In a big move, Canada has announced the 2025–2027 Immigration Levels Plan and for the first time ever, the levels plan includes controlled targets for temporary residents, specifically international students and foreign workers, as well as for permanent residents.

Canada’s population has grown in recent years, reaching 41 million in April 2024. Immigration accounted for almost 98% of this growth in 2023, 60% of which can be attributed to temporary residents.

Canada is reducing their permanent resident targets from 500,000 permanent residents to 395,000 in 2025, to 380,000 in 2026 before settling at a target of 365,000 permanent residents in 2027.

The Levels Plan also supports efforts to reduce temporary resident volumes to 5% of Canada’s population by the end of 2026. Given temporary resident reduction measures announced in September, Canada’s temporary population will decrease over the next few years as significantly more temporary residents will transition to being permanent residents or leave Canada compared to new ones arriving.

Specifically, compared to each previous year, Canada’s temporary population decline by 445,901 in 2025, and 445,662 in 2026, and then a modest increase of 17,439 in 2027 will be seen. The temporary resident targets in the levels plan do not include short-term visitors or seasonal workers, who are not captured in annual population estimates. Targets are for the number of net new temporary residents entering Canada each year.

Targets for new temporary resident arrivals are set at 673,650 in 2025, 516,600 in 2026, and 543,600 in 2027. These figures represent work and study permits issued to new arrivals to Canada. The target in 2025 for international students reflects the previously announced study permit cap (new arrivals only), and represents 45% of overall new temporary resident arrivals.

In 2026 and 2027, international students make up the majority of temporary resident arrivals at 59% and 56% respectively, while the remainder of the arrivals will be allocated to temporary workers.

It is anticipated that more than 40% of overall permanent resident admissions in 2025 will be students or workers already in Canada.

These reductions are the result of a series of changes over the past year, including a cap on international students and tightened eligibility requirements for temporary foreign workers, implemented to decrease volumes and strengthen the integrity and quality of our temporary resident programs.

The 2025–2027 Immigration Levels Plan is expected to result in a marginal population decline of 0.2% in both 2025 and 2026, before returning to a population growth of 0.8% in 2027. These forecasts account for today’s announcement of reduced targets across multiple immigration streams over the next two years, as well as expected temporary resident outflows resulting from the 5% target, natural population loss and other factors.

Canada’s population has grown in recent years, reaching 41 million in April 2024. Immigration accounted for almost 98% of this growth in 2023, 60% of which can be attributed to temporary residents.

For those in Canada

For those already in Canada, the government has made a plan to transition more temporary residents who are already in Canada as students and workers to permanent residents. Representing more than 40% of overall permanent resident admissions in 2025, these residents are skilled, educated and integrated into Canadian society. They will continue to support the workforce and economy without placing additional demands on our social services because they are already established, with housing and employment.