An applicant noticed their Express Entry (EE) tracker showed eligibility as 'not started' while background verification was already 'in progress', and asked if that was expected.
What the thread confirmed:- This mismatch is common. For some applicants, eligibility jumps straight from 'not started' to 'completed' without ever showing 'in progress' in the tracker — so the tracker's visible stages don't always reflect the actual internal processing order.
- Other applicants reported the same pattern: eligibility shown as 'in review' on their GC Key account but 'not started' in the tracker, with background verification already 'in progress'.
Takeaway: don't read too much into the exact tracker stage order — background checks can start, and eligibility can complete, without the tracker updating in the sequence you'd expect.