Express Entry ITAs are a major milestone for Canadian permanent residence (PR) applicants. However, for many hopeful individuals, the reality might be that their Express Entry profile expires before they receive such an invitation. Let’s look at what happens, and what applicants with expired profiles can do.

As of April 2024, the federal Express Entry candidate pool has over 200,000 profiles, making PR applications competitive. A common concern is whether their Express Entry profile information will remain after expiration. The answer is no, unfortunately. When a profile expires, the system deletes its data.

The Express Entry candidate’s profile page states their one-year validity duration. Although Immigration, Refugees, and Citizenship Canada (IRCC) planned to keep candidate information, existing limits make this impossible. When a profile expires, it temporarily loses a candidate’s information.

The IRCC advises newcomers with expiring profiles to register a new profile to stay in the pool. Candidates should also keep copies of their profile information or take screenshots for future reference. Express Entry now makes it easy to create a new profile, following the same steps as before. But some regulations must be obeyed. Candidates must remember that Express Entry allows only one profile. If a candidate’s profile is expiring and they want to stay in the pool, they must withdraw it before starting a new one.

Candidates should follow IRCC’s Express Entry profile withdrawal instructions:

• Sign in to your account.
• Navigate to “View the applications submitted” on the main page.
• Click the “Withdraw profile” link.
• Proceed by clicking the “Continue” button below the “Warning!” text under the heading “What would you like to do today?”

Upon successful submission of a new profile, individuals will be assigned a fresh Express Entry profile number along with a new job seeker validation code for the Job Bank. The job seeker validation code serves as a crucial identifier for candidates within the pool, facilitating their application for jobs listed on Canada’s central Job Bank while confirming their active inclusion in the Express Entry system.

To improve their Express Entry eligibility, candidates must optimize their Comprehensive Ranking System (CRS) score. The CRS evaluates candidates based on their human capital, education, and job experience. Since each draw in the system has a cut-off CRS score, boosting one’s CRS score greatly increases the likelihood of earning an ITA. Improve English or French language skills, get further education, get a job, get a provincial nomination, get eligible work experience, and maximize spousal points to enhance CRS scores.