Express Entry French-Category Draws
The latest French-category round cut off at 382. At the same time, the CEC round sat at 523. French lowered the bar by 141 points.
Cutoffs over time: French category vs CEC
The distance between the two lines is what French is worth in Express Entry.
The comparison line is Canadian Experience Class (CEC) rounds, plus the no-program-specified rounds that ran until April 2024. Provincial Nominee rounds are excluded: a nomination is worth 600 CRS points on its own, so those cutoffs are not comparable.
Would my score have made it?
Enter your CRS score to see how far it would have gone in past French-category rounds.
Another 48,600 sit in your own 351–400 band — IRCC publishes bands only, so they cannot be split further. The pool distribution covers all Express Entry candidates, not just French-category ones, and being invited also depends on which category IRCC draws from and how many it invites. This counts rounds that already happened; it does not predict the next one.
Draw cadence
The median interval between French-category rounds is 28 days, with an interquartile range of 17–34 days. At that rhythm the next round would fall between September 5, 2026 and September 22, 2026.
That is a description of past intervals, not a forecast. IRCC never announces draw dates in advance, and never announces cutoffs at all — any “predicted score range” you see elsewhere is a guess.
TCF score → NCLC level → CRS points
French-category rounds require NCLC 7 in all four abilities. The table below is IRCC's official TCF Canada conversion.
| Level | Listening (CO) | Reading (CE) | Speaking (EO) | Writing (EE) |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| NCLC 10+ | 549–699 | 549–699 | 16–20 | 16–20 |
| NCLC 9 | 523–548 | 524–548 | 14–15 | 14–15 |
| NCLC 8 | 503–522 | 499–523 | 12–13 | 12–13 |
| NCLC 7entry bar | 458–502 | 453–498 | 10–11 | 10–11 |
| NCLC 6 | 398–457 | 406–452 | 7–9 | 7–9 |
| NCLC 5 | 369–397 | 375–405 | 6 | 6 |
| NCLC 4 | 331–368 | 342–374 | 4–5 | 4–5 |
Round history
| Date | Cutoff | Change | Invitations | Since previous | Round |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| August 19, 2026 | 382 | -9 | 5,000 | 13d | #437 |
| August 6, 2026 | 391 | -8 | 5,000 | 15d | #433 |
| July 22, 2026 | 399 | -21 | 5,000 | 13d | #429 |
| July 9, 2026 | 420 | +11 | 5,000 | 42d | #425 |
| May 28, 2026 | 409 | +9 | 4,500 | 29d | #418 |
| April 29, 2026 | 400 | -19 | 4,000 | 14d | #414 |
| April 15, 2026 | 419 | +26 | 4,000 | 28d | #411 |
| March 18, 2026 | 393 | -4 | 4,000 | 14d | #405 |
| March 4, 2026 | 397 | -3 | 5,500 | 26d | #401 |
| February 6, 2026 | 400 | +1 | 8,500 | 51d | #394 |
| December 17, 2025 | 399 | -9 | 6,000 | 19d | #388 |
| November 28, 2025 | 408 | -8 | 6,000 | 30d | #382 |
| October 29, 2025 | 416 | -16 | 6,000 | 23d | #376 |
| October 6, 2025 | 432 | -14 | 4,500 | 32d | #371 |
| September 4, 2025 | 446 | -35 | 4,500 | 27d | #365 |
Common questions
What does the French category require?
NCLC 7 in all four French abilities — on TCF Canada that means listening 458, reading 453, speaking 10 and writing 10 as the minimums — plus eligibility for at least one Express Entry program.
How many CRS points is French worth?
NCLC 7 or higher in all four abilities with English at CLB 4 or below (including no English test) earns 25 additional points; with English at CLB 5 or higher in all four it earns 50. These are on top of the core language points French already scores.
How often does IRCC hold a French round?
There is no fixed schedule. The median gap between rounds has been 28 days — as short as two weeks, sometimes over a month.
How current is this page?
We check IRCC's open data every hour and publish a new round as soon as it appears.
This page mirrors rounds of invitations published by IRCC. It is provided for reference only and is not immigration advice — official announcements always prevail.