The Canadian government is set to release its 2027–2029 Immigration Levels Plan on November 5, alongside the federal budget. The current plan targets 380,000 new permanent residents in 2027, 270,000 temporary residents, and 81,000 spots for family immigration. Changes are mostly expected toward economic immigration, though predictions within the team vary.
What Exactly Will Be Published
The Immigration Levels Plan is updated every year and covers the following three years. It sets target numbers for permanent residents, international students, and temporary workers — essentially all the main immigration classes.
Immigration, Refugees and Citizenship Canada (IRCC) usually publishes additional details broken down by category and program: Express Entry, Provincial Nominee Programs, family sponsorship, refugees, and the humanitarian class. Separate figures are given for temporary residents: study permits and various types of work permits.
The 2027 numbers will be the most interesting. The 2028 and 2029 figures provide a longer-term picture, but should be treated with caution since the plan is revised every year.
Permanent Immigration: Will the Targets Rise
The current plan targets 380,000 new permanent residents in 2027. Part of the team expects a modest increase of around 5%, which would bring the number to roughly 400,000 per year. Others believe the government will leave the figures nearly unchanged.
In most forecasts, any increase would be concentrated in economic immigration. The current plan allocates 244,700 spots to economic immigration in 2027: 111,000 for federal skilled worker programs and 92,500 for provincial nominees.
Even if the targets rise, this doesn’t mean an immediate increase in Express Entry invitations or a drop in CRS cut-off scores. Still, the new figures will show where opportunities may expand in the coming years.
Temporary Residents and Family Immigration
The current plan targets 270,000 new temporary residents in 2027: 220,000 temporary workers and 150,000 international students. Most of the team expects these numbers to stay unchanged. They are already lower than the 2026 targets, so the government is effectively planning a further reduction.
One of the forecast’s contributors, Head of Content Strategy Stephanie, suggests a slight further cut is possible. The reasoning is the government’s intention to bring the share of temporary residents below 5% of the population. The latest population data showed around 6.2–6.7%, still well above that target.
These targets apply to new arrivals and don’t cover people already in Canada. Their status is unaffected by the plan.
Family immigration: the current plan calls for a decrease from 84,000 spots in 2026 to 81,000 in 2027. Stephanie doesn’t rule out the government reversing this cut and keeping the figure at 84,000. The government generally tries to preserve opportunities for family reunification, particularly for spouses, common-law partners, and children, so these numbers are rarely changed sharply.
An Extreme Scenario
The team also considered a hypothetical scenario: cutting temporary resident targets by about 10% while simultaneously raising permanent immigration targets by about 10%, to roughly 420,000. This is a speculative option, not the main prediction.
The reasoning behind such a scenario is that the government wants to shrink the temporary population while leaning more on economic programs and pathways to permanent residency. The prime minister has also hinted in recent weeks that it may be time to gradually ramp immigration back up.
The definitive answer will come from the plan itself after its release on November 5. Until then, all figures remain predictions.
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