Express Entry

To be eligible, you must fit one of three routes: the Canadian Experience Class, the Federal Skilled Worker route, or the skilled trades route. The official eligibility page spells out the full rules for each.

Two terms show up in all three. A Canadian Language Benchmark, or CLB, measures your English speaking, listening, reading, and writing the Canadian way. A TEER category is the number, from 0 to 5, that Canada's occupation list assigns to your job according to the schooling and training it requires.

Neither of the skilled worker programs asks for a job offer. Job offers earn no CRS points today; from 3 November 2026, IRCC's announced change gives an offer in a high-wage job 50 to 100 points. Skilled trades works the other way: you need either a full-time offer lasting twelve months or more, or a certificate of qualification in your trade from a Canadian province, territory, or federal authority, as the official eligibility rules require.

The Federal Skilled Worker Program, on top of that, expects you to have finished secondary school. Study beyond that is optional, but it gives your score a boost.

If you fit any of these programs, a province can put your name forward under the Provincial Nominee Program as well. That nomination adds points, which is why nominated candidates tend to get invited fast.

The profile holds your work history, language test results, education, and family details, and the system scores it. It can decide you qualify for two or even all three programs at the same time. Many people do.

A profile has an end date. Once it expires, the system deletes it, so if yours is about to run out, take screenshots or print them first. That makes typing your details back in much easier, as the application page recommends. Wait until your old profile has expired before making a new one, since a second profile would force you to withdraw the first.

Proof of funds is a written record that you can afford to settle in Canada. The Federal Skilled Worker Program requires it. An invitation under the Canadian Experience Class does not. The figures change each year and scale with the size of your family, as the proof of funds page shows.

Include your spouse or partner and dependent children in the count, even if they hold Canadian citizenship or permanent residence themselves, and even when they will not be travelling with you. A couple with two kids, for instance, is a family of four and needs CAD 28,362.

The money has to be available to you at the time you apply and again when your visa is issued. You show it with official letters from every bank, printed on bank letterhead with your name on them. The value of your house does not qualify, since the money has to be within reach when you land.

A message in your account names the program you were invited under. The invitation only lasts 60 days, so it pays to open the application form right away and collect documents while you work on it, following the application page.

If 60 days pass without you applying or declining, the invitation dies and your profile is out of the pool. Declining and returning to the pool later will not hurt you. In both cases, remember that the minimum score shifts with every round, and another invitation is never promised.

Once you have applied, the Canadian Experience Class currently takes roughly six months to process, while the Federal Skilled Worker Program and provincial nominee routes through Express Entry take roughly seven, per the official processing times.