Big Changes to Canadian Immigration in 2025
Canadian Immigration in 2025 and 2026
Overall Trends
Canada has had high immigration levels in recent years, but they will decrease in 2025. In 2022, Canada welcomed 437,000 new permanent residents, which grew to about 465,000 in 2023. The target for 2024 was 485,000. Originally the plan for 2025 was to welcome 500,000 new Canadians.
In August 2024, Marc Miller, the Minister of Immigration, Refugees, and Citizenship Canada, said that immigration levels would likely go down in the future because of public concerns about housing shortages and high housing costs.
On October 24, 2024, Minister Miller confirmed that Canadian immigration numbers will decrease by over 20% in 2025. The new target is 395,000 new permanent residents instead of 500,000. In 2026, that will go down further to 380,000. For 2027, the new target is 365,000.
Provincial immigration caps were decreased by more than half. Provincial nomination approvals at the federal stage will be decreased by 50% in 2025 compared with 2024. Originally, the target was to finalize the permanent residence of 120,000 provincial nominees. Now that is to be reduced to 55,000 in 2025 and 2026. However, there will also be 82,890 permanent residents approved under the In-Canada Focus of Express Entry, which includes the Canadian Experience Class and the Provincial Nominee stream of Express Entry.
Minister Miller also mentioned that he wanted to limit the number of international students and low-wage foreign workers in areas where unemployment is over 6%. The department has also made it harder for visitors to Canada to apply for work permits from within the country. With the recent announcements, the number of temporary residents in Canada should go down by 445,000 in 2025 and 2026. This will have big impacts on the number of international students and temporary foreign workers for the next few years.
Specific Changes
As of January 21, 2025, family open work permits (OWPs) for international students will be restricted to the spouses or common-law partners of students currently enrolled in:
Master’s programs that are 16 months or longer;
Doctoral (PhD) programs; or
Limited professional and eligible programs of studies.
This will not impact spouses already approved for open work permits.
As of January 21, 2025, for spouses of foreign workers, the foreign worker must have at least 16 months left on a work permit for the spouse to be eligible to apply for an open work permit. Also, not all occupations will be eligible for spousal open work permits. There are exceptions for candidates in the permanent residence process, as well as for work permit holders under international agreements.
Students who change educational institutions will now also increasingly have to apply for new study permits to do so.
International Mobility Work Permits are expected to decrease dramatically up to 2026, when the cap is set for only 128,700 such work permits that year.
Post Graduation Work Permit Rules
All students who are graduating must now demonstrate official language skills in order to be eligible for a post-graduation work permit (PGWP). In addition, for study permit applications submitted after November 1, 2024, students must study at a university degree program or eligible college programs to qualify for a PGWP upon graduation.
Port of Entry and Flagpoling Changes
As of December 23, 2024, temporary residents can no longer travel to a Port of Entry to apply for a work permit. This process of flagpoling (leaving Canada in order to re-enter Canada to apply for a permit) has been prohibited. Applicants must now apply in advance for a new permit rather than travelling to a border crossing to seek a same-day decisino.
Labour Market Impact Assessment Changes
There have been major changes recently to both the low-wage and high-wage streams of the Labour Market Impact Assessment (LMIA) process. As of late September 2024, Low-wage LMIA applications are no longer possible in metropolitan areas with unemployment rates of 6% or higher. Low-wage LMIAs are also subject to caps on the percentage of foreign workers in a work place.
To be exempt from those requirements, an employer must pay a “high-wage”, which is defined as a wage at least at the provincial median wage. In BC, that wage is $28.85. As of November 8, 2024, employers wanting to submit high-wage LMIA applications must now also pay 20% above that provincial average wage. That means that high-wage LMIA applications by BC employers must advertise and pay wages at least paying $34.62 per hour.
Federal Election 2025 Impact on Immigration
A federal election is expected during 2025. The Conservative Party is widely expected to win the 2025 Canadian federal election. If so, then further changes to immigration in Canada can be expected. The Conservatives have made a number of immigration related promises, including tighter border security, crackdowns on asylum claims and tying immigration levels to the housing market. He has also speculated about tying immigration to health care access levels and unemployment rates.
Conclusion
Clearly, the trend in 2025 and 2026 is towards decreased numbers of temporary residents and new permanent residents.
