How Many Invitations Canada's Levels Plan Allows for Express Entry Each Year
A common mistake candidates make is assuming that a strong CRS score alone determines whether an invitation exists at all. It doesn’t. The answer to how many express entry invitations per year actually go out is set separately, by the government’s immigration levels plan.
Mistake one: confusing your rank with total capacity
Your CRS score decides your place in line among everyone else in the pool. It has nothing to do with how many invitations IRCC plans to issue that year. These are two entirely separate systems working together — one ranks candidates, the other sets the annual cap those rankings get pulled against.
Mistake two: assuming the cap never changes
It changes constantly. The Federal High Skilled line — the figure tied most directly to Express Entry — moved from 82,880 planned for 2023, up to 109,020 for 2024 and 114,000 for 2025 under the original 2022 plan, then up further to 110,770 for 2024 and 117,500 for 2025 and 2026 under the next plan. The 2024 levels plan then split this into Federal Economic Priorities and In-Canada Focus lines totalling around 124,680 for 2025. The most recent plan, tabled November 2025, merged the figure back into a single line at 109,000 for 2026, 111,000 for 2027, and 111,000 for 2028.
Mistake three: ignoring how many invitations were actually issued
The plan sets a target, but the express entry ita numbers by year have swung noticeably in practice: 46,539 in 2022, jumping to 110,266 in 2023, dipping to 98,903 in 2024, rising to 113,998 in 2025, and 104,616 through to 23 July 2026. These totals span every round type — general, CEC, category-based and PNP — not just one stream.
Mistake four: treating PNP as part of the same pool of numbers
The Provincial Nominee Program has its own separate target in the levels plan — cut to 55,000 for 2025–2027 under the October 2024 plan, then restored to 91,500 for 2026 and 92,500 for 2027–2028 in the most recent plan. That’s a different admissions line from Federal High Skilled, running on a different mechanism, the 600-point nomination bonus, entirely.
Mistake five: assuming this year’s number is next year’s number
Because the plan is revised roughly annually, a target published for a given year in one plan can be revised again before that year even arrives. The Federal High Skilled figure for 2026 alone has appeared in three different forms across three separate levels plans published between 2023 and 2025. Treat any single year’s published figure as current only until the next plan is tabled.
Getting the picture right
The realistic way to read all this: your CRS score determines your queue position, while the total invitations issued in a given year is decided entirely separately, by the levels plan, and both numbers shift independently, sometimes in your favour and sometimes against it.
Because the levels plan gets revised roughly annually and doesn’t map neatly onto any single applicant’s timeline, a licensed RCIC can help you judge what a given year’s targets actually mean for someone in your specific position, rather than reading the raw totals alone.