October 24, 2024, the Honourable Marc Miller, Minister of Immigration, Refugees and Citizenship, announced the 2025–2027 Immigration Levels Plan: a plan that will pause population growth in the short term to achieve well-managed, sustainable growth in the long term. 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.
Immigration is essential to Canada's economic success and growth. As Canada reopened following the pandemic, the needs of businesses exceeded the available supply of workers to support their recovery. We took decisive measures to attract some of the world’s best and brightest to study and work in Canada and to quickly integrate them into the economy. This resulted in a faster economic recovery. It also meant that robust immigration policies helped prevent a recession while contributing to Canada’s workforce.
In response to the evolving needs of our country, this transitional levels plan alleviates pressures on housing, infrastructure, and social services so that over the long term we can grow our economic and social prosperity through immigration. This unprecedented plan offers a comprehensive approach to welcoming newcomers, one that preserves the integrity of our immigration programs and prepares newcomers for success. Canadians also expect a well-managed immigration system from the Government of Canada.
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.
With this year’s levels plan, we have listened to Canadians. We are reducing our permanent resident targets. Compared to last year’s plan,
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 and this past year, 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, we will see Canada’s temporary population decline by
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 changes are designed with long-term economic goals in mind to make sure that we continue to attract the best and the brightest.
These changes will help provinces, territories, and relevant stakeholders align their capacities and allow the population to grow at a sustainable pace, while Canada encourages institutions to better welcome newcomers.
Other measures from the 2025–2027 Immigration Levels Plan include the following:
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.
Permanent resident admissions in the economic class will reach 61.7% of total admissions by 2027.
Of the overall permanent resident admission targets, Francophone immigration will represent
Through this plan, Canada using our existing programs so that everyone—including newcomers—has access to the well-paying jobs, affordable homes and social services they need to thrive in our beautiful country.
“Today’s announcement is the next step in our plan to address the evolving immigration needs of our country. While it’s clear our economy needs newcomers, we see the pressures facing our country, and we must adapt our policies accordingly. These changes will make immigration work for our country so that everyone has access to the quality jobs, homes and supports they need to thrive. We have listened to Canadians, and we will continue to protect the integrity of our system and grow our population responsibly.”– The Honourable Marc Miller, Minister of Immigration, Refugees and Citizenship
Quick facts
reforming the International Student Program
tightening eligibility requirements for
temporary foreign workers
post-graduation work permits
work permits for spouses of international students and temporary foreign workers
