Physicians Draw 440: Why a CRS Cut-off of 198 Is Not an Easy Round

Updated 9 September 2026. Round 440 on 3 September invited 229 candidates under the Physicians with Canadian Work Experience category (2026 Version 1) at a CRS cut-off of 198, the lowest cut-off in any round this site has reported. A low number is not a low bar. This piece explains what the cut-off measures and why this category produces one so far below the rest.

The published facts

Source: IRCC’s rounds of invitations page on canada.ca. The Version 1 label indicates that the round ran under the first published 2026 definition of this category.

What the category name tells you

The name is unusually specific. Most category labels describe an occupational field; this one describes a profession and a location of experience in the same breath. The Ministerial Instruction sets out exactly what counts, and that text on canada.ca is the only authoritative description. What the name alone makes clear is that the group is defined by two filters at once, profession and Canadian work experience, rather than by one.

How a cut-off ends up at 198

In every round IRCC ranks the candidates who pass the round’s filter by CRS score and invites from the top down until the round size is reached. The cut-off is the score of the last person invited. When a filter admits a group not much larger than the round itself, the invitations reach almost to the bottom of that group, and the cut-off lands wherever its lowest-ranked member happens to sit. A 229-invitation round producing a cut-off of 198 says that the physicians group was small enough for the invitations to reach that deep. It does not say that a score of 198 carried any weight outside that group; a candidate at 198 who was not a physician with Canadian experience was not part of the exercise at all.

Three rounds, one pool, three different numbers

The same week shows the point cleanly. On 1 September the Canadian Experience Class round invited 2,000 candidates at 521. On 3 September the physicians round invited 229 at 198. On 4 September the healthcare and social services round invited 3,500 at 475. All three selected from the same pool of profiles; the 323-point spread between the highest and lowest of the three is entirely a product of who each filter let through. The narrower the filter, the deeper a round of a given size reaches, and the physicians filter is the narrowest in the recent record.

Why “lowest cut-off” is the wrong headline

Headlines that rank cut-offs from low to high imply that a low number means an open door. The mechanics run the other way: the lowest cut-offs belong to the most tightly defined groups, which are the hardest groups to be in. For a reader outside Canada the physicians category is, on its own name, a round for people who already hold Canadian medical work experience. That is a description of the published category, not an assessment of anyone.

From a South African desk

For South African-trained doctors, Canadian medical licensing runs through provincial regulators and is a separate process from immigration, a practical matter our working in Canada guide touches on. The Express Entry category, however, is defined by experience already gained in Canada, which places it at the end of a journey rather than the start. Where Express Entry fits in the wider set of routes is set out in our move-to-Canada guide. Any individual’s eligibility, score or strategy is regulated advice for a licensed RCIC or immigration lawyer, and the figures above can be verified on IRCC’s rounds of invitations page at canada.ca.