If your plan is to migrate to Canada as a skilled worker under the permanent residency program, one of your options on this journey is via the express entry. Clients with permanent resident status must maintain this status by residing in Canada for 730 days out of every five years.

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The term express entry under the Canadian Immigration system means immigration processing time with a reasonable timeline. This is a point-based comprehensive ranking system in which selectees are usually selected periodically among the pool of thousands of applicants. Our government goal is to work within six months processing timeline upon completing and submitting error-free electronics applications after receiving an invitation to apply from Immigration, Refugees, and Citizenship Canada.

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All potential applicants must meet certain criteria under the various skilled worker programs in order to be considered under the express entry. These skilled worker programs under the express entry in which applicants must meet the minimum general requirements are Federal Skilled Worker, Federal Skilled Trade, and Canadian Experience Class. An applicant that doesn’t meet the minimum requirements of any of these three programs, cannot create an express entry profile.

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In a new development, some provinces and territories under the Province Nominee Program (PNP) are also seeking candidates via the Express Entry pool in order to meet the local labour demands.

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To qualify under the express entry, you must meet the following criteria which are education which could be foreign that must be assessed by a Canadian authorized body or Canadian education, work experience, and knowledge of a language which could be English or French, both. Once the applicant meets these general requirements in addition to some other criteria, interested candidates can create their express entry profile to be among the pool of candidates.

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Candidates are awarded points based on comprehensive ranking system under four broad categories of express entry. These are Core Human Capital, Spouse or Common-Law Partner factors, Skill Transferability Factors, and Additional Points. These four factors have a maximum point of 1,200. Apart from the scores of Candidates, the tie-breaking rules are also, applicable to determine the selectees.

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This is a ranking system as such candidates with high points which are within the announced government biweekly cut-offs are issued Invitation to Apply (ITA) for further processing which begins a new milestone towards achieving your goal.

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Once you receive the Invitation to apply, candidates do have the decision to either accept or decline it. If a candidate accepts the invitation to apply via their express entry profile, he or she must submit an error-free online application to IRCC for further processing to determine if such candidate meets the requirements of the skilled program.

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If an application decides to decline the invitation to apply, he or she will be back automatically into the express entry pool awaiting another draw by the Immigration, Refugees, and Citizenship Canada and if his or her score is within the cut-off again, another invitation to apply will be issued.