Canada PR approvals plunge 29%
Canada approved just 24,140 new permanent residents in January—down nearly 29% year‑over‑year—signaling a sharp drop in PR intake that will tighten cross‑border pathways and backlog planning. The decline could affect employer‑sponsored and family‑based strategies that rely on predictable PR volumes. (immigrationnewscanada.ca)
IRCC’s January 31, 2026 inventory snapshot — published in mid‑March — shows the department’s total application inventory at roughly 2,092,000 with the overall backlog falling to about 990,300. (trustvistaconsulting.com) Permanent residence inventories increased to approximately 995,500 applications, of which about 535,300 were classified as backlog (files exceeding IRCC service standards). (immiperts.com) IRCC reported it finalized more PR decisions than landings in January (32,400 decisions versus roughly 24,100 new landings), while Express Entry backlog share continued to shrink to near 15% from 20% the month before. (canada.ca) The federal 2026–2028 Immigration Levels Plan sets annual permanent resident admissions at 380,000 and shifts a larger share of those slots toward economic streams rather than temporary‑to‑permanent flows. (canada.ca) Budget 2025 and related initiatives also authorized targeted pathways to convert temporary workers to PR — including proposals to transition up to 33,000 foreign workers across 2026–27 — while explicitly cutting temporary resident intake targets. (immigrationxperts.com) Under the Levels Plan, the federal high‑skilled (Express Entry) allocation sits near 109,000 PRs for 2026 and Provincial Nominee Program quotas total roughly 91,500, concentrating employer‑sponsored competition into fewer, better‑defined buckets. (moving2canada.com) The plan’s family class target — about 69,000 spouses, partners and dependent children for 2026 — sits against the 535,300 PR backlog, implying longer queues for some family sponsorship cases unless processing priorities or allocations change. (moving2canada.com)
