Canada announces the 2026-2028 Immigration Levels Plan

Canada will implement a new programme to convert up to 33,000 work permit holders into permanent residents in 2026 and 2027 under the upcoming Immigration Levels Plan, according to Budget 2025.

Detailed article on the Canada’s Immigration Levels Plan 2026 – 2028.

The Plan will also include several other major changes:

• Reducing the temporary resident admissions target for 2026 to 385,000, a 43% decrease from 673,650 for 2025.
• The international student admissions target for 2026 will be 155,000, a 49% decrease from 305,900 for 2025.
• The foreign temporary worker admissions target will be 230,000—a 37% decrease from the 2025 target of 367,750, but an 8% increase from the 2026 target of 210,700 in last year’s Immigration Levels Plan.
• Granting permanent resident status to eligible Protected Persons in Canada over the next two years.

The permanent resident admissions target for 2026 remains unchanged at 380,000, unchanged from last year’s Plan.

The government plans to allocate 64% of permanent resident admissions to economic immigration, up from 59%. The Plan will also “consider industries and sectors affected by tariffs and the particular needs of rural and remote communities.”

The minority Liberal government under Prime Minister Mark Carney presented Budget 2025 to Parliament on the afternoon of 4 November 2025. Look up the Canada budget allocation table at here.

The federal government is expected to announce a more detailed plan for Canada’s immigration system when the Minister tables the 2025 Annual Report to Parliament on Immigration.

Reducing temporary resident targets

The upcoming Plan’s reduced target for temporary resident admissions in 2026 compared with 2025 represents a change in planning, but not necessarily in practice.

Although the target is reduced from 673,650 in 2025, 2026 may not see significantly fewer temporary resident admissions than 2025, because temporary resident admissions in 2025 have already lagged well behind the current target.

From January to August 2025, Canada admitted only 154,515 foreign temporary workers, just 42% of the annual target of 367,750.

Over the same period, the country admitted only 89,430 international students, 29% of the annual target of 305,900.

Changes to Canada’s Temporary Foreign Worker Program

Carney has announced upcoming changes to Temporary Foreign Worker Program (TFWP) .

The Temporary Foreign Worker Program “must have a focused approach targeting specific sectors, strategies, and needs in specific regions,” Carney said in a speech to the Liberal caucus in Edmonton on 10 September 2025.

He stated that the government is actively working towards these goals.

The 2025 Budget does not include a detailed breakdown of worker arrivals between Canada’s two work permit programmes, the Temporary Foreign Worker Program and International Mobility Program (IMP).

Historically, the International Mobility Program (IMP) has accounted for the majority of work permits issued in Canada. In 2025, there is a target of 285,750 arrivals under the International Mobility Program (IMP), and only 82,000 under the Temporary Foreign Worker Program.

Last year’s plan set the 2026 target at 128,700 for the International Mobility Program (IMP) and 82,000 for the Temporary Foreign Worker Program.

The annual arrival target for 2026 for the International Mobility Program (IMP) or the Temporary Foreign Worker Program must increase in the upcoming Plan compared to last year’s Plan, which set a combined target of only 210,700, compared to the upcoming 2026 target of 230,000.

Permanent resident admissions target

The upcoming Plan will present only minor changes to the 2026 arrival targets for permanent resident compared to the 2026 targets in last year’s Plan.

The overall arrival target for permanent residents in 2026 will remain unchanged at 380,000.

The economic immigration target will increase slightly to 239,800, up from 229,750 in last year’s Plan, while the 2026 arrival target for family reunification will be 84,000, down from 88,000, and the refugee and humanitarian target will be 56,200, down from 62,250.

About the Immigration Levels Plan

Canada’s immigration plan sets annual targets for temporary resident and permanent resident arrivals for the next three years.

The target for the upcoming year is firm, while the targets for the following two years are provisional and subject to revision.

Last year’s plan was the first to include targets for temporary resident arrivals, and it cut the high-level target for annual permanent resident arrivals by 20%, down from the 500,000-per-year target of the 2024-2026 Plan.