Canada's French-language Express Entry cut-off falls to 382, its lowest of 2026

Immigration, Refugees and Citizenship Canada held its 437th Express Entry round on 19 August 2026, inviting 5,000 candidates in the French-language proficiency category. The lowest-ranked candidate invited scored 382 on the Comprehensive Ranking System, the lowest cut-off the category has produced this year and its third drop in a row. On 9 July the same category required 420 points. Six weeks later it required 38 fewer. Across ten French rounds in 2026 IRCC has now issued 50,500 invitations, more than any other Express Entry category this year.

What the French category actually is

Express Entry ranks candidates by a points score and then invites from the top down. Since 2023 IRCC has also run category-based rounds, which draw only from candidates who meet an extra condition and therefore reach much further down the score table than a general round would. The French-language proficiency category is one of them. To be in the pool for it, a candidate needs results from an IRCC-approved French test — TEF Canada or TCF Canada — showing at least level 7 in all four abilities on the Niveaux de compétence linguistique canadiens: speaking, listening, reading and writing. The results must be less than two years old, and the candidate must also qualify under at least one of the federal programs behind Express Entry: the Federal Skilled Worker Program, the Canadian Experience Class or the Federal Skilled Trades Program. The round on 19 August applied the usual tie-break: candidates on exactly 382 points were invited only if their profile was in the pool before 1 March 2026 at 18:34:05 UTC.

The slide, round by round

The French category opened 2026 at 400 points in February and stayed in the 390s and 400s through the spring, closing at 419 in mid-April and 420 on 9 July. It has fallen at each of the three rounds since: 399 on 22 July, 391 on 6 August, 382 on 19 August, each of them a 5,000-invitation round. It is worth being precise about what this is not. It is not an all-time low for the category. That remains 336 points, set on 29 February 2024 in a round that issued 2,500 invitations. It is the lowest of 2026.

Why the bar keeps falling

The policy backdrop is a target Canada has set itself. Under the 2026–2028 levels plan, 9 per cent of permanent residents admitted outside Quebec in 2026 are meant to be French-speaking, about 30,150 people. Through May, roughly 9,900 had been admitted, leaving around 20,250 for the remaining seven months. That is an average of about 2,890 a month, against the 1,980 a month achieved so far. Express Entry is the main lever the department has for moving that number, and repeated 5,000-invitation rounds are what pulling it looks like. Whether the falling cut-off is a deliberate response to that gap or simply what happens when you invite 5,000 people every two weeks from a finite pool, IRCC has not said. The two explanations are not mutually exclusive.

Who this changes things for

Two groups should take note. The first is candidates already in the pool with solid French and a mid-300s to low-400s score, who six months ago were watching rounds close well above them. A score of 382 would have missed every French round held in 2026 before this one; the next-lowest was 391, two weeks earlier. The second is people not yet in the pool who have functional French and have been weighing whether a TEF or TCF sitting is worth the money and the study time. Level 7 across all four abilities is a real requirement and not a weekend project, but the arithmetic has shifted. French proficiency adds direct CRS points and opens a category whose bar now sits far below the program-specific rounds: IRCC has held no general, all-program rounds in 2026, and its Canadian Experience Class rounds this month closed at 516 on 5 August and 523 on 18 August, more than 130 points above the French cut-off.

What to do with this

If you are already in the pool, check that your language results are still current. Test results expire after two years, and an invitation you cannot act on because your certificate lapsed is worse than no invitation. If you hold an invitation from this round, you have 60 days to submit a complete permanent residence application, and completeness is what decides most refusals at this stage: police certificates, medicals and employment letters take time to assemble, so start them now rather than at day 50. If you are earlier in the process, our Canada country guide (/country-guides/canada) covers what a move actually involves once status is settled, and the visas and status field guide (/field-guide/visas-status) explains how selection systems like Express Entry sit alongside the permits you need on arrival. Round outcomes are published by IRCC on its rounds-of-invitations page; that page, not a tracker, is the record.