Canada’s 2025 Immigration Targets: A Closer Look

Jadranka is a Slovenian citizen who intends to immigrate to Canada. However, she heard that the Canadian government had reduced their immigration in 2025 by 21%. They now plan to accept 395,000 immigrants instead of 500,000. Consequently, she wonders how this could impact different immigration options to the country and what is left to grab.

Understanding Immigration Options in Canada

Canada accepts immigrants, also known as newcomers or permanent residents, under four major options, namely:

• Economic: This group traditionally represents 55 to 60% of the immigration population. It consists of people who intend to establish themselves economically in Canada. They may immigrate to Canada either federally or provincially.
• Family Reunification: About 20 to 25% of the immigrants move to Canada because a family member sponsors them. The sponsors are Canadian citizens or permanent residents. The applicants are their spouses, common-law partners, children (biological or adopted), parents, grandparents, and, in exceptional situations, other people.
• Refugees: Some people escape dangerous situations and ask Canada for protection. Our country may resettle them from another country or accept their claims while they are here. Generally, about 15 to 20% of the newcomers are refugees.
• Other options: In exceptional situations, people may immigrate to Canada despite not falling in any of the previous groups. Two main options for this group are Humanitarian and Compassionate (H&C) and Permit Holder Class. Of course, since these are exceptions, not norms, they cover less than 5% of the total immigration population.

The government has slashed their original immigration targets for the first three options in 2025. The latter has a slight increase, but not significant. Let’s explore the changes together.

Economic Immigration

The old goal was to accept 301,250 people under the economic programs. However, the new goal is 232,150, about a 23% reduction. The following table compares the changes in each sector.

Federal High Skilled

Canada originally intended to invite a total of 117,500 people to this group. This group covered the following programs:

• Federal Skilled Worker
• Canadian Experience Class
• Federal Skilled Trades

The new targets divide this category into two major groups: Federal Economic Priorities and In-Canada Focus. The latest target will be 124,680 (i.e., 41,700 + 82,980). Therefore, Canada will accept 10.6% or 7,180 more applicants under this group. However, there are some major changes you need to consider:

• The Express Entry category-based invitations will focus on three groups only: healthcare occupations, trade occupations, and French-language proficiency. This means the government will abandon (or almost abandon) the STEM, Transportation, and Agriculture categories. Therefore, plan accordingly.
• Since the focus is on in-Canada applicants, they will practically stop invitations under the Federal Skilled Worker and Federal Skilled Trades programs. IRCC has not said it out loud, but their verbatim wording is: “Primarily admissions from the Canadian Experience Class and other regional immigration pathways but may also come from Federal Skilled Workers and Federal Skilled Trades.”
• IRCC intends to accept 29,325 francophone immigrants who plan to live outside Quebec. All these newcomers will likely fall under the Federal Economic Priorities program. If you know French, you’d better hone your skills and up your game! You need to take an official test (i.e., TEF Canada or TCF Canada) and get NCLC 7 under each of your French language skills to qualify as a francophone.

Federal Economic Pilots

The targets for these programs will see a 26% reduction, or, rather, 3,830 fewer people. These programs cover Caregivers, Agri-Food, Community Immigration Pilots, and the Economic Mobility Pathways Pilot in the 2025 immigration goals. At this stage, only the last program has new intakes. The government announced they will restart the Caregivers program in a new format in 2025. However, there are no solid guidelines regarding intakes yet.

Atlantic Immigration Program

The Atlantic Immigration Program (AIP) is designed to address labour market gaps in Canada’s Atlantic provinces: Nova Scotia, New Brunswick, Prince Edward Island, and Newfoundland and Labrador. It aims to attract skilled workers and international graduates to the region by providing a pathway to permanent residency.

Changes in 2025 Targets

• The 2025 target for the AIP has been reduced to 5,000 from the previous target of 8,500, representing a 41.2% decrease.
• This reduction significantly impacts the ability of Atlantic provinces to address regional labour shortages and population decline.

Implications

• Employers in Atlantic Canada may face challenges in hiring due to decreased immigration opportunities.
• The lower intake limits could hinder the long-term economic and demographic goals of these provinces, which rely heavily on AIP to attract talent.

Provincial Nominee Program (PNP)

While the federal high-skilled programs are expanding, economic immigrants will drop. Who will pay the price? You guessed it correctly: the PNP applicants. IRCC has slashed the 2025 allocations for this program by 54.1% or a whopping 65,000 slash. This will not be a good year for provincial candidates, especially those who have taken unwanted jobs or education to qualify for a PNP program. Moreover, I’m sure some provinces will respond to these changes negatively.

