India Leads Surge as Canada Scales Back Immigration Targets for 2025
Over 30% of 2025 newcomers are from India as Canada lowers immigration targets
New permanent resident data from the Government of Canada reveals where new Canadians are coming from at the start of this year.
In the first quarter of 2025, Canada welcomed just over 104,000 new permanent residents. The largest share of these new PR holders came from India, with 31,365 new residents, representing 30.4% of all newcomers so far this year.
The next largest source was the Philippines, accounting for 6.9% of new arrivals, followed by China at 6%.
At 30.4%, India far exceeds all other countries as the top source of new Canadian residents. For context, 38.6% of new permanent residents came from all other countries outside the top nine sources.
This raises a key question: How has immigration from India evolved in recent years?
We can track data back to 2015, coinciding with the beginning of the current Liberal government under then-Prime Minister Justin Trudeau.
At that time, 14.5% of new permanent residents were from India, 39,340 individuals out of the total 271,840 admitted that year.
The lowest share of Indian nationals among new residents came in 2016, when they made up 13.4% of new arrivals (approximately 39,710 individuals). Since then, the proportion of Indian newcomers has gradually increased, reaching 21.8% in 2018.
By 2019, a quarter of all new permanent residents in Canada were from India, 85,590 individuals, or 25.1% of the 341,175 total admitted that year.
The highest recorded share came in 2021, when 31.5% of all new permanent residents, 127,945 of the 406,055 total, originated from India, following the COVID-19 pandemic.
Since then, the proportion has remained above 25%, with 2023 marking the most recent high at 29.6% of all new arrivals.
In recent years, Canada's population has grown rapidly, driven by immigration targets set by Justin Trudeau's government. However, in October 2024, Trudeau announced a reduction in these targets.
The revised plan sets the target at 395,000 new permanent residents in 2025, decreasing to 380,000 in 2026 and 365,000 in 2027.
For context, Trudeau's original plan aimed to admit 500,000 new permanent residents annually by 2025. The new targets represent a significant reduction from this initial goal, one that Mark Carney seems keen to follow through on given his remarks about the issue during the campaign.