Largest Foreign-Born Group in Canada 2026 | Statistics & Facts

Canada’s Foreign-Born Population in 2026

Canada has quietly overtaken its own historical benchmark for immigration, with the 2021 Census recording 8,361,505 immigrants living in the country, 23.0% of the total population, the largest immigrant count ever recorded in a Canadian census. The single largest source of that population has also changed hands in recent years: India dethroned the United Kingdom as Canada’s top country of origin for immigrants, a shift that has only accelerated as India now accounts for roughly one-quarter of all new permanent residents arriving in the country each year, part of a broader wave of population growth that has recently begun to reverse for the first time in decades.

This article covers the full range of foreign-born population statistics for Canada in 2026, breaking down which country sends the most immigrants, how that ranking has shifted since the early 2000s, current permanent resident targets, and the surprisingly large role Indian-born mothers now play in Canada’s birth statistics. Every figure below reflects the most current data available, drawn primarily from Statistics Canada and Immigration, Refugees and Citizenship Canada (IRCC).

Interesting Facts About the Largest Foreign-Born Group in Canada 2026

Source: Statistics Canada, Immigration Refugees and Citizenship Canada

India now stands as Canada’s single largest source of immigrants by a wide margin, with 898,045 India-born residents counted in the 2021 Census, 10.7% of the country’s entire immigrant population, having overtaken the United Kingdom for the top spot sometime between the 2011 and 2016 census cycles. That dominance has only grown since: India accounted for roughly one-quarter of all 483,640 new permanent residents Canada welcomed in 2024, a record year for immigration that has since been followed by a deliberate policy pullback, with new permanent resident admissions now capped at 380,000 per year through 2028.

The Philippines and China round out the top three source countries at 719,580 (8.6%) and 715,835 (8.6%) respectively, positions that have remained relatively stable even as India’s growth has accelerated dramatically. Perhaps the most striking evidence of India’s rising influence shows up not in immigration counts directly, but in birth statistics: the share of all Canadian births to India-born mothers tripled in under a decade, climbing from just 3.3% in 2016 to 10.3% by 2024, according to Statistics Canada’s own vital statistics research.

1. Total Foreign-Born Population in Canada 2026

Canada's Immigrant Population Share, By Census Year
2001 |██████████████████                  18.4%
2011 |████████████████████                20.6%
2021 |███████████████████████             23.0%

Source: Statistics Canada, Census of Population

Canada’s immigrant population has grown in every single census since at least 2001, climbing from 5.4 million people, 18.4% of the population, to 8.36 million, 23.0%, by the 2021 Census, the largest raw number of immigrants ever counted in the country’s history. Interestingly, the highest immigrant share ever recorded actually predates confederation-era Canada by well over a century: the 1851 census found 26.3% of the population was foreign-born, a mark driven by the massive wave of British and Irish settlement during that era, meaning today’s 23.0% figure, while a modern record, has not yet reclaimed the country’s all-time historical peak share.

Statistics Canada’s own long-range projections suggest that record will fall soon enough. The agency projects immigrants will represent between 29.1% and 34.0% of Canada’s population by 2041, up from 23.0% in 2021, while the share of Canadians with at least one foreign-born parent, capturing first- and second-generation residents together, could climb from 44.0% today to as high as 54.3% within the same timeframe, a trajectory that would make Canada one of the most immigrant-shaped societies among wealthy nations anywhere in the world.

2. India: The Largest Source of Canadian Immigrants in 2026

Top Source Countries, Share of Canada's Immigrant Population (2021)
India             |███████████████████████████████████  10.7%
Philippines       |██████████████████████████████        8.6%
China             |██████████████████████████████        8.6%
United Kingdom    |████████████████████                  5.6%

Source: Statistics Canada, 2021 Census

India has become Canada’s dominant immigration story of the past decade, and the scale of its lead is significant: at 898,045 people, India-born residents outnumber the next-largest source country by more than 178,000 people, a gap that has widened considerably since India first overtook other countries for the top spot. That dominance is even more pronounced when looking specifically at recent arrivals rather than the total historical immigrant stock, since India contributed roughly one-quarter of all new permanent residents Canada admitted in 2024 alone, and over 94,000 economic-category admissions specifically in 2025.

This concentration of Indian immigration has reshaped entire sectors of Canadian life, from university enrollment to specific occupational categories under Express Entry, Canada’s primary skilled-worker immigration system. It has also fed directly into Canada’s broader racial and ethnic composition, contributing significantly to the visible minority population that Statistics Canada projects will reach 28.4% of Canada’s total population by 2026, a figure explored in more depth in Canada’s demographic breakdown by race.