Quebec Skilled Workers and Business

The Quebec Skilled Workers and Business category plays a unique role in Canada’s immigration framework. As immigration is a shared jurisdiction, Quebec holds exclusive rights to determine the selection criteria and processing of skilled workers and business applicants destined for the province.

2025 Target: 34,500

While the previous target remains undecided, the new allocation for 2025 under this category reflects Quebec’s commitment to address labour shortages and support economic growth in the province. This allocation includes both skilled workers and business applicants. Keep in mind that these are applicants who have already received CSQ and are applying for PR. The Quebec immigration programs, however, are currently on hold.

Regularization Public Policy

Canada’s Regularization Public Policy grants permanent residency to individuals without legal status who work in essential services. This initiative targets workers who contribute significantly to vital healthcare and food services sectors. Moreover, it supports critical industries by addressing workforce needs while helping individuals remain in Canada legally. Therefore, this policy provides stability for workers and strengthens Canada’s economy. However, as you can see, the 2025 target is only 50 people. I assume these applicants have already applied as undocumented construction workers in Toronto.

Federal Business

This is probably the most heartbreaking category. Over the years, Canada has shown less and less interest in business immigration. In 2014, they revoked the Federal Entrepreneur and Investor programs. Then, in 2024, they stopped accepting applications under the Federal Self-employed (FSE) Class. However, IRCC will process the remaining applications in their inventory. This leaves us with the Start-Up Visa (SUV) program. It seems the latest backlog is about 30,000 people. IRCC won’t approve all these applicants, but regardless, a mere 2,000 admissions in 2025 will do no good. Keep in mind that the 2,000 target covers both FSE and SUV inventory.

The original target was 6,000. The new 66.7% reduction (or 4,000 fewer newcomers in this group) will significantly impact the wait times. This group will probably see processing times of more than five years. Regardless, this is almost the only viable immigration option from outside Canada. Moreover, the government now offers an open work permit to essential applicants under this group. Consequently, they may temporarily stay in Canada while waiting for permanent residence.

Family Reunification

The government has reduced the 2025 targets from 118,000 to 94,500 (i.e. an 8% reduction). The following table compares the breakdown.

These changes mean more processing time for the first group and fewer invitation opportunities for the second. Just as a background, the government has not opened the pool of Expression of Interest for parental sponsorship since 2020. I’m unsure if they will open the pool in 2025. Of course, like many others, I keep my fingers crossed this happens.

Refugees and Protected Persons

Sometimes, the government resettles refugees to Canada, and they become permanent residents upon arrival. However, many refugees file a claim inside Canada and finally become permanent residents as protected people. IRCC has reduced their target for this group from 72,750 people to 58,350 (i.e., 20% or 14,400 people fewer). Here is the breakdown.

My main concern is the refugee claims inside Canada. We saw a surge in refugee claims in 2023 and 2024. According to the Immigration and Refugee Board of Canada (IRB), 250,483​ refugee claims were pending processing by the end of September 2024. Of course, many of these claims will eventually fail. For example, the success rate was about 71.8% (i.e., 37,222 out of 51,848) in 2023. However, considering the backlog in RPD, we expect to see way more than 20,000 approvals in 2025. This means this group’s PR processing time of 25 months will likely increase significantly.

Humanitarian & Compassionate and Other

The government intends to accept 10,000 permanent residents under the H&C, Permit Holder Class, and other programs. The original target was 8,000. The increase is a bit promising. However, remember that many Non-Permanent Residents (NPRs) are stranded in Canada and will turn to H&C applications for permanent residency. Despite all the efforts by the government, the number of NPRs has surged from 2.2M to 3,000,000 by the end of Q3 2024 (Source: Statistics Canada). Reducing immigration opportunities will result in more refugee claims and H&C applications in Canada.

What’s Next

The government of Canada allowed a significant number of people to move to our country temporarily. This group consists mostly of work—and study-permit holders. So, we are dealing with a two-fold problem. On the one hand, people want fewer immigrants. On the other hand, we have over 2.6 million study permit holders, work permit holders and their family members in Canada. The government caved into public opinion. Unfortunately, public opinion comes from emotions rather than a pragmatic analysis. By limiting the number of immigration options for temporary residents of Canada, the government will feed into the following problems:

• More refugee claims
• A surge in H&C applications
• An increase in the number of undocumented immigrants
• More irregular crossings to the United States

While they aimed to satisfy public concerns, their hasty response will likely create deeper issues within our immigration system. We expect increased backlogs, a heavier workload for enforcement agencies, and potential tensions with our southern neighbour. Unfortunately, to my knowledge, IRCC did not even consult with stakeholders or practitioners.

As a PR candidate, you’ll likely face more challenges in the upcoming months. You need a professional next to you more than ever. Please book a consultation session. Alternatively, you may fill out the following form to contact our team.