Express Entry Invitations Per Year: Annual Totals, 2022 to 2026, Compared

Here are the annual express entry draw totals 2022 2023 2024 2025 2026, straight from IRCC’s own dataset: 46,539 invitations in 2022, 110,266 in 2023, 98,903 in 2024, 113,998 in 2025, and 104,616 already by 23 July 2026. That’s the whole answer to express entry invitations per year in one line. What’s worth spending the rest of this article on is what an ordinary day inside each of those totals actually looked like, because the pattern hiding inside the yearly numbers matters more than any single figure on its own.

2022 — 24 rounds, 46,539 invitations

This was a rebuilding year. General draws had only just resumed on 6 July after a long pause, and 24 rounds across the year works out to roughly 127 invitations issued on an average day — a slow, cautious restart after the earlier pandemic-era pauses to Federal Skilled Worker and Canadian Experience Class draws.

2023 — 42 rounds, 110,266 invitations

More than double the previous year’s total, and the year category-based selection was born, in May. On an average day across 2023, roughly 302 invitations went out somewhere in the system — general draws, the new categories, and Provincial Nominee Program rounds all running in parallel for the first time.

2024 — 52 rounds, 98,903 invitations

Slightly down on 2023 despite more rounds being held, because this was the year the system pivoted: the last general, all-program draw ran in April, and everything after it came through Canadian Experience Class, Provincial Nominee, French-language and category rounds instead. Averaged out, 2024 issued roughly 270 invitations a day — fewer, but spread across a system doing more selective work per round.

2025 — 58 rounds, 113,998 invitations

The highest annual total in this five-year window, at roughly 312 invitations a day on average, and achieved entirely without a single general draw. French-language proficiency was the single largest category that year, doing much of the heavy lifting that general draws used to.

2026 — 42 rounds and counting, 104,616 invitations by 23 July

This is the number worth sitting with. By 23 July — 204 days into the year, barely more than half of it — 2026 had already issued 104,616 invitations, over 90% of the whole of 2025’s annual total. Averaged across those 204 days, that’s roughly 513 invitations a day, close to double 2025’s daily average. Whatever the rest of 2026 brings, the first seven months moved noticeably faster than any prior year in this dataset.

Reading the shape, not just the numbers

The headline totals move up and down modestly year to year, but the daily pace tells the more useful story: Express Entry has become a faster-moving, more category-driven system with each passing year, even without a single general draw since April 2024. A South African reader watching these totals should read them as evidence of pace, not of easier odds — a busier system issuing more invitations a day doesn’t mean a Federal Skilled Worker profile without Canadian ties suddenly has a wider door.

These are counts, not predictions, and 2026’s final total isn’t knowable from a mid-year figure alone. Cape2Canada updates this express entry invitations per year comparison as each new IRCC dataset lands, rather than leaving last year’s totals sitting unchecked. For what the current pace might mean for your own timeline, a licensed RCIC can weigh your specific profile against it — this article only tracks what IRCC has already published.