Express Entry and your CRS score: why French is the biggest lever you pull yourself

Canada works differently from almost every other emigration country: you don't submit an application and wait, you go into a pool and get ranked. Every few weeks Canada invites the top of that list. So your score doesn't determine whether you may come, but whether your turn comes — and that makes every point tangible.

The three programmes

Express Entry is the umbrella over three programmes. For Dutch citizens who have never worked in Canada, in practice one is relevant: the Federal Skilled Worker Program. For that you need at least one year of continuous work experience in the last ten years in a skilled occupation, a secondary school diploma, and English at a minimum of CLB 7. Besides that there is the Canadian Experience Class (for whoever has already worked in Canada) and the Federal Skilled Trades Program for trades — the latter does require a job offer or a Canadian trade certificate.

Note a confusion that trips up many people: for the Federal Skilled Worker Program there is a separate test of 67 points on factors such as age, education and language. That is the entry test — if you don't pass it, you don't get into the pool. The CRS score by which you are then ranked is a completely different number.

How your CRS score is made up

The maximum score is 1,200 points, made up of four blocks. The largest part comes from your human capital: age, education, language skills and Canadian work experience — together up to 500 points if you apply alone, or 460 if you bring a partner (who then contributes up to 40 points themselves). On top of that come up to 100 points for the combination of education, foreign experience and language, and up to 600 points in bonuses.

In that last block sits the heaviest lever of all: a provincial nomination yields 600 points. Whoever gets one is effectively at the top of the list. That's the reason why the Provincial Nominee Program is the realistic route for many candidates with a middling score — although it's a separate process per province with its own requirements.

Two things many sites still have wrong

The points for a job offer have gone. Since 25 March 2025 a valid job offer no longer counts in your CRS score — that used to be 50 or even 200 points. If you come across a guide that advises you to find a Canadian employer first "for the points", you're reading something outdated. A job offer does remain useful: it's still an admission requirement for the trades programme, it counts in the 67-point test, and many provincial streams ask for one.

And French has become worth much more. Whoever achieves French at NCLC 7 in all four skills gets 25 extra points — and 50 points if you also have English at CLB 5, which for most Dutch people is no problem at all. But the real gain isn't in those points.

The back door that stands open: the French-language draws

Canada invites not only on score, but also per category: healthcare, technology, education, transport, trades — and French-language proficiency. And that's where it gets interesting. In the draws of 2026 the cut-off score for the French category repeatedly sat around 391 to 420 points, while the ordinary rounds for the Canadian Experience Class closed at 516. That's a difference of well over a hundred points. Moreover, in those French rounds Canada invites thousands of people at a time, where other categories do it with hundreds.

For a Dutch person with school French that's a concrete offer: a year of serious French study up to NCLC 7 can yield more than years of extra work experience. It's the only lever in this whole process that you pull entirely yourself — and the cheapest.

What you need to know about the clock

Your profile stays in the pool for twelve months. If you get an invitation, you have sixty days to submit your complete application with all documents — and that's exactly why your educational credential assessment (ECA) and language test must be ready before you enter the pool. Both have their own validity period: language test results are valid for two years, an educational credential assessment for five years. If one expires along the way, your application is refused — no exceptions.