Canada’s population declined for the first time in about five years due to a decrease in the number of

foreign students

and workers, according to

new estimates released by Statistics Canada

on Wednesday.

The country’s population as of Oct. 1 was estimated to be 41.57 million, a decline of about 76,068 people, or 0.2 per cent, from July 1, when the total population was estimated to be 41.65 million. The last time the government reported a quarterly decline was around the end of 2020.

The decline in 2020 was largely due to

COVID-19 border restrictions

. Other than that, Canada has never reported a quarter-to-quarter reduction in population levels, Statistics Canada spokesperson 

Stacey

Hallman said.

“For a long time, Canada’s population growth has been driven by international migration,” she said. “Within the last three or four years, it was accounting for 95 per cent to 99 per cent of our population growth. That means it’s highly dependent on government policies, and within the last year, we’ve seen changes in those policies and we’re starting to see the impact of that on the population in the data.”

The number of non-permanent residents dropped by 176,479 in the third quarter, with more foreign students and workers leaving the country than the number of people coming in, Statistics Canada said.

“This drop in non-permanent residents surpassed the decreases in the second (58,719) and first (55,194) quarters of 2025 and was the largest since comparable records began (the third quarter of 1971),” the agency said.

Canada’s population grew at record rates between 2022 and 2023, primarily due to an increase in temporary residents, such as foreign workers and students, to help companies fill thousands of empty jobs. But as the unemployment rate increased, Justin Trudeau’s government in 2024 announced caps on temporary residents and reduced its immigration targets.

The population growth rate was around zero per cent in the first two quarters this year.

There were about 2.85 million non-permanent residents in Canada as of Oct. 1, which is about 6.8 per cent of the overall population and lower than the three million reported on July 1, or 7.3 per cent of the total population. The federal government wants to bring down the population of non-permanent residents to five per cent of the overall population by the end of 2027.

“A major population adjustment is well underway and it remains one of the biggest economic stories in Canada,” Robert Kavcic, an economist at Bank of Montreal, said in a note on Wednesday. “In order to hit the non-permanent resident target share, we’ll need to see population growth run barely above zero through 2028, before settling back into a longer-term run rate of just under one per cent.”

He said a “significant weakening” of the rental market, less pressure on services inflation, easing slack in the youth job market and a likely pickup in productivity and growth in real gross domestic product per capita are among the potential impacts he’s tracking as a result of the decline.

Every province and territory except for Alberta and Nunavut, both of which had increases of 0.2 per cent, reported population decreases.

“While the growth in Alberta remained positive, it was the lowest for this province since the second quarter of 2021 (0.1 per cent), when border restrictions to slow the spread of COVID-19 were still in place,” Statistics Canada said. “Ontario (minus 0.4 per cent) and British Columbia (minus 0.3 per cent) saw the largest population decrease in the third quarter.”

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Despite the overall decrease, the number of people claiming asylum increased for the 15th quarter in a row, with 7,324 people added to the category in the quarter.

“Nevertheless, the increase in the third quarter for this group was the smallest since the first quarter of 2022 (5,675),” Statistics Canada said.

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