Provincial immigration in Canada: 2025 year in review
2025 marked a landmark year for provincial immigration in Canada, which continues to impact how immigration will flow throughout the coming year.
From slingshot provincial nomination allocations, new systems to assess candidates, and the seemingly ever-present closure and replacement of different provincial pathways, Canada’s federal and provincial immigration authorities overhauled multiple aspects of regional immigration last year.
This article will cover how changes to provincial immigration quotas changed regional immigration in Canada in 2025 —and how these changes will impact provincial immigration candidates in 2026.
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Drastic reductions in provincial immigration landing numbers
Gains and reductions in overall Provincial Nominee Program (PNP) landings targets continue to impact provincial immigration candidates today, playing a key role in determining how provinces assess candidates and accept new applicants—and how many newcomers they can receive.
In the federal 2025–2027 Immigration Levels Plan (announced in October of 2024), Ottawa cut its PNP admissions (landings) target for 2025 to 55,000.
In 2024, the PNP target was 110,000 – making actual 2025 PNP levels a reduction of 50% from projections just a year ago.
The landing targets determine the overall number of new permanent residents who will be welcomed through each immigration pathway. By cutting overall PNP admissions by 50% of what they had been in 2024, IRCC effectively sent a message to the provinces that they would have to cut down on the intake of newcomers.
In the prior 2024–2026 plan, the 2025 PNP target was 120,000—a reduction of 65,000 planned landings (about 54%) from the number of new permanent residents that provinces could welcome.
The significant decrease compared to previous projections can be seen in the table below:
Levels Plan Overall PR admissions target (2025) PNP admissions target (2025)
2024–2026 plan 500,000 120,000
2025–2027 plan 395,000 55,000
Those lower landings targets flowed into lower nomination allocations (the number of nomination certificates Ottawa authorizes provinces/territories to issue in a year).
By early 2025, most jurisdictions publicly reported 50% cuts versus 2024 allocation levels.
Initial 2025 allocations, by province/territory:
Province/Territory Initial 2025 allocation
Alberta 4,875
British Columbia 4,000
Manitoba 4,750
New Brunswick 2,750*
Newfoundland and Labrador 1,525*
Northwest Territories 150
Nova Scotia 3,150*
Ontario 10,750
Prince Edward Island 1,025*
Saskatchewan 3,625
Yukon 215
*For Atlantic provinces, public reporting commonly bundled PNP nominations plus Atlantic Immigration Program (AIP) endorsements.
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Provinces respond to lower allocations in unique ways
As a result of these reductions, provinces instituted a number of changes to their immigration streams and candidate assessments, which new immigration candidates must continue to contend with in 2026.
While provinces all responded differently, major themes emerged in their reorientations, including:
Closures of previously operational streams;
Consolidations and/or overhauls in eligibility criteria of streams, with an emphasis on candidates who met labour market priorities; and
The implementation of Expression of Interest (EOI) systems to assess candidates, among provinces that had not already implemented such a system.
The following sections give a brief overview of changes implemented by each province and territory in the face of newly reduced allocations.
*Note that Quebec does not have its own PNP—rather, the province runs its own immigration programs as a result of long-standing deals with Canada’s federal government, allowing it to exert greater control over the newcomers it welcomes. Unlike most other Canadian provinces, Quebec is actively seeking to lower immigration rates as the province deals with greater affordability and housing market pressures.
Ottawa backtracks later in 2025—many provinces see added nomination spots
In the face of continued pressure and lobbying from provincial immigration authorities, in the second half of 2025, Ottawa began granting additional allocations to many jurisdictions.
By late October 2025, most provinces/territories had received some increase, with Ontario as the notable exception.
These final additions would mark the starting point upon which IRCC would build its allocations for the next year.
While nomination allocations do not carry over to the next year, these last-minute increases helped the federal government determine how many permanent residents would be welcomed by provinces in 2026.
Two important mechanics repeatedly came up in provincial reporting:
Some provinces said Ottawa added a requirement that 75% of nominees be already in Canada.
At least in some cases, increases were tied to broader negotiations—for example, in the case of Newfoundland and Labrador, additional economic allocations were linked to provinces agreeing to take more asylum claimants or humanitarian immigrants.
Provinces/territories that benefited from increased allocations
Below is a consolidated view using publicly posted updates and contemporaneous reporting—BC also received a second increase in December, bringing its 2025 total higher than the October snapshot.
Province/Territory Initial 2025 Later 2025 (after increases) Net change
Alberta 4,875 6,403 +1,528
British Columbia 4,000 6,214 +2,214
Manitoba 4,750 6,239 +1,489
New Brunswick 2,750 4,250 +1,500
Newfoundland and Labrador 1,525 2,525 +1,000
Northwest Territories 150 300 +150
Nova Scotia 3,150 3,709 +559
Ontario 10,750 10,750 +0
Prince Edward Island 1,025 1,600+575
Saskatchewan 3,625 4,761 +1,136
Yukon 215 282 +67
2026 outlook: Ottawa boosts PNP landings, giving provinces more room to nominate
In the 2026–2028 Immigration Levels Plan (released in November 2025), Ottawa raised the national admissions target for the PNP to 91,500 in 2026 (range 82,000–105,000), a 66% increase from the 55,000 PNP target used in the 2025–2027 plan.
IRCC framed this increase as a way to better meet regional labour market needs and support “nation-building” priorities, while keeping overall permanent resident admissions stable at 380,000 per year.
For provinces and territories moving into 2026, this higher federal PNP landings target typically translates into larger nomination room, which can materially change how provincial immigration programs operate: more invitations from EOI pools, higher capacity to reopen or expand previously constrained streams, and more predictable planning for employers—especially because the plan also emphasizes transitioning people already in Canada into permanent residence.