3. Top Countries of Origin After India in 2026

Countries of Origin, Ranked (2021 Census)
1. India              |███████████████████████████████████  898,045
2. Philippines        |██████████████████████████████       719,580
3. China              |██████████████████████████████       715,835
4. United Kingdom     |████████████████████                 464,135
5. United States      |███████████                          256,085

Source: Statistics Canada, 2021 Census

Behind India, the Philippines and China are locked in a near-tie for second and third place, each accounting for 8.6% of Canada’s total immigrant population, with the Philippines holding a narrow lead of just 3,745 people. The United Kingdom, once the undisputed top source of Canadian immigrants for generations, has settled into fourth place at 5.6%, while the United States rounds out the top five at 3.1%, a position it has held with relative consistency across multiple census cycles. Pakistan and Hong Kong complete the top seven, together representing a further 5.4% of Canada’s immigrant population.

This top-tier ranking reflects decades of shifting immigration policy and global migration patterns, from the historical dominance of British settlement through the mid-20th century, to the growth of Hong Kong and Chinese immigration around the 1997 handover, and finally to the current era defined by large-scale skilled and family-class migration from South and Southeast Asia. Each of these communities has also settled in distinctly different patterns across Canada’s largest cities, a dynamic covered in detail in Canada’s population by city data, which shows just how concentrated specific immigrant communities have become in metro areas like Toronto and Vancouver.

4. How Canada’s Top Source Country Has Shifted Since 2001

#1 Source Country by Census Year
2001 |███████████████████████████  United Kingdom (11.1%)
2006 |███████████████████████████  United Kingdom (9.4%)
2011 |████████████████████████████  Near tie: India/China/UK (~8%)
2016 |██████████████████████████████ India takes #1 (8.9%)
2021 |███████████████████████████████████ India widens lead (10.7%)

Source: Statistics Canada, Census of Population, multiple years

The United Kingdom held the position of Canada’s top immigrant source country as recently as 2006, when British-born residents made up 9.4% of the immigrant population, itself already down from 11.1% in 2001. By 2011, the top of the rankings had become a genuine three-way contest, with India (8.1%), China (8.1%), and the UK (7.9%) separated by only fractions of a percentage point, before India pulled decisively ahead by the 2016 Census at 8.9%, a lead it has since extended to 10.7% by 2021.

This shift reflects a fundamental change in the composition of Canadian immigration policy and global migration flows over roughly two decades, moving away from the traditional Commonwealth-heavy, Europe-centric immigration base that defined much of Canada’s 20th-century population growth, toward a system increasingly weighted toward skilled economic migration from South Asia specifically. Immigration researchers attribute India’s rise substantially to Canada’s Express Entry points-based system, which has consistently favored the kind of technical, healthcare, and STEM qualifications increasingly common among Indian applicants, combined with extensive pre-existing family and community networks that continue to facilitate further migration.

5. New Permanent Residents and Canada’s 2026 Immigration Targets

Permanent Resident Admissions
2024 (record)             |████████████████████████████████████  483,640
2026-2028 target/year     |█████████████████████████████         380,000

Source: Immigration, Refugees and Citizenship Canada

Canada’s immigration levels reached a genuine record in 2024, with 483,640 new permanent residents admitted, a figure that has since triggered a deliberate policy correction. IRCC has capped permanent resident admissions at 380,000 per year for 2026, 2027, and 2028, a roughly 20% reduction from the 2024 peak, reflecting growing political and public concern over housing affordability and infrastructure strain that had built up during the preceding years of rapid immigration growth. Even with that reduced ceiling, India remains firmly in the top position, contributing 59,260 permanent resident admissions in just the first half of 2025 alone, well ahead of the Philippines, China, Cameroon, and Nigeria, the next largest source countries.

Notably, Cameroon and Nigeria have emerged as significant and rapidly growing new source countries, part of a deliberate federal push to expand Francophone immigration outside Quebec to 10.5% of total admissions by 2028. This is being achieved partly through the Express Entry system’s category-based selection draws, which now specifically target applicants from Francophone African nations with lower score requirements than the general pool, alongside new rules requiring at least one year of Canadian work experience for many economic-class categories, changes that together are reshaping which countries feed into Canada’s immigration pipeline going forward.

6. Indian-Born Mothers and Canadian Births in 2026

Share of All Canadian Births by Mother's Country of Birth
India-born mothers, 2016 |███  3.3%
India-born mothers, 2024 |██████████  10.3%

Source: Statistics Canada, Vital Statistics Birth Database

One of the clearest signals of India’s growing demographic influence in Canada shows up not in immigration counts directly, but in birth registration data. Statistics Canada’s own analysis of vital statistics found the share of all Canadian births attributed to India-born mothers more than tripled in under a decade, climbing from 3.3% in 2016 to 10.3% by 2024, a shift the agency directly ties to the rapid growth of India-born women of childbearing age now living in Canada, itself a downstream effect of the surging immigration numbers detailed earlier in this article.

