Canada Immigration Levels Plan 2024-2026

This plan has been superseded. The 2024-2026 Immigration Levels Plan was replaced by the 2025-2027 plan in October 2024 and again by the 2026-2028 plan in November 2025. This page is kept as a historical reference. For current targets, see our guide to Canada's latest Immigration Levels Plan. Every year, Immigration, Refugees and Citizenship Canada (IRCC) tables an Immigration Levels Plan that sets how many newcomers Canada intends to admit over the following three years. The 2024-2026 plan, tabled on November 1, 2023, was the last plan built around growth: it targeted 485,000 permanent residents in 2024 and 500,000 in each of 2025 and 2026.

Understanding this plan still matters, because the categories it used are the same ones that shape today's pathways: Express Entry, the Provincial Nominee Program, and family sponsorship. If you are planning an application now, start with our page on Canadian permanent residence or check your score with the CRS Calculator.

What Was Canada's 2024-2026 Immigration Levels Plan?

The Immigration Levels Plan is a rolling three-year framework required under section 94 of the Immigration and Refugee Protection Act. It sets a firm target and range for the first year and notional targets for the two years after that, broken down by immigration class.

The 2024-2026 plan kept the trajectory of the previous 2023-2025 plan and then held admissions flat. It was the plan that delivered on the government's commitment to reach 500,000 newcomers a year, and it was also the last one before public pressure over housing and healthcare capacity pushed IRCC to reverse course.

Canada Immigration Targets for 2024, 2025 and 2026

Unlike the plans that followed it, the 2024-2026 plan did not include targets for temporary residents. Study permit and work permit volumes were managed separately, which is one of the reasons the framework was rebuilt a year later.

Economic Immigration Targets Under the 2024-2026 Plan

Economic immigration accounted for more than half of all admissions and passed 60 percent by 2025.

The Federal High Skilled line covers the three Express Entry programs: the Federal Skilled Worker Program, the Federal Skilled Trades Program and the Canadian Experience Class. Federal Business covers the Start-up Visa and Self-Employed programs, and the pilots include the Caregiver Program, the Agri-Food Pilot and the Rural and Northern Immigration Pilot.

The PNP figure is the one to notice. At 120,000 nominations, provincial nomination was the single largest economic pathway in this plan, well above where it sits today. Provinces such as Ontario ran significantly larger allocations through the OINP than they do now.

Family Sponsorship Targets in the 2024-2026 Levels Plan

Family reunification held steady at just under a quarter of all admissions. If you are sponsoring a relative today, see our pages on spousal sponsorship and parents and grandparents sponsorship.

Refugee and Humanitarian Admissions in the 2024-2026 Plan

Refugee and protected person admissions were set at 76,115 for 2024 before easing to 72,750 in 2025 and 2026, partly because Canada was completing its commitment to resettle 40,000 vulnerable Afghans by 2024. Humanitarian and compassionate admissions dropped more sharply, from 13,750 in 2024 to 8,000 in the following two years. Our humanitarian and compassionate page explains how these applications work.

French-Speaking Immigration Outside Quebec

The plan set Francophone admissions outside Quebec at 6 percent of total admissions in 2024, rising to 7 percent in 2025 and 8 percent in 2026. Quebec itself selects its own economic immigrants under the Canada-Quebec Accord, with estimated targets of 37,990 in 2024, 34,500 in 2025 and 35,500 in 2026.

Why the 2024-2026 Plan Was Replaced

The plan assumed Canada could absorb 500,000 permanent residents a year while temporary resident numbers kept climbing. By late 2024 that assumption had broken down, and IRCC cut targets rather than confirming them.

The 2025-2027 plan, tabled in October 2024, dropped permanent resident admissions to 395,000 in 2025, 380,000 in 2026 and 365,000 in 2027, and for the first time added targets for international students and temporary workers. The 2026-2028 plan, tabled in November 2025, then stabilised permanent admissions at 380,000 a year while further reducing temporary resident arrivals.

The practical effect for applicants was a tighter Express Entry system and a much smaller PNP. Our Express Entry draws page tracks how cut-off scores have moved since.

Why Canada Needs Immigrants

Canada has one of the oldest populations and one of the lowest birth rates in the developed world. Around 9 million baby boomers will reach retirement age by 2030, at the same time as healthcare spending rises. Without immigration, the labour force shrinks, economic growth slows, and the tax base that funds public services shrinks with it. That is why Canada has admitted more than 200,000 immigrants a year since 1988, and why even the reduced plans of 2025 onward keep economic immigration as the largest category.