Large decrease in arrivals of temporary residents in Canada
In 2025, new student arrivals have declined by 70%, and new worker arrivals have declined by 50%, according to new data published by Canada’s immigration department.
In the period between January and June of 2025, Canada welcomed 88,617 fewer international students and 125,903 fewer foreign workers, compared to the same period in 2024.
This cumulatively has yielded a total decrease of 214,520 fewer new student and worker arrivals over this period, demonstrating that measures taken by Immigration, Refugees and Citizenship Canada (IRCC) to curb inflows of temporary residents have had a substantial impact.
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Changing proportions of new arrivals
The latest data from the immigration department also indicates that there has been a marked decrease in the proportion of new arrivals that are study permit holders since the start of 2025.
While the degree to which study permit and work permit holders dominate the monthly share of new arrivals to Canada tends to fluctuate, IRCC’s data shows a consistent shift towards most new arrivals being work permit holders (averaging 80% between February and June 2025), with study permit holders seeing a sharp decrease in their share of new arrivals. This is in contrast to the same time last year, when work permit holders averaged 70% of new arrivals.
Though August and December tend to see more international student arrivals in anticipation of the fall and winter intakes, this change in the proportion of new arrivals that are study permit holders is consistent with other trends seen in new arrival data.
Slower rates of intake
Canada’s rate of intake for both study permit holders and work permit holders has also decreased significantly. The following table breaks down the average number of new monthly arrivals among both study permit and work permit holders between January and June of 2024, as compared to the same period in 2025:
Study permits Work permits
January to June 202420,83940,865
January to June 20256,07019,872
Current populations
IRCC’s most recent data also shows interesting changes to the population of international students and foreign workers already in Canada.
From January 2024 (the implementation of Canada’s first study permit cap) to June of 2025, the number of foreign nationals in Canada who hold only a study permit has decreased by 133,325.
MonthJanuary 2024June 2025
Number of study permit holders679,887546,562
Over this same time period, the number of foreign nationals who only held a work permit has increased by 262,262 permit holders.
MonthJanuary 2024June 2025
Number of work permit holders1,242,3111,504,573
An increase in work permit holders and decrease in study permit holders is to be expected in the context of policy changes over the last several years: a large share of work permits are Post-Graduation Work Permit (PGWPs).
As international students graduate, many obtain PGWPs and remain in Canada as work permit holders. Since a typical undergraduate program lasts four years, PGWP issuances can lag the issuance of initial study permits by four years or longer, and the federal government only began to scale back study permit issuances beginning in Jan 2024.
Lastly, IRCC notes only a slight decrease of 32,014 dual permit holders among the number of foreign nationals who hold both a work permit and a study permit in Canada, over the same time period.
MonthJanuary 2024June 2025
Number of foreign nationals holding both a study and work permit344,044312,010
Between these three distinct populations, IRCC data actually shows an increase of 137,851 foreign nationals in the overall number of temporary residents in Canada, between January 2024 and June 2025.
MonthJanuary 2024June 2025
Total number of temporary residents in Canada holding either a work permit, or a study permit, or both2,225,294 2,363,145
Understanding current population numbers
While somewhat unexpected, it is natural to see work permit numbers remain higher and decline more slowly compared to study permit levels. This is because today’s work permit holders include large cohorts of international students who arrived in previous years.
Upon graduation, many international students become eligible for a PGWP—a key pathway that allows former students to gain Canadian work experience. Since the PGWP is a study permit to work permit pathway, with large numbers of students being eligible, it logically holds that Canada would see an increase in work permit holders through this cohort, even independent of the measures the country has taken to curb new arrivals of work permit holders.
Many of these students are still completing their studies or are just now graduating, also contributing to a delay in the decline of active study permit numbers.
Measures IRCC has taken to reduce new study permit and work permit holders in Canada
Since 2024, IRCC has rolled out a series of reforms designed to slow the growth of temporary resident numbers, particularly international students and foreign workers.
On the study permit side, changes have included
Capping study permit applications across provinces and territories;
Raising cost-of-living financial requirements for study permit applications;
Tightening eligibility for PGWPs;
Introducing stricter conditions for study permits, including revised rules for off-campus work; and
Closing expedited student streams such as the Student Direct Stream and the Nigeria Student Express.
For work permits, notable reforms included
The removal of COVID-era policies that allowed visitors to transition more easily to job-offer-supported work permits;
Updated guidance for Intra-Company Transferees (ICTs), limiting eligibility to employees of multinational corporations with specialized knowledge;
A ban on flagpoling, preventing same-day processing of applications at ports of entry;
Establishing multi-year targets for net new work permits under the IMP and TFWP beginning in 2025; and
Restricting eligibility of SOWPs for spouses of International students; and
Restricting SOWP eligibility for spouses of temporary workers.
Inclusion of temporary resident levels in the Immigration Levels Plan
The above measures flow from macro-level changes in the landscape of Canadian immigration, as communicated in the annual Immigration Levels Plan.
For the first time in Canadian history, IRCC’s Immigration Levels Plan introduced targets for temporary residents in addition to permanent residents.
Announced on October 24, 2024, the plan aims to reduce the share of temporary residents from 7% to 5% of Canada’s population by the end of 2026.
How IRCC counts arrivals
IRCC counts new arrivals based on the number of people issued a study permit or work permit in a given month. If a person is issued both in the same month, they are counted only under the study permit group.
Some groups are not included in the arrival data:
Asylum claimants – claims are not part of planned immigration levels;
Permit extensions – these individuals are already in Canada, so they are not new arrivals;
Seasonal agricultural workers – short-term workers tied to rural labour shortages, usually housed by employers; and
Short-term Temporary Foreign Worker Program (TFWP) workers (≤270 days) – contracts that begin and end within the same calendar year, often in industries like tourism or construction.
