IRCC Deputy Minister Transition Binder 2026 - Economic Immigration

Context

Immigration, Refugees and Citizenship Canada (IRCC) manages economic immigration programs to support the development of a strong Canadian economy and ensure that the benefits of immigration are shared across all regions.

Background

Permanent economic immigration programs contribute to Canada’s economic prosperity by attracting and retaining high-skilled workers, entrepreneurs, and self-employed individuals, as well as workers in essential occupations such as home care and agricultural and agrifood, who will contribute to Canada’s critical occupational shortages and long term economic needs. Specific regional programs work to include partners and stakeholders in the selection, attraction, and retention of new immigrants in all regions and spread the benefits of immigration across Canada. These programs are designed to complement each other, and to meet Canada’s diverse labour market and economic development needs. 

The Express Entry system manages applications for the three Federal High-Skilled Programs—Canadian Experience Class, Federal Skilled Worker Program, and Federal Skilled Trades Program—as well as a segment of the Provincial Nominee Program. It invites prospective applicants to apply based on a points system that evaluates key human capital attributes. This model has enhanced IRCC’s ability to select candidates with the strongest potential for success in the Canadian labour market and who can help address key economic priorities.

Permanent economic immigration represents the largest share of the 2026–2028 Immigration Levels Plan. In 2026, economic immigration will account for 63% of permanent immigration to Canada, rising to 64% in 2027 and 2028, the highest proportion in decades.

Impacts

Labour Market Impacts

Immigration has been the driving force behind Canada’s labour supply for many years. During the 2010s, over four-fifths of the growth in Canada’s labour force came from immigration. While only part of the solution, immigration plays a key role in responding to labour market shortages. In 2025, landed immigrants represented 27.8% of the Canadian population and 28.4% of the Canadian labour force. In general, economic principal applicants have median employment earnings that are well above the median for other groups of immigrants, and for Canadians as a whole.

For example, whereas the median Canadian employment income in 2021 was $40,870, individuals admitted through Express Entry managed programs in 2020 had median employment earnings of $62,800 in 2021 and $72,000 in 2022.

Recent efforts have made federal permanent economic immigration programming more responsive to changing labour market needs, while building on the high human capital approach that has been a hallmark of Canada’s successful economic immigration system. This includes the introduction of category-based selection for the Federal High-Skilled Programs, which allows specific applicants to be invited to apply for permanent residence based on economic priorities, such as for French-proficient and bilingual workers or individuals with work experience in high-demand occupations (e.g., in areas such as health care and social services, trades, and education).

Regional programs help address diverse regional labour needs and test innovative solutions. Under the Provincial Nominee Program, the number of economic immigrants settling outside of Ontario, Quebec, and British Columbia has increased, from 11% in 1998 to 30% in 2025. As of 2025, it was the main source of economic immigration for most provinces and territories.

Economic pilots, such as the Rural and Francophone Community Pilots, are designed to bolster the economic vitality of rural and remote communities by attracting and retaining newcomers to fill long‑standing labour gaps. Complementary pilots, including the Caregivers and Agri‑Food pilots, further address chronic shortages in lower‑skilled but essential occupations by providing targeted, accessible pathways to permanent residence.

Current Programs

The vast majority of economic immigrants are selected through programs which focus on longstanding human capital factors such as level of education, official language proficiency, and skilled work experience, as well as respond to more specific labour market needs such as expected occupational shortages and strategic objectives, including Francophone immigration, allowing for a more targeted approach to support the economy.

Federal High Skilled Programs

• The 2026 admissions target for federal high skilled programs is 109,000.
• Federal High Skilled (managed through Express Entry, which includes a ranking system):
  • Federal Skilled Worker Program: Selects workers on the basis of skilled work experience and high human capital.
  • Canadian Experience Class: Selects workers, including former international students and temporary foreign workers, on the basis of Canadian skilled work experience.
  • Federal Skilled Trades Program: Facilitates the immigration of skilled tradespersons in certain industries and sectors.
• In 2026, programs will focus on inviting the highest ranked candidates with Canadian work experience. In addition, through category-based selection, IRCC will invite the highest ranked:
  • Candidates with strong French language proficiency;
  • Physicians researchers, and senior managers with Canadian work experience;
  • Candidates with work experience in in-demand healthcare, STEM, trades, transport, and education occupations; and
  • Highly skilled foreign military applicants recruited by the Canadian Armed Force.

