Over 1.8 million temporary resident permits are set to expire by the end of this year, according to data obtained from Immigration, Refugee, and Citizenship Canada (IRCC), a decrease from 2025, when nearly 2.1 million temporary resident permits expired.
Temporary residents include students, workers or visitors who have come to Canada on a permit and are allowed to reside in the country for a limited time and a specific reason.
“I don’t think the numbers are surprising at all,” said immigration lawyer Mario Bellissimo. “We have basically four million, four million plus permits set to expire, which was part of the runaway inventory that we’ve seen in the past couple of years with respect to students in particular, visitors, work permits.”
Canada will accept 380,000 permanent residents this year, a decrease of nearly 15,000 compared to last year. While many temporary residents have come to Canada with the intention of following a legal pathway to citizenship, that hope has been dampened.
“The mindset of many of these individuals is, I was supposed to remain, and now I feel as though the contract I have with the Canadian government is broken,” said Bellissimo.
In Toronto, temporary residents facing rejection from the province’s nominee program are demanding answers. The Ontario Immigrant Nominee Program (OINP) aims to allow individuals with the right skills, experience and education to apply for a nomination for permanent residency.
But in 2025, the federal government reduced Ontario’s nominee intake by half. The OINP has since cited “systemic compliance and enforcement concerns” and fraud as reasons for the decrease, but the applicants are rejecting that claim.
“We want fair decisions on all of our files. If we are frauds, we are ready to go back, but we want them to work on our files,” Arshdeep tells OMNI News.
About 2,600 OINP applicants have been rejected since last year. Since last November, groups of temporary residents have been demonstrating outside the Ministry of Labour and Immigration building, calling for action.
OINP applicants say they’re stuck in limbo because the Ontario legislature has paused since last year, with plans to return in March.
“If my work permit expired and I didn’t get any answers from these guys, it’s going to be very hard for me to survive because I need to pay for everything. I’m just here standing every day for the last two months… I want some answers from the OINP department,” said Arminder.
“Right now, the main issue is that the majority of our permits have expired, and we’re on maintained status, we’re not allowed to work,” added Arshdeep. “Living in a city like Toronto, things are expensive here, and we’re still trying to manage it. The biggest problem is we cannot work, and we have a lot of expenses. Life is expensive.”
Bellissimo says not falling out of status will help temporary residents who are seeking pathways for residency in Canada.
“You want to be careful about your status expiring. After that, you really need to begin exploring your options. Either through your own research or with a good representative, speak to your member of Parliament. Other things to begin to see, is there a path forward for me now? Does it mean remaining in Canada, or does it mean a return home and then reapplying in a different manner?”
Bellissimo says students are the most vulnerable group of temporary residents because they make up a large number. Over 265,000 study permits are set to expire this year, including nearly 166,000 study permit extensions.
“The students right now are the ones who have been the most affected. Many of them believed that when coming into Canada, a lot of the messaging was that they were going to get to stay.”
The Canada Border Services Agency, meanwhile, has said removals are at an “all-time high.” According to data from the CBSA, over 22,000 people have been removed from Canada in 2025, and nearly 30,000 removals were “in progress” as of Oct. 31, 2025.
“I think it’s part of a broader, global sentiment towards undocumented, or individuals that are perceived to be lawbreakers, that need to be removed. So individuals that ultimately fall out of status, became subject to removal proceedings. Ultimately, if they don’t cooperate with those removal proceedings, will be detained and removed,” said Bellissimo.
The IRCC reports that over 177,000 former temporary residents became permanent residents between January and November of 2025.
