New permanent residents down 20% in Canada. Nearly half the drop came from India

Canada admitted 20 per cent fewer permanent residents in the first three months of this year, with study permits and asylum claims also falling.

The country took in 83,130 permanent residents between January and March, down from 104,320 over the same three months in 2025, according to Immigration, Refugees and Citizenship Canada data analyzed by the Association for Canadian Studies. It is the second consecutive year admissions have fallen. New study permits dropped 24 per cent and asylum claims fell 35 per cent over the same period.

Jack Jedwab, president of the Association for Canadian Studies, said in an email the pattern is not a quarterly fluctuation. “Canada has moved from rapid immigration expansion to a deliberate, government-driven contraction,” he said.

Nearly half that reduction in permanent residents came from a single country. The number of Indian citizens granted permanent residence fell to 21,565 from 31,690, a drop of 10,125 people that accounts for 48 per cent of the entire national decline. New study permits for Indian students fell 42 per cent, and India made up 55 per cent of the national drop in study permits.

“When the government sharply reduces a stream in which one country is disproportionately represented, that country inevitably absorbs a disproportionate share of the cut,” Jedwab said.

The retreat from India has been building for two years. Study permits for Indian students fell to 93,840 in 2025 from 277,950 in 2023, a drop of 66 per cent, against 44 per cent for students from all countries. India accounts for 61 per cent of the national decline in student visas over that period.

Jedwab said greater scrutiny of applicants, institutions and programs is landing hardest on India because that market expanded fastest and included many students recruited into short, career-oriented college programs. “Canada is becoming less accessible and much less predictable,” he said. “Prospective students who once regarded Canada as a comparatively reliable education-to-immigration destination may increasingly conclude that the costs and uncertainties are too high.”

India was not alone. Permanent residents from Eritrea fell 42 per cent (from 2,410 to 1,400) and those from Afghanistan fell 40 per cent (from 1,740 to 1,050), both steeper than India’s decline, but the numbers were much smaller. The Philippines, the second-largest source country, fell 13 per cent, from 7,160 to 6,225. China, the third-largest source, fell 25 per cent, from 6,300 to 4,695. Only three of the largest source countries, Algeria, France and Morocco, sent more permanent residents than a year earlier, but they only sent 1,325, 2,300 and 1,305 people, respectively.