Here's how immigration rules are changing in 2025

Canada's federal government is changing course on immigration with a wave of tighter caps on newcomers and new rules for permanent and non-permanent residents.

The changes come after years of accelerated population growth, a trend Prime Minister Justin Trudeau has attributed to increased immigration to address labour shortages during Canada's COVID-19 recovery.

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"When the post-pandemic boom cooled and businesses no longer needed the additional labour help, as a federal team, we could have acted quicker," Trudeau said in a video last November.

"We have the levers to rein it in. So we are."

Here's what you need to know about how the rules are changing:

New Canadian citizens take the oath of citizenship during a Canada Day citizenship ceremony at the Assiniboine Park Pavilion in Winnipeg, Man., Monday, July 1, 2024. THE CANADIAN PRESS/David Lipnowski

How many immigrants will Canada accept in 2025?

This year, Canada is projecting fewer new immigrants to the country for the first time since COVID-19 lockdowns, part of a plan Immigration, Refugees and Citizenship Canada (IRCC) says will "pause population growth in the short term," according to an October release.

Billed as an effort to relieve pressure on housing and social services, the shift will see:

• Permanent resident (PR) targets lowered to 395,000, from 500,000.
• PR targets for 2026 and 2027 of 380,000 and 365,000, respectively.

In addition, Canada plans to cool long-term growth in the population of non-permanent residents (NPRs), with policy moves aimed to:

• Shrink the proportion of NPRs in Canada to five per cent of the population, from 6.5 per cent.
• Decrease the total NPR population by roughly 445,000 this year and another 445,000 next year, followed by an increase of 17,439 in 2027.

In short: The intake of new permanent and non-permanent immigrants is expected to decrease over the next few years.

A young new Canadian holds a flag as she takes part in a citizenship ceremony on Parliament Hill in Ottawa on Wednesday, April 17, 2019. THE CANADIAN PRESS/Sean Kilpatrick

Will Canada grant PR status in 2025?

Federal projections show more than 40 per cent of newcomers granted permanent status this year will be those already residing in Canada as an NPR, part of what IRCC is calling its "in-Canada focus."

IRCC says that this year, a majority of new PRs will be economic immigrants, with roughly another 25 per cent made up of family immigrants and the remainder set aside for refugees, protected persons and others.

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Among all of those given PR status in the next year, 8.5 per cent are expected to be French speakers who live outside of Quebec, a proportion expected to rise to one in 10 by 2027. Quebec, which handles some aspects of immigration separately from the federal system, has said roughly 80 per cent of immigrants admitted to the province in the next year are expected to know French.

In short: Most new PRs will be workers, followed by family members and then refugees. A growing portion of PRs will be French speakers.

Temporary foreign workers from Guatemala clear a field in preparation for grain corn planting at Quinn Farm in Notre-Dame-de-l'Ile-Perrot, west of Montreal, on Sunday, June 4, 2023. THE CANADIAN PRESS/Graham Hughes

What is changing for temporary workers?

The majority of new NPRs this year will be workers, with 285,750 entering Canada under the International Mobility Program and another 82,000 under the Temporary Foreign Worker (TFW) program.

Eligibility for those work programs will tighten, the government says, following concerns in recent years that employers have misused the system to improperly access inexpensive labour.

"We've seen way too many large corporations doing this," Trudeau said in the November video address. "We're making the system work for Canadians and for newcomers, rather than for the big box stores, chain restaurants, immigration consultants and sham colleges that exploit it."

Here are some of the new rules:

• Spouses of international master's students will only be eligible for work permits if the study program is 16 months or longer.
• Spouses of foreign workers will only be eligible for their own work permits if the worker is in a high-skill or high-demand sector.
• International college and university students seeking post-graduation work permits will need to meet new language competency requirements.
• International graduates from college programs will only be eligible for work permits if they are in fields of study linked to recognized labour shortages. The IRCC website specifies this applies to those with study permit applications submitted on or after Nov. 1, 2024.

Those last two changes alone, Immigration Minister Marc Miller says, are expected to reduce post-graduate work permit totals by 175,000 over the next three years.

Meanwhile, Canada's TFW program has seen a reduction in scope:

• For low-wage jobs, employers now may only staff 10 per cent of their workforce through the program (with some exceptions).
• New, low-wage TFW applications will only be accepted in regions where there is less than six per cent unemployment (also with some exceptions).
• Low-wage TFW jobs will now last a maximum of one year, down from two years.
• The minimum pay for a worker in the high-wage stream has increased to the provincial or territorial median wage plus 20 per cent. Previously, the minimum was equal to the median wage in the region of work.

The government also says it plans to continue cracking down on abuse of the TFW program, citing a year-to-year increase of 36 per cent in fines issued during the 2023-2024 fiscal year.