Regional Programs

• The 2026 admissions target for the Provincial Nominee Program is 91,500.
• The 2026 admissions target for the Atlantic Immigration Program is 4,000^{Table Footnote 1}.
• Provincial Nominee Program: jointly administered immigration program, which attracts and retains new immigrants to all provinces and territories (except Quebec and Nunavut) to address regional labour market, demographic and economic development needs, while distributing the benefits of economic immigration across Canada.
• Quebec economic immigration: under the Canada–Quebec Accord, Quebec selects the economic immigrants destined to the province, in both skilled worker and business programs, while the federal government remains responsible for determining admissibility of all immigrants to Canada and issue permanent resident visas.
• Atlantic Immigration Program: an employer-driven program to help employers hire, settle and retain skilled foreign workers and international graduates from an Atlantic Canadian institution to support regional economic and demographic growth.

Federal Business Class

• The 2026 admissions target for federal business programs is 500.
• Start-Up Visa Program: seeks to attract entrepreneurs with the potential to establish innovative business in Canada. Foreign entrepreneurs first secure support for their business concept from a private-sector “Designated Entity” before submitting an application for permanent residence. New application intake in this program is indefinitely paused in order to help address the application backlog and associated client wait times.
• Self-Employed Programs: selects individuals with world-class experience in the arts or athletics who can make a significant contribution to Canada’s cultural fabric. New application intake in this program is indefinitely paused in order to help reduce the application backlog.

Federal Economic Pilot Programs

• The 2026 admissions target for economic pilot programs is 8,175.
• Rural Community Immigration Pilot and Francophone Community Immigration Pilot (2025–2029): employer- and community-driven programs that equip small, rural, and remote communities across Canada with the tools to address critical labour shortages in priority sectors and to increase the number of French-speaking immigrants working and settling in Francophone-minority communities outside of Quebec.
• Agri-Food Immigration Pilot (2020–2025): with an intake cap is 2,750 applications per year, the pilot tested and industry-specific approach to helping address longstanding labour needs by providing a pathway to permanent residence for experienced, full-time, non-seasonal workers in year-round occupations in the mushroom and greenhouse crop production, meat processing, and livestock raising industries. The pilot closed in May 2025 after reaching the 5-year maximum duration and was not renewed.
• Home Care Worker Immigration Pilots (Child Care and Home Support) (2025–2030): these provide a direct pathway to permanent residence for qualified workers with the skills and intent to work in a home care occupation in Canada. The pilots opened to applications on March 31, 2025, and reached their annual online cap for the year the same day. The overall intake cap is 2,750 applications per year, per pilot. In December 2025, intake of new applications was closed for the remainder of the Pilot duration (2026–2030) due to the large number of home care workers awaiting permanent residence who will continue to supply the labour market for the foreseeable future.

Targeted Measures

• Targeted Federal Provincial Nominee Program (PNP) spaces: The federal government reserved 10,000 supplemental spaces that provinces and territories can use to support federal priorities via their PNP. Specifically, IRCC reserved 5,000 dedicated federal selection spaces for provinces and territories to nominate licensed doctors and address critical healthcare shortages, and another 5,000 federal selection spaces to boost francophone immigration outside Quebec through the PNP.

Recent Developments

The economic class has been the main pathway to achieve ambitious francophone immigration targets (9% in 2026), primarily by leveraging the Federal High Skilled and Provincial Nominee Programs.

Budget 2025 announced a one-time initiative to accelerate the transition of up to 33,000 work permit holders to permanent residency in 2026 and 2027. This is in addition to the admissions targets outlined in the 2026–2028 Immigration Levels Plan. These workers have established strong roots in their communities, are paying taxes, and are helping to build the strong economy Canada needs.

Upcoming Milestones

Lower economic immigration admissions target of 232,150 in 2025, as part of overall reductions outlined in the Levels Plan. The majority of economic immigration admissions will come from Federal High Skilled programs and the Provincial Nominee Program, with a focus on those who are already in-Canada as temporary residents.

Significant backlogs have developed in certain programs (e.g., the Start-up Visa program, the Self-Employed program, the Agri-Food Pilot and the Home Care Worker Immigration Pilots), driven by misalignment between application intake and admission spaces. Application intake for these programs has been paused to prevent additional growth of existing inventories. The Department continues to pursue work on its inventory management strategy.

The Francophone admissions target is set to increase to 9.5% in 2027, and 10.5% in 2028, as outlined in the 2026–2028 Immigration Levels Plan. Absent the adoption of measures to increase francophone admissions in other lines of business, the economic class is expected to continue to be the main pathway for French-speaking and bilingual immigration outside of Quebec.

To support talent attraction objectives, the Minister is pursuing significant changes to economic programs, including the launch of a new High Impact Start-up Pilot to replace the Start-Up Visa Program, as well as reforms to Express Entry’s Federal High Skilled Prog