Canada celebrates record of 471,550 new permanent residents in 2023

Canada reached a new immigration milestone last year with the arrival of 471,550 new permanent residents, compared to the 437,595 registered in 2022, according to the most recent data available.

This new record level of immigrants to Canada represents a 1.4% increase in relation to the established target of 465,000 new permanent residents outlined in Ottawa's Immigration Levels Plan for the period 2023 to 2025.

The IRCC (Ministry of Citizenship and Immigration Canada) highlights on its website that, following the trajectory of the plan for the years 2023 to 2025, Canada intends to welcome 485,000 new permanent residents in 2024, 500,000 in 2025 and reach a level of 500,000 in 2026.

This plan has a priority focus on economic growth, in addition to supporting family reunification, while responding to humanitarian crises and regulating the rapid growth of immigration in recent years. The latest immigration levels plan established a total of 1.485 million immigrants arriving in Canada during those three years.

As 2023 closes, the country witnessed a 26.8% increase in monthly immigration in December, welcoming 37,125 new permanent residents this month, after a slower performance of just 29,430 in the previous month.

Ontario, the country's most populous province, was the most popular destination for newcomers the previous year, with 206,720 choosing to immigrate there in 2023, representing 43.8% of all immigrants to Canada during the period.

Economic programs, including the Ontario Immigrant Nominee Program (OINP), the Agri-Food Immigration Pilot (AFIP), the Canadian Experience Class (CEC), Caregiver programs, the Rural and Northern Immigration Pilot (RNIP) ), the Federal Skilled Trade (FST) and Federal Skilled Worker (FSW) programs, the Start-Up Visa (SUV) and Self-Employed Persons (SEP) programs, and the Temporary Resident to Permanent Resident Pathway accounted for slightly less half, 49.6%, of all new permanent residents arriving in Ontario in 2023.

These programs were designed for the arrival of 102,445 new permanent residents to Ontario last year, while another 56,065 arrived through family sponsorships and 39,205 came to the province through Canada's Refugee and Protected Persons programs in 2023.

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