Canada has provided more details about how its permanent residence (PR) admission targets are calculated. Immigration, Refugees and Citizenship Canada (IRCC) has launched a new webpage explaining that the annual PR targets listed in the Immigration Levels Plan do not include admissions made under two separate one-time initiatives.
The webpage, published on July 21, 2026, aims to help people better understand how Canada reports its permanent residence numbers. While the official Immigration Levels Plan sets annual admission targets, the government has confirmed that additional PR admissions under special programs are counted separately.
According to the government, the official target for overall permanent residence admissions remains 380,000 for both 2026 and 2027. However, these totals do not include admissions through two temporary initiatives covering protected persons and certain in-Canada workers.
The government plans to admit up to 115,000 protected persons and 33,000 in-Canada workers through these one-time initiatives over the two-year period. When these admissions are included, the total planned permanent resident admissions for 2026 and 2027 reach 908,000, averaging 454,000 admissions per year.
Moreover, the newly launched webpage, titled Understanding Permanent Residence Numbers In Canada, also includes a monthly chart showing permanent residence admissions from January to May 2026. The chart separates admissions made under the regular Immigration Levels Plan from those made through the one-time initiatives, making the data easier to understand.
As of May 2026, Canada had admitted approximately 128,000 permanent residents. Among them, about 14.4% were admitted through the one-time initiatives.
The government also shared progress toward its annual targets under these special measures. By May 2026, around 9,100 in-Canada workers had become permanent residents through the one-time initiative, representing 46% of the annual target of 20,000. During the same period, about 9,300 protected persons received permanent residence, reaching 20% of the yearly target of 46,000.
The launch of the new webpage follows another recent update by the federal government. On July 21, Canada’s immigration backlog page was revised to show a clearer breakdown of permanent residence applications expected to be finalized during the current year and those that will be handled in future years to match annual admission targets.
Earlier, on July 15, the federal government also announced that it would not accept new sponsorship applications for parents and grandparents under the Parents and Grandparents Program (PGP). At that time, the government reported that 50,900 PGP applications were already waiting for a decision. Under the current Immigration Levels Plan, Canada expects to admit 15,000 parents and grandparents each year between 2026 and 2028.
The new permanent residence webpage follows a similar approach to the government’s Understanding Student And Temporary Worker Numbers In Canada page, which was introduced in August 2025 to provide more transparency about temporary resident numbers.
Budget 2025 Introduced Two Spending Categories
The separate permanent residence admission figures were first presented in Budget 2025, released last November.
The budget also introduced a new way of presenting federal spending by dividing it into day-to-day operating spending and capital investments. Under this approach, the government projected that by the 2028-2029 fiscal year, the entire federal deficit would be linked to capital investments.
Economist Jim Stanford questioned this approach, stating that the budget’s definition of capital spending differs from the standard meaning commonly used in accounting and economics.
Under Budget 2025, capital spending includes not only investments in new assets but also depreciation of existing assets and incentives that support private-sector research and development.
The federal government introduced this framework as part of its long-term Generational Investment Strategy, which aims to support large-scale national investments while improving transparency around government spending and permanent residence admissions.
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