IRCC Just Changed Its Target For Temporary Residents, Here's What You Need To Know

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.