Express Entry Invited Candidates: Reproducibility Lab (2026)
Free educational data-literacy exercise. Work with Immigration, Refugees and Citizenship Canada (IRCC) published Express Entry invited-candidate data to practice reproducible spreadsheet calculations. This is a fixed instructional snapshot, not a live immigration dashboard.
Data coverage: 2015 through July 31, 2026 (2026 is year-to-date only). Source verified: September 26, 2026. Figures are published rounded data and should not be interpreted as exact administrative totals.
Download the original dataset and methodology
- MAK R03 research archive / fixed-snapshot dataset (Zenodo) — use the archived file version for matching the classroom exercise; view the underlying R03 research analysis
- Government of Canada: Express Entry-Invited Candidates — Monthly IRCC Updates — the official source, which may have changed after this snapshot
- IRCC source CSV — check its current coverage before comparing with the fixed exercise
How to use this exercise
Open the archived R03 source data in a spreadsheet and organize the columns as Year, Intended Province/Territory, Invitation Program Label, Published Raw, Published Numeric and Suppressed?. Use SUMIFS and COUNTIFS, counting only disclosed numeric cells. Do not impute suppressed values or treat an absent category as zero.
Ten spreadsheet questions
- How many rows in the fixed 2026 year-to-date source?
- How many 2026 source cells are suppressed?
- What is the sum of disclosed, rounded numeric cells for 2026 year-to-date?
- What is the disclosed 2026 year-to-date sum for intended destination Ontario?
- What fraction of the disclosed 2026 sum names Ontario as intended destination?
- What is the disclosed 2026 year-to-date sum labelled Canadian Experience Class?
- What is the disclosed 2026 year-to-date sum labelled Federal Skilled Worker?
- What is the disclosed 2026 year-to-date sum labelled Provincial Nominee Program?
- How many 2024 source rows contain a suppressed published value?
- What is the 2024 sum of disclosed, rounded numeric cells, excluding suppressed values?
Three interpretation questions
- Does the disclosed invited-candidate total prove that the same number of people became Canadian permanent residents? Explain.
- Does the “Invitation Category” field in this particular IRCC dataset represent current French-language or healthcare category-based selection rounds? Explain using the column labels.
- Does a candidate’s stated intended province or territory establish where that candidate ultimately settled? Explain.
Methodology, limitations and attribution
- The dataset concerns Express Entry candidates invited to apply, not permanent residence approvals, final immigration outcomes or a count of active Express Entry profiles.
- IRCC suppresses figures from 0 to 5 as “–”, and other published figures are rounded to the nearest multiple of five. Published sums can differ from underlying administrative totals.
- The fixed 2026 extract ends July 31, 2026; it must not be compared directly with a full calendar year as an annual growth rate.
- In this specific source the invitation-category column contains program labels (CEC, FSW, FST and PNP); it is not a measure of French-language, healthcare or other targeted draw selection categories.
- Intended province/territory describes stated intended destination, not eventual settlement location.
- This exercise is a MAK Canadian Immigration Services educational adaptation, not an official IRCC publication or a Government of Canada endorsement.
Source attribution: Contains information licensed under the Open Government Licence – Canada. Read the licence. Original source: Immigration, Refugees and Citizenship Canada, Express Entry-Invited Candidates – Monthly IRCC Updates. This learning activity does not provide individualized immigration advice.
Student workbook (Excel, v1.3): Access the published R03 Reproducibility Lab workbook (.xlsx). This public student edition contains Read Me, Student Lab, and Source_Data only; instructor solutions remain private.
Publication scope: reviewed student teaching material only. Instructor solutions and separate instructor workbook are not publicly distributed. For attribution and reuse of the underlying research dataset, consult MAK’s R03 citation and reuse guidance.
