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Received an ITA before officially hitting 2 years of Canadian work experience — accept or decline?

Canada • Canadian Experience Class • immigration 0 views
By VisaBuddies Communityvia community — compiled from public visa forums

Step-by-Step

If your Express Entry profile auto-updates your CRS points for a second year of Canadian work experience and this triggers an Invitation to Apply (ITA) slightly before you've technically completed the full 2 years, you should not decline it.

What group members advised:
  1. Do not decline the ITA. Declining risks losing the invitation and having to wait for a future draw, which isn't necessary here.

  2. Accept the invitation and prepare your PR application documents, but submit the actual application after your 2-year work experience anniversary is reached (in this case, after May 30).

  3. One member confirmed directly with IRCC that this is the correct approach — they had the identical situation, contacted IRCC, and were told to wait until the full experience period was fulfilled before submitting, rather than declining the invite itself.


Bottom line: an early ITA due to a profile auto-update isn't a problem — accept it, get your documents ready, and time your application submission for on or after the date your qualifying experience is actually complete.

Dos, Don'ts & Tips

  • Don't: Don't decline an ITA just because it arrived slightly before your Canadian work experience technically hits the 2-year mark.
  • Do: Accept the ITA, then time your actual PR application submission for on or after your qualifying experience anniversary date.

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