Philippines-born mothers followed a steadier upward trajectory, doubling their share of Canadian births from 1.5% in 1997 to 3.1% by 2024, overtaking China-born mothers from 2018 onward as the second-most common foreign-born maternal origin nationally. China-born mothers, by contrast, saw their birth share actually decline from 3.2% to 2.0% over the same period, even though it remained nearly double the 1.1% level recorded back in 1997, reflecting a broader slowdown in Chinese immigration to Canada relative to the accelerating pace from India and the Philippines.

7. Student Visas and Canada’s 2026 Approval Crackdown

Study Permit Rejection Rates, 2026
Global average              |██████████████████████████████████████  62%
Indian applicants (approval)|███████████████████████                26% approved (74% rejected)

Source: Immigration, Refugees and Citizenship Canada, Times of India

Canada’s student visa system has tightened dramatically heading into 2026, with the global study permit rejection rate reaching an unprecedented 62%, driven by stricter financial scrutiny and more rigorous “genuine intent” assessments applied to applicants. Indian applicants, historically the largest source of Canadian international students, have been hit particularly hard, with approval rates for new applications dropping to just 25% to 27%, and prospective students now required to demonstrate at least $20,635 CAD in unencumbered funds, not including tuition, before a study permit will even be considered.

The federal government has also capped the total number of study permits issued in 2026 at 408,000, a hard ceiling that directly limits how many international students, and by extension how many potential future permanent residents, can enter Canada’s education system each year. There is a narrow carve-out for advanced researchers: as of January 2026, students enrolled in master’s or doctoral programs at public Designated Learning Institutions no longer need a Provincial Attestation Letter, a policy shift aimed at preserving Canada’s competitiveness for high-level academic and research talent even as broader student visa access tightens considerably.

8. Quebec’s Distinct Immigration Profile in 2026

Top Source Countries for Foreign-Born Mothers in Quebec vs National (2024)
National #1: India (10.3%)
Quebec   #1: Haiti (2.6%)

Source: Statistics Canada, Vital Statistics Birth Database

Quebec’s immigration profile diverges sharply from the rest of Canada, a direct consequence of the province’s distinct, French-language-prioritized selection system. Rather than India, Philippines, and China dominating as they do nationally, the most common countries of origin among foreign-born mothers giving birth in Quebec during 2024 were Haiti (2.6%), Algeria (2.5%), France (2.1%), and Morocco (2.0%), followed by China, the Philippines, and Lebanon at much smaller shares, a lineup dominated by Francophone nations rather than the South and East Asian countries leading the national rankings.

This divergence traces directly back to French-language proficiency rates in each country of origin: an estimated 98% of France-born immigrants speak French, compared with 42% of Haiti-born, 38% of Lebanon-born, 36% of Morocco-born, and 33% of Algeria-born immigrants, according to demographic research cited by Statistics Canada. Quebec’s selection system explicitly weights French-language ability heavily in its own immigration criteria, distinct from the federal Express Entry system used elsewhere in Canada, producing a genuinely different immigrant community composition within the province compared with the rest of the country.

9. Canada’s Long-Term Immigration Projections for 2026

Projected Immigrant Share of Canada's Population
2021 (actual)        |███████████████████████                  23.0%
2041 (projected)     |█████████████████████████████████████  29.1%-34.0%

Source: Statistics Canada, Population Projections

Looking two decades ahead, Statistics Canada’s own population projections show immigration remaining absolutely central to the country’s demographic future. The agency projects immigrants will make up between 29.1% and 34.0% of Canada’s total population by 2041, up from 23.0% today, while the combined first- and second-generation population, anyone with at least one foreign-born parent, could rise from 44.0% to as high as 54.3% over the same period, meaning a genuine majority of Canadians could trace direct immigrant heritage within a single generation.

This trajectory is essentially locked in by Canada’s underlying demographics: with a national fertility rate of only around 1.4 children per woman, well below the roughly 2.1 needed to sustain a population without migration, Canada’s population would begin shrinking without continued immigration, a dynamic that has already driven the country’s growth from 30 million people in 2000 to over 41 million by 2024, almost entirely on the strength of newcomers and their Canadian-born children rather than natural increase among the existing population.

Disclaimer: This research report is compiled from publicly available sources. While reasonable efforts have been made to ensure accuracy, no representation or warranty, express or implied, is given as to the completeness or reliability of the information. We accept no liability for any errors, omissions, losses, or damages of any kind arising from the use of this report.

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