was retired. It does not appear on the category page and survives only as historical results in a statistics table.

The experience requirement — this is where the confusion is

Many people believe the experience has to be Canadian. For most categories it does not.

IRCC's wording runs like this. Within the past 3 years, you must have accumulated 12 months of full-time experience in a single occupation from that category's table, and that experience may be in Canada or abroad.

Four things follow.

• 12 months — raised from 6 months in 2026. An equivalent amount of part-time experience counts
• Accumulated within the past 3 years
• It does not have to be continuous
• It has to sit within one occupation. You cannot add up experience scattered across several occupations, though that occupation does not have to be your primary one

The three categories where only Canadian experience counts

The three categories whose names end in "with Canadian work experience" — physicians, senior managers, researchers — carry the identical sentence with only the last line changed to "in Canada". Those three are the ones where experience abroad does not count.

Skilled military recruits use a different test

This category does not use the rule above. It targets people serving in a recognized foreign military with 10 years or more of continuous service.

The French-language proficiency category

You need NCLC 7 or higher in all four abilities on a French test. It is a language requirement, independent of occupation.

🔴 Whether the experience requirement also attaches to this category could not be confirmed. The eligibility page lists only the language score, while IRCC's February 2026 backgrounder says the increase applies to "all renewed categories" and French-language proficiency is on that renewal list. The two pages disagree, so we will not assert either reading here. Check the instructions for the specific round.

How category draws work

When IRCC holds a category-based draw:

1. IRCC selects a category (e.g. STEM) and a CRS cutoff for that draw.
2. Only candidates who meet the category criteria and have a CRS score at or above the cutoff receive an Invitation to Apply.
3. Candidates who don't meet the category criteria are not invited, even if their CRS is above the cutoff.

If you qualify for a category, you may receive an ITA at a lower cutoff than a general draw — because the pool of eligible candidates is narrower.

If you do not qualify for any category, you can still receive an ITA in a general draw, which is open to all Express Entry candidates regardless of category.

How to qualify for a category

French-language proficiency

Have CLB/NCLC 7 or higher in all four abilities of French (TEF Canada or TCF Canada). This is a language requirement independent of occupation.

Occupation-based categories (STEM, Healthcare, Trades, Education, etc.)

Your primary work experience (usually your most recent or predominant NOC code) must fall within the occupations IRCC has designated for that category. IRCC publishes the eligible NOC codes as a table inside each category on the category-based selection page. There is no separate list page.

You also need 12 months of experience in that occupation within the past 3 years. As noted above, that experience may be in Canada or abroad — the only exceptions are the three categories whose names end in "with Canadian work experience".

What actually happened in 2026

A category being open is not the same as that category being drawn. Here are the 53 rounds held between 2026-01-05 and 2026-09-04, grouped by type.

Two things stand out.

First, there was not a single general draw. All 53 rounds were CEC, PNP, or category-based. If you fit no category and have no Canadian work experience, there was no door open to you in 2026.

Second, three open categories were never drawn: STEM occupations, education occupations, and researchers with Canadian work experience. Appearing on the category list and being invited through that category are separate things.

Healthcare and social services as a worked example

This category is known for a low cutoff, so it is treated as the easy route. In practice, rounds came about once every 4 months.

The cutoff is not trending down either. It rose from 467 to 475 and stayed there.

This was the first category ever drawn, on 2023-06-28, when category-based selection launched. The backgrounder published at the time reported 150,100 job vacancies in health care and social assistance in Q3 2022 — an all-time high — and projected that health care would become Canada's largest employing sector by 2031. Of 58 occupational groupings with shortages, 38 were structural, and 37 of those were expected to stay short through 2031.

In 2025 the category widened from health care alone to healthcare and social services, bringing in social workers (41300), counselling therapists (41301), and social and community service workers (42201). You do not have to work in a hospital to qualify.

One trap to know: only facility-based nurse aides (33102) are on the list. Home support workers who visit private residences fall under NOC 44101, a different code, and are not in this category.

How to read a cutoff

A cutoff is not a bar set in advance. It is the score of the lowest-ranked candidate invited in that round. So a low cutoff means the category pool holds few high-scoring candidates, and shrinking the number of invitations pushes the cutoff up. CEC is the clearest case: as invitations fell from 8,000 to 2,000, the cutoff climbed from 511 to 521.

The practical takeaway is that a cutoff alone is not enough to choose a category. How often it is drawn matters just as much.

Does a category draw affect your CRS score?

No. Your CRS score is the same regardless of whether you are being considered for a category draw or a general draw. The category determines whether you are invited in a given draw — not your score.

Your score still comes from: age, education, language, Canadian work experience, spouse factors, skill transferability, and additional factors (provincial nomination, Canadian education, etc.).

→ Express Entry Overview & CRS → CRS Calculator

Strategy: maximizing your category draw chances

• STEM, Healthcare, Trades, Education workers: verify your NOC code is in that category's table. If you have 12 months of experience in that occupation within the past 3 years, you're eligible. Experience from your home country counts.
• French speakers: improving your French to CLB/NCLC 7 opens the French category draw, which has historically had some of the lowest cutoffs.
• Multiple categories: some profiles qualify for more than one category. If your NOC is STEM and you also speak French at CLB 7, you could be selected under either category.
• No applicable category: watch for general draws and work on increasing your CRS — better language scores, more Canadian experience, or a provincial nomination.

→ Draw Tracker — live draw history and cutoffs → CRS Calculator — estimate your score → Express Entry Overview

Sources

• canada.ca — Category-based selection
• canada.ca — Rounds of invitations