Canada to Cut Immigration by 20% in 2025

Canada has declared a reduction in its target for new permanent residents by 90,000 for 2025, as the federal government succumbs to political pressure to decrease immigration figures.

On Thursday, Immigration Minister Marc Miller declared in the House of Commons that the target would decrease from 485,000 in 2024 to 395,000 in 2025.

Additional reductions are scheduled, targeting 380,000 in 2026 and 365,000 in 2027.

The prior Immigration Levels Plan, released in the fall of 2023, set targets of 500,000 for 2025 and 2026.

Canada is reducing its targets for the admission of permanent residents and temporary residents.

Permanent Resident Targets:

In the Immigration Levels Plan, unveiled on October 24th, the government announced the following decreases in targets for permanent residence admissions over the next three years:

• 2025: 395,000, a decrease from the 485,000 objectives for 2024 and the previously disclosed 500,000 aim in the 2024-2026 Immigration Levels Plan.
• 2026: 380,000, a decrease from the 500,000 target in the 2024-2026 Immigration Levels Plan.2027: 365,000.

While the government reduces overall immigration, it increases the proportion of economic immigrants.

Economic immigration targets for 2025 have decreased by only 17%, from 281,000 to 232,000. Over 40% of economic immigrants are predicted to come from temporary residents in Canada.

In a rare move, Prime Minister Justin Trudeau took the initiative to launch the announcement, which the Immigration Minister typically handles. Trudeau praised Canadian immigration, claiming, “It’s made our economy the envy of the world.”

Both Trudeau and Miller reaffirmed Canada’s strong support for immigration.

Scaling Down of Provincial Nominee Programs

This year’s plan has reduced expectations for Provincial Nominee Program (PNP) admissions by approximately 50%.

• 2025: 55,000 – lower than last year’s estimates of 110,000 for 2024 and 120,000 for 2025.
• 2026: 55,000, down from the 120,000 target in last year’s plan.
• 2027: 55,000.

This drop in PNP targets marks a substantial shift in immigration policy by the federal government.

Increased Federal High-Skilled Economic Immigration.

The federal government is allocating a greater proportion of economic immigration to federal high-skilled (FHS) programs overseen by Express Entry.

While the PNP targets have been drastically reduced, the FHS targets have increased:

• 2025: 124,680, up from the prior year’s estimates of 110,770 in 2024 and 117,500 in 2025.
• 2026: The aim for 2026 is 123,230, up from 117,500 last year.
• 2027: 118,730.

To calculate these statistics for FHS for this year’s plan, we added the “Federal Economic Priorities” and “In-Canada Focus” categories from this year’s supplementary data. We have not included federal business. In last year’s additional data, the government presented FHS as a separate category.

An increase in the number of French speakers settling outside of Quebec.

The federal government will continue to increase targets for admissions of French-speaking immigrants settling outside of Quebec, as a percentage of overall permanent residence admissions:

• 2025: 8.5%.
• 2026: 9.5%.
• 2027: 10%.

Temporary Residency Levels

This year’s plan also sets targets for temporary resident admissions. Previous plans did not include any targets for temporary residents.

The declaration on October 24 followed a series of reforms to Canada’s immigration system this year, particularly in terms of temporary resident (those with a work or study permit) levels in the nation. By the end of 2026, the government plans to lower the share of temporary residents in Canada’s population from 7% to 5%.

The huge decline in workers between 2025 and 2026 is owing to a major reduction in work permits awarded to the International Mobility Program (IMP), which has a target of 285,750 for 2025 but only 128,700 for 2026.

Work permits awarded under the Temporary Foreign Worker Program (TFWP) will stay at 82,000 per year for the next three years.

The government expects the transition of temporary residents to permanent residents, which will occur through pathways such as Canadian Experience Class (CEC) Express Entry draws and provincial nominee programs (PNPs), to contribute to the overall reduction of temporary residents from 7% to 5% of the Canadian population.

Moreover, hte government anticipates that Canada’s total number of temporary residents will fall by roughly 445,000 in 2025, another 445,000 in 2026, and then rise by about 17,000 in 2027. The government anticipates this reduction to be the outcome of

Temporary residents might become permanent residents or have their status expire.

2024 Cap on Study Permit Applications

On January 22, this year, IRCC announced the first-ever cap on international student admissions, in an effort to reduce the rapidly growing number of foreign nationals on study permits in Canada.

Originally intended as a temporary two-year strategy, this proposal planned to limit the number of study permits awarded to undergraduate and college students to 360,000 new study permits in 2024. This regulation was eventually extended to become a permanent feature of Canada’s international student program, encompassing study permits awarded to master’s and PhD students as well.

In conjunction with this adjustment, IRCC has changed the qualifying criteria for Post-Graduation Work Permits (PGWPs) throughout the year. Initially, in January, the immigration administration indicated that overseas students enrolled in programs with curriculum-licensing agreements would no longer be eligible for a PGWP beginning September of this year.

Reforms to the Temporary Foreign Worker Program

Canada’s Temporary Foreign Worker Program (TFWP) has recently come under scrutiny.

In this announcement on October 24, Trudeau chastised Canadian corporations for “exploiting cheap foreign labour,” emphasizing the urgency of reform.

Earlier this year, the government halted the processing of labour market impact assessments (LMIAs) for the TWFP’s low-wage stream in the Montreal region, followed by suspensions in census metropolitan areas (CMAs) with an unemployment rate of 6% or higher.

The government also reduced the period of TFWP work permits for low-wage workers to one year, down from two years previously.

Earlier measures to reduce the amount of study permits, PGWPs, and spouse open work permits.

On September 18, Miller revealed reforms that he thought would result in the following over the next three years:

• 300,000 fewer study permits
• 175,000 fewer PGWPs
• 150,000 fewer open work permits for spouses.

These changes included:

• Restricting PGWPs to college graduates from in-demand programs
• Requiring a language test
• Requiring master’s programs to be at least 18 months long, and
• Limiting spousal open work permits to spouses of in-demand workers.

Graduates of qualifying bachelor’s, master’s, and doctoral programs will continue to be eligible for PGWPs, regardless of their field.

To be eligible for PGWPs, college graduates must have a CLB of 5, whereas university graduates need a CLB of 7.

About the Immigration Levels Plan

The Immigration Levels Plan is the government’s official document outlining its approach to immigration.

Each year’s Immigration Levels Plan includes goals for the following year and the two years after that. Targets for the following year are generally considered concrete, whereas targets for years two and three are preliminary and subject to change.

Despite the reduction in the projected number of new permanent residents, the 2025 targets remain greater than Canada’s pre-pandemic targets.

The Plan does not include targets for all foreign people who may be remaining in Canada for a lengthy time, such as asylum seekers or parents or grandparents with special visas. It also does not account for seasonal labour.

Rationale for changes

Miller argued that these adjustments reflected a “middle of the road” approach, stating, “We have a controlled immigration plan that we can be proud of.”

Trudeau implied that the revisions were politically motivated: “We’re focused on winning the next election,” he stated.

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