In short: Requirements for work permits are getting more strict, especially for those in the Temporary Foreign Worker program.

International students Jamie Niemogha (left) and Ola Fawehinmi talk on the Conestoga College campus in Kitchener, Ont., Saturday, April 27, 2024. THE CANADIAN PRESS/Nick Iwanyshyn

Is Canada still accepting international students?

Since early 2024, international student visas have been subject to intake caps, both federally and by province or territory, weighted to match population distribution.

The caps were first introduced last January following what IRCC has called "unsustainable growth" in Canada's international student system.

This year, the cap for study permit approvals is 437,000, down from 485,000 in 2024 and expected to result in roughly 305,900 arriving international students in 2025. Subject to future revisions, that number of new arrivals is expected to remain through 2027.

In addition:

Students pursuing master's and doctoral degrees are no longer excluded from the cap and will now have to submit provincial or territorial attestation letters as part of their applications. Approximately 12 per cent of permit approvals will be allocated for advanced degrees.

Full-time international students with authorization may now work off campus up to 24 hours per week. When class is not in session, such as summer or winter break, eligible international students may work full-time.

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Caps on working hours have fluctuated in recent years, from an unlimited number of hours amid the COVID-19 pandemic recovery, back to a tighter limit of 20 hours until November of last year.

In short: Caps on international student permits are getting tighter, and graduate students are no longer exempt. Authorized full-time students may now work more hours than before at their off-campus jobs.

A man hugs his father and mother after finally making their exit from the war-torn Gaza Strip and landing safely at Pearson International Airport in Toronto on Thursday, November 9, 2023. THE CANADIAN PRESS/Nathan Denette

What about asylum claimants?

Admissions targets for refugees and protected persons will fall as well, with 58,350 people expected to arrive this year, followed by 55,350 in 2026 and 54,350 in 2027.

In addition, IRCC has paused refugee sponsorships from private groups, citing a volume of applications that consistently outnumbers the available spots. Until the end of 2025, Canada will not be accepting new sponsorship applications from groups of five private sponsors, nor from community organizations.

As of last February, the federal government requires visitors from Mexico arriving by air to apply for a Canadian visitor visa unless they already hold a non-immigrant visa from the United States, or have held a Canadian visa in the past 10 years. IRCC says the new, tighter rules follow a large number of rejected, abandoned or withdrawn asylum claims from the country in recent years.

In short: Canada will admit fewer refugees than before over the next three years, and has paused some forms of new refugee sponsorships. Visitors from Mexico by air will have to file for a visa unless they have held one in the past decade, or have one from the United States.

What about visitors on short-term visas?

In November, IRCC announced that 10-year, multiple-entry visas would no longer be the standard document for visitors to Canada.

Previously, visas allowing visitors to repeatedly come and go from the country over the course of a 10-year period were issued routinely, but according to the latest updates from the federal government, the length and flexibility of those permits will now be determined by visa officers on a case-by-case basis.

As well, following what IRCC calls "bad actors" misusing policy to deceive prospective foreign workers, visitors are no longer allowed to apply directly for work permits while already staying in the country.

A pandemic-era policy allowing permit applications in those circumstances, brought forth to account for difficulties entering and leaving Canada amid lockdown measures, was set to end this February, but was cancelled early, last August.

You can learn more at the department's visitor-visa landing page.

In short: Visas allowing more than one visit to Canada will now be issued on a discretionary basis, and their length will also vary. Visitors now must leave Canada before applying for a work permit.

New home construction is seen in the Barrhaven neighbourhood of Ottawa on Friday, Aug. 30, 2024. THE CANADIAN PRESS/ Patrick Doyle

How will this impact Canada?

According to IRCC estimates, Canada's population is on track for a marginal decrease of 0.2 per cent both this year and next year, followed by a 0.8 per cent increase in 2027.

As a result of recent and forthcoming cuts to immigration, IRCC says Canada's housing supply gap is expected to shrink by 670,000 homes over the next three years.

Michael Donnelly, an associate professor of political science at Toronto's Munk School of Global Affairs, notes that in the realm of public opinion, immigration and the supply of homes are deeply linked.

"Often, the really nastiest fights come up around housing," he said in a November interview with CTVNews.ca. "It wasn't surprising when, after the pandemic, housing prices are soaring and immigration starts to take off, that that became a big flashpoint."

And while Donnelly notes that the relationship between housing and immigration is a complicated one, he says Canadians have lost some faith in the federal Liberals' ability to keep immigration under control, breaking a long-term trend of assumed stability.

"Control is something that it's easy to maintain the image of, but once you lose it, it's really hard to get it back," he said.

"It's going to take them a while to convince people that things are fully under control, and there's probably going to be an election before they succeed in that."