Canada’s annual population growth has slowed to its lowest level in more than 80 years due to lower immigration, says Statistics Canada.
The population is estimated to have added 189,425 people from July 2025 to July 2026, which is the lowest annual growth since 1944-1945, when the population increased by 126,000 people, the agency said on Wednesday. The population’s growth of 0.5 per cent in the past year is the lowest since the 0.3 per cent increase in 1915-1916.
The growth rate has been slowing in recent quarters following years of higher-than-usual growth between 2022 and 2024, when the country welcomed more than one million people each year amidst a temporary labour shortage after the pandemic.
“The rapid changes in the population growth rate since 2020 are almost entirely attributable to changes in international migration,” Statistics Canada said.
The agency also revised its previous estimate that the population declined by about 55,000 people between Jan. 1 and April 1 to an increase of about 1,300 people.
Stacey Hallman, a Statistics Canada spokesperson, said the agency in its annual September review noticed an increase in the number of permit extensions, which allow newcomers to continue their stay in Canada after their initial permit expires, and an increase in the time it takes to process these applications.
“We have done an adjustment to account for this and that’s why we are seeing a larger revision today than we have seen in Septembers of the recent past,” she said, adding the overall trend of slowing population growth remains despite the adjustments.
The revisions, including the overall population increasing by about 300,000 compared to the last quarter due to the adjustments, significantly impact how some economic data may look in hindsight, Rachel Battaglia, an economist at Royal Bank of Canada, said in a report on Wednesday.
The report said the Express Entry system, one of the more popular ways of immigrating to Canada, is not working as intended due to changes introduced in 2022.
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For example, she said per-capita gross domestic product growth (GDP) was up 0.7 per cent year over year in the second quarter based on the new data, compared to 1.7 per cent based on previous estimates.
Battaglia said a larger population could also mean higher production potential in the economy than previously thought, which could weigh on the Bank of Canada’s next rate decision in October.
“On the surface, mechanical upward adjustments to potential GDP via revised population estimates would reduce urgency to hike rates, but with the Bank of Canada increasingly focused on ‘risks’ from energy prices, it makes the October meeting a difficult decision,” she said.
The revised counts mean Canada’s population is not shrinking outright, Robert Kavcic, an economist at Bank of Montreal, said in a note on Wednesday, but the “very low growth” is still impacting housing markets, consumer spending trends and weighing on short-term potential growth.
Benjamin Tal, an economist at Canadian Imperial Bank of Commerce, said he was not surprised at the revisions.
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“We expected Statistics Canada to revise the numbers because of the undercounting of non-permanent residents,” he said. “They assumed that more people left than actually did.”
The number of non-permanent residents, which includes newcomers such as foreign students, workers and asylum claimants, dropped by 154,614 people to reach a total of 2.77 million, which is about 6.7 per cent of the total population. Ottawa intends to bring that down to five per cent in the near future.
“This was the largest decrease in the number of non-permanent residents on an annual basis in Canada since comparable records began (1971/1972),” Statistics Canada said. “The largest decreases in 2025/2026 were among study permit holders (minus 140,827) and work and study permit holders (minus 81,163).”
Canada’s population is also aging, with a median age of 40.9 years and an average age at 42.1 years.
During the large immigration waves between 2022 and 2024, the median age decreased, while the average age remained stable since the majority of newcomers were younger.
“In total, there was a drop of 154,973 people in their 20s (minus 2.8 per cent), which is consistent with the fall in the number of study permit holders in the country, since international students tend to be young adults,” Statistics Canada said.
Permanent immigration decreased in all provinces and Yukon, but increased in the Northwest Territories and Nunavut.
