Canada has recorded the largest quarterly population drop between July and October 2025.
Statistics Canada, the federal statistics agency said Canada’s population dropped by 76,068 between July 2025 and October 2025.
The agency explained that the primary catalyst for the development that saw Canada record its largest quarterly population drop is a sharp reduction in non-permanent residents (NPRs), specifically international students and temporary foreign workers.
According to the report, the number of NPRs plummeted by over 176,000 between July and October.
The provinces of Ontario and British Columbia saw the biggest drops in population. Only Alberta and the territory of Nunavut saw their populations grow.
It’s a sharp change from 2022, when the population grew by more than a million people for the first time, fuelled in part by efforts to recruit immigrants to ease labour shortages.
“We needed to bring our immigration level to a more sustainable level,” Canada’s finance minister, François-Philippe Champagne, told reporters.
Champagne, speaking from Berlin during a visit to Europe, said the government’s goal is to “take back control over our immigration system and find a better balance between our capacity to welcome people and the number of people who want to come to the country”.
The population drop is the “sharpest, and only second, quarter-over-quarter decline on record dating back to the 1940s”, said Bank of Montreal senior economist Robert Kavcic in an analysis.
“A major population adjustment is well underway, and it remains one of the biggest economic stories in Canada,” he added.
Pan-Atlantic Kompass reports that Canada recorded its quarterly population drop as Prime Minister Mark Carney has continued to seek significantly cut targets for new temporary residents from 673,650 to 385,000 next year, and 370,000 in 2027 and 2028.
Recall also that Canada has recorded a 53% decline in arrivals of new foreign students and workers over the first nine months of 2025 compared to the same period in 2024.
This reduction was indicated based on data from Immigration, Refugees and Citizenship Canada (IRCC).
A breakdown of the data showed that new international student arrivals were hit particularly hard, falling by 60%, accounting for 150,220 fewer students entering the country. Similarly, new temporary worker arrivals decreased by 48% over the same nine-month span.
The drop in Canada’s study permit approvals was evident in the new study permit holders recorded in August 2025, which totaled just 45,380, down sharply from 79,795 recorded in August 2024. This represents a decline of 43.1%.
Aside from study permit approvals, in August 2025, Canada recorded 16,890 new temporary foreign worker arrivals.
This figure is slightly lower than the previous month’s total of 18,450.
Since 2024, Canada has capped the number of study permits issued to international students, with the cap reduced by a further 10 per cent in 2025. Authorities have also introduced stricter measures, including mandatory verification of acceptance letters and higher financial requirements, to curb study permit fraud.
The government has indicated that it will continue scaling back new student admissions between 2026 and 2028 under its Immigration Levels Plan, reinforcing its goal of maintaining manageable migration levels.
IRCC has released the much-anticipated breakdown of the 2026 study permit cap and its subsequent provincial study permit application allocations.
