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Ottawa on track to reach 5% target for non-permanent residents by 2027, according to new PBO report
Parliamentary Budget Officer Matthew McGoey is anticipating the number of non-permanent residents allowed into the country will continue to fall sharply, a downward trend that has been ongoing since 2024.
In a report released on Thursday , entitled “Demographic Implications of the 2026-2028 Immigration Levels Plan”, the PBO points to Ottawa’s commitment to reduce the non-permanent resident (NPR) population to less than 5 per cent of Canada’s total population by the end of 2027.
“It lowers arrival targets significantly, particularly for international students,” says the PBO. “The NPR share of the total population is projected to decline from a peak of 7.6 per cent in 2024 to just under 5 per cent by the end of 2027, meeting the government’s target.”
The report stems from Ottawa’s announcement about the ILP in the November federal budget , as well as the 2025 Annual Report to Parliament on Immigration .
The ILP projections state that permanent resident (PR) admissions will stabilize at 380,000 a year from 2026 through 2028. This would represent a roughly 20 per cent reduction relative to record-high 484,000 admissions in 2024.
Meanwhile, Ottawa has new initiatives aimed at accelerating the transition of 148,000 current NPRs to PR status over 2026 and 2027.
The aim behind Ottawa’s shift has been to relieve pressure on housing, health care and other services. National Post has previously reported on a TD Economics report that stated Ottawa hitting the brakes on population growth by drastically cutting incoming immigration has, in fact, eased the pressure on social and economic infrastructure.
This shift will also have an impact on Canada’s total population.
The PBO is projecting population growth to pick up modestly to 0.3 per cent in 2027 and stabilize around 0.8 per cent annually over the medium-term, which is below the pre‑2015 average of 1.1 per cent per year.
Over time, however, the sources of population growth have shifted, notes McGoey. It has more recently been driven by immigration, while births (minus deaths) have made a shrinking contribution due to low fertility rates and an aging population. But a significant proportion of PR admissions represent individuals already in Canada as NPRs who were granted permanent resident status.
Non-permanent migration has been “the primary driver of recent population dynamics. Net inflows of NPRs beginning in 2016 pushed annual population growth above 1 per cent. Following a pandemic-related dip in 2020, net inflows surged to nearly 800,000 in 2023, driving total population growth in that year to a record-high 1.2 million, or 3.1 per cent.”
However, 2024 changes in government policy translated into significantly reduced net inflows of NPRs: a cap on study permits and stricter rules affecting Temporary Foreign Workers (TFWs).
Relative to significantly reduced 2025-2027 targets, the 2026-2028 ILP has small revisions to PR admission targets, alongside larger revisions to NPR arrival targets.
“These revisions reflect recent shifts in NPR dynamics and the government’s stated objective to reduce NPRs as a share of the population.”
NPR arrival targets are significantly lower than the previous ILP, due to a reduction of about 50 per cent in expected arrivals of international students in 2026 and 2027. Meanwhile, total arrival targets for temporary workers in 2026 and 2027 are not significantly changed.
It should be noted that for both students and workers, the ILP targets only reflect new arrivals to Canada. They do not include permits issued to individuals already in Canada, including permit extensions.
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