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With the release of the 2026–2028 Immigration Levels Plan, Immigration, Refugees and Citizenship Canada (IRCC) quietly changed one of its key benchmarks: the federal goal for temporary residents is now to bring their share of the population to below 5% by the end of 2027, extending the original 2026 timeline by a year and tightening the target from 5% to below 5%.
Given this shift, it's a good time to unpack how Statistics Canada determines the size of the non-permanent resident (Temporary Resident) population, why those numbers matter so much for immigration planning, and how Canada is tracking.
Canada's Temporary-Resident Share as of Q3 2025: Still Above 7%
According to Statistics Canada's Q3 2025 estimates, Canada's total population reached 41,651,653, including 3,024,216 non-permanent residents.
That means non-permanent residents (NPRs) accounted for about 7.3% of the total population in Q3 2025 down slightly from earlier in the year but still well above the federal government's target of less than 5% by 2027.
This marks the third consecutive quarterly decrease in NPRs, suggesting early progress after several years of rapid growth. Between 2021 and 2024, here is the number of NPRs over time.
| Quarter | NPRs | Total Population | NPR Share (%) |
|---|---|---|---|
| Q3 2025 | 3,024,216 | 41,651,653 | 7.26% |
| Q2 2025 | 3,082,935 | 41,604,555 | 7.41% |
| Q1 2025 | 3,138,129 | 41,574,517 | 7.55% |
| Q4 2024 | 3,149,131 | 41,494,132 | 7.59% |
| Q3 2024 | 3,039,170 | 41,262,329 | 7.37% |
| Q2 2024 | 2,903,415 | 40,990,297 | 7.08% |
| Q1 2024 | 2,741,523 | 40,724,526 | 6.73% |
| Q4 2023 | 2,572,154 | 40,467,722 | 6.36% |
| Q3 2023 | 2,258,095 | 40,049,088 | 5.64% |
| Q2 2023 | 2,052,904 | 39,727,297 | 5.17% |
| Q1 2023 | 1,952,417 | 39,501,329 | 4.94% |
| Q4 2022 | 1,800,833 | 39,284,491 | 4.58% |
| Q3 2022 | 1,586,570 | 38,950,132 | 4.07% |
| Q2 2022 | 1,447,790 | 38,693,009 | 3.74% |
| Q1 2022 | 1,413,706 | 38,565,380 | 3.67% |
| Q4 2021 | 1,442,604 | 38,460,257 | 3.75% |
| Q3 2021 | 1,361,855 | 38,239,864 | 3.56% |
The recent declines suggest that IRCC's efforts to moderate temporary immigration, through measures such as the student cap and stricter work-permit criteria, are beginning to show results, but there is still a long way to go.
Why the NPR Numbers Matter for Policy
These numbers aren't just statistics; they're the foundation of how the government measures progress toward its new, less than 5% target.
The Immigration Levels Plan sets hard caps for permanent residents, but temporary residents are tracked differently. While IRCC controls who enters or stays through permit approvals, renewals, and asylum decisions, the actual population counts come from Statistics Canada. Using IRCC data, demographic modeling, and statistical adjustments, Statistics Canada estimates how many people are actually in Canada on temporary status at a given moment. By tracking this, we can track how IRCC is progressing toward its goal.
The Changed Goal
By extending and rewording the goal to the end of 2027, IRCC has given itself more flexibility to realign the temporary-resident population with economic needs and housing capacity, while preserving credibility in its long-term planning.
But the real progress can and will be judged through Statistics Canada's NPR estimates. Those estimates offer the most accurate picture of how many people are living in Canada temporarily, and how close the country is to achieving the less-than-5-percent target.
The new goal sets an ambitious benchmark, reducing the figure to less than 5% of the total population, or roughly 2,082,582 people. Achieving this would require cutting the number by more than one million within two years, suggesting that a significant number of foreign nationals in Canada will struggle to stay.
If you want to track how Canada's TR population is trending, sign up for our newsletter to receive these quarterly updates, plus more insights on everything you need to know about what's happening in Canadian immigration as it unfolds.
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