IRCC Deputy Minister Transition Binder 2026 - International Student Program

Context

Under the International Student Program, Immigration, Refugees and Citizenship Canada (IRCC) issues study permits to foreign nationals seeking to study in Canada. International students may be eligible for other immigration programs upon graduation, including temporary work programs or permanent residence programs.

Background

• Foreign nationals enrolled in an academic, professional, or vocational training program that is longer than six months in duration require a study permit.
• Under the International Student Program, applicants must meet all program eligibility requirements, including:
  • Be accepted at a provincially designated learning institution (DLI);
  • Hold a provincial/territorial attestation letter confirming the applicant has been allocated a space under the study permit cap by the province/territory, unless exempt (e.g., graduate students enrolled in degree-granting programs at public DLIs, participants in the Francophone Minority Communities Student Pilot);
  • Provide proof of financial sufficiency (e.g., to cover tuition, living expenses, travel costs, etc.; threshold set annually based on cost of living data from Statistic Canada).
• Applicants must also meet requirements to remain in Canada to study:
  • Actively pursue studies and remain enrolled at their DLI;
  • Comply with all conditions on entry into Canada.
• Eligible students can work on- and off-campus and participate in co-op programs during their studies.
• Upon graduation, certain international students may be eligible for a one-time Post-Graduation Work Permit for a maximum of three years.
• Certain graduates may also be eligible to pursue a pathway to permanent residence (e.g., Canadian Experience Class, Provincial Nominee Program), or other non-economic avenues (family immigration programs).

International Student Program Modernization

IRCC conducted a review of the International Student Program in consultation with provinces and territories as well as key stakeholders.

The review identified key concerns:

• Unsustainable volumes undermining program integrity and contributing to processing backlogs for all IRCC business lines;
• Program use shifting away from education, overreliance by DLIs on international students to compensate for funding gaps, false expectations around immigration outcomes among students;
• Need for better alignment between the volume of international students and permanent residence levels space;
• Increased student vulnerability such as financial hardship and concerns over adequacy of institutional support;
• Equitable access to the program—the need to improve diversity and address high refusal rates in certain regions.

2024–2025: Introduction of Modernization Initiatives

To address key challenges, the following measures were introduced over an 18-month period:

• Address unsustainable growth:
  • Expanded Multi-Year Immigration Levels Plan to include targets for new temporary residents arriving in Canada, including international students.
  • Established an intake cap on most study permit applications to stabilize the international student population and meet the commitment to reduce temporary resident volumes to 5% of Canada’s population by the end of 2027.
• Strengthen program integrity:
  • Raised the financial requirements for study permit applicants from $10,000 to $20,635, effective as of January 1, 2024, to better reflect the cost of living in Canada and help prevent student vulnerability and exploitation.
    • Financial requirements were further increased to $22,895 on September 1, 2025, and will continue to be adjusted on September 1 annually in line with updates to Statistics Canada’s Low-Income Cut-Off.
  • Introduced an enhanced letter of acceptance verification system to better protect prospective students from letter of acceptance fraud.
  • Implemented new regulatory measures to give IRCC tools to address non-compliant DLIs, as well as new requirements for students to apply for a new permit when switching institutions to support tracking student compliance.
  • Reestablished limits on the number of hours that international students may work off-campus to 24 hours per week, following pandemic waiver of limits.
• Improve equitable access:
  • Launched a pilot program for French-speaking students in Francophone Minority Communities, to support Francophone immigration objectives, reduce systemic barriers, enhance diversity and improve retention.
  • Discontinued the Student Direct Stream to enable all applicants to apply on an equal footing regardless of country of origin, while also addressing integrity risks associate with the stream.
• Support Canada’s economic needs:
  • Refocused the program on ‘quality over quantity’ and supporting the talent attraction mandate letter commitment, including the goal to restore the proportion of university-bound international students, and introducing facilitation measures for graduate students, including:
    • Processing new study permit applications for doctoral students and their family members within 14 days.
    • Removing the requirement for master’s and doctoral degree students enrolling at public DLIs to provide a provincial or territorial attestation letter.

Early Results of Reform

• Early signs indicate that the measures are working:
  • Compared to 2024, Canada welcomed about 61% (or 177,595) fewer new international students in 2025.
    • The total number of international students already in Canada also decreased by 29% year-over-year.
    • As of December 31, 2025, there were roughly 691,215 study permit holders in Canada, compared to 928,430 at the end of 2024.
  • Canada Mortgage and Housing Corporation reports show rental markets are starting to cool down, attributed in part to curbed growth of international students.
  • The proportion of university students is returning to pre-pandemic levels of approximately 40% and top research universities are now the top study permit recipients—a dramatic shift from pre-reform period when colleges led by volume.
  • IRCC is meeting its commitment on fast-track processing for doctoral students and their families, with 96% of applications that do not require additional security screening finalized within an average of two days, and complex applications within nine days.
  • Efforts to diversify the program are working, with a reduced reliance on historically significant source countries. The approval rate for the francophone student pilot was 65% as of December 2025, notably higher than historic approval rates in eligible countries (34–39%).
  • The new letter of acceptance verification system for students identified more than 10,000 potentially fraudulent letters of acceptance in 2024, and a further 4,900 in 2025.
  • IRCC continues to monitor results to assess their impacts and determine whether course correction is required.

Upcoming Milestones

IRCC is continuing to advance its reform Roadmap—a multi-year reform plan that began in 2024 and runs through 2027.

Key milestones from now until year-end include:

In the coming weeks:

• Responding to the Auditor General’s audit on the International Student Program reforms, to be tabled on March 24, 2026.

Spring 2026:

• Issue the first set of regulatory penalties against non-compliant DLIs, in the spring of 2026, using IRCC’s new regulatory powers;
• Notify applicants of the annual increase to the financial requirement for international students, effective as of September 1, 2026.

Fall 2026:

• Set the 2027 study permit cap in conjunction with the Immigration Levels Plan and seek Ministerial approval of provincial and territorial allocations.

Roles and Responsibilities

There are multiple actors who play a key role in the International Student Program:

IRCC

• Sets a national intake cap on study permits.
• Provides an allocation of spaces to each province and territory to distribute to DLIs.
• Assesses study permit applications against eligibility and admissibility requirements in accordance with federal law and regulations.
• Manages the compliance regime for DLIs and students.

Provinces & territories

• Sole jurisdiction over education under the constitution.
• Designate educational institutions eligible to receive international students.
• Determine which DLIs received allocation spaces and how many they receive; issue attestation letters to prospective international students once they have been accepted to DLIs confirming the applicant has a been assigned a space under the cap.

Designated Learning Institutions

• Recruit, select, and enroll international students.
• Responsible for supporting the international students they recruit and selecting quality, genuine students that are well-positioned to meet study permit requirements.
• Participate in letter of acceptance verification.
• Participate in the IRCC compliance regime, including reporting on student enrollment/attendance to IRCC.

Canada Border Services Agency

• Admit international students in Canada based on admissibility requirements.
• Enforce immigration laws and remove inadmissible persons.