Immigration

Who is arriving in Canada, from where, and through what mechanism: permanent residents, students, temporary workers, and asylum claimants by source country and category

Immigration is one of the forces shaping Canada today. This page looks at who arrives and from where using Immigration, Refugees and Citizenship Canada’s monthly administrative data. It is descriptive: the counts, categories, and origins.

This complements the Population & Growth page (the pace of population change and the non-permanent-resident share) and the Citizenship page (how many become citizens). Figures are rounded to the nearest five, exclude the current partial year, and follow IRCC’s small-count suppression.

New permanent residents, by category

Canada admits permanent residents through several streams. The economic class are skilled workers and the families they bring, selected largely for labour-market reasons. This is by far the largest group of admissions. Family sponsorship (spouses, partners, children, and parents) is the next-largest, ahead of refugees and protected persons.

Where new permanent residents come from

The current single largest source of new permanent residents, by a wide margin, is India, followed by the Philippines. The chart shows the top source countries in the most recent complete year.

International students, by origin

Study-permit holders are counted separately. They are temporary residents, not permanent immigrants. India and China dominate the international-student intake. (The figures count permit holders by the year in which their permits took effect. Annual totals reflect both federal study-permit rules and provincial policies affecting international enrolment.)

Temporary workers, by origin

Work-permit holders come through two main routes: the International Mobility Program (open work permits, including post-graduation permits) and the Temporary Foreign Worker Program (employer-specific permits). Combined, India is currently the largest origin country.

Asylum claims

A person who reaches Canada and claims protection is an asylum claimant. This is a separate process from the resettlement of refugees selected abroad (counted in the permanent-resident totals above). Asylum claims rose steeply from 2022, peaking near 172,000 in 2024, before easing in 2025. This flow is the source of the large pending caseload; that backlog, the stock of claims awaiting a decision at the Immigration and Refugee Board, is a different measure from the annual flow shown here, and is not published as a clean, regularly-updating series.

Where asylum claimants come from

The leading countries of citizenship for recent claimants are Haiti and India, followed by Iran, Nigeria, and Mexico. (IRCC reports the top 25 countries per province, so the very small origins are grouped out.)

How claims are decided

Of the claims the Immigration and Refugee Board finalizes each year, the share accepted (granted refugee protection) has risen noticeably in recent years.

Do immigrants who worked here first earn more?

Many immigrants spend time in Canada on a temporary permit (working or studying) before they become permanent residents. Following each year’s admission cohort through the tax system shows how much that prior Canadian experience matters. Immigrants who worked in Canada before admission earn substantially more from their very first year as permanent residents, and stay well ahead a decade later. Those admitted directly from abroad with no prior Canadian experience earn far less throughout. The chart follows the 2013 admission cohort, the most recent that can be tracked a full ten years.

Statistics Canada’s research on the transition to permanent residency across work-permit programs finds that the share who go on to settle permanently differs widely from one program to another.

Download data

All figures are from Immigration, Refugees and Citizenship Canada’s monthly open-data releases (Open Government Licence – Canada). Counts are rounded to the nearest five and small values are suppressed, so totals may not add exactly. “Permanent residents” are people admitted for permanent residence; study- and work-permit holders and asylum claimants are temporary residents counted on a different basis. Source-country detail uses country of citizenship.