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Trends · Chapter 1 of 3

From temporary to permanent.
The whole journey, and where you stand in it.

Most people who become permanent residents through Express Entry didn’t start there. They started as students and workers already building a life in Canada. This is that journey, drawn from official IRCC open data and thousands of real community timelines. Honest about what we know, and honest about what we don’t.

These are separate snapshots from official data, each counting a different group in a different year. They are not a single funnel, and one does not convert into the next.

0study-permit holders in Canada
0work-permit holders in Canada
0people transitioned from temporary to permanent (latest year)

Read the full story

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Act 1 · Before Express Entry

You’re already here, and you’re far from alone.

Long before the ITA, there’s a life being built: a program, a campus, a first job. If you’re reading this from a classroom or a shift, that is exactly where most permanent residents were standing not long ago. Over a million people hold study permits right now, and hundreds of thousands more hold work permits. That is the ground the whole journey grows from, and it’s worth seeing how large and ordinary this starting point really is before we follow it forward.

Who’s here on a temporary permit

Number of permit holders, by permit type and program (latest full year)

Study permits

Post Secondary3,341,400
Secondary or less902,430
Other Studies404,155
Education level not stated820
Details
Post Secondary3,341,400
Secondary or less902,430
Other Studies404,155
Education level not stated820

Work permits

Canadian Interests3,755,775
Other IMP Participants707,935
Agricultural Workers673,155
Other Temporary Foreign Workers with LMIA645,230
Agreements297,300
Details
Canadian Interests3,755,775
Other IMP Participants707,935
Agricultural Workers673,155
Other Temporary Foreign Workers with LMIA645,230
Agreements297,300
Official · IRCCIRCC study-permit + work-permit holders

Top source countries

Number of study & work permit holders, by country of citizenship (latest full year)

India1,512,150
China, People's Republic of770,660
Nigeria169,695
France158,395
Korea, Republic of154,125
Philippines150,425
Vietnam108,740
Iran100,035
Details
India1,512,150
China, People's Republic of770,660
Nigeria169,695
France158,395
Korea, Republic of154,125
Philippines150,425
Vietnam108,740
Iran100,035
Official · IRCCIRCC study-permit or work-permit holders, by country of citizenship
These bars are head-counts, not averages: each one is the number of people holding that permit, and IRCC rounds the figures to the nearest five. Read together, they say something reassuring. Over a million people are on this same footing right now, and the temporary-resident population is the largest it has ever been. If the process feels lonely, the data says otherwise. The overwhelming majority of people who become PRs through Express Entry were already here, on a study or work permit, quietly building the work history and credentials that later earned them an ITA. You are not starting from the outside. You are starting from the same place almost everyone else did.
Sign in and claim your timeline to see exactly where you stand in this journey: your dates, your wait, your community.
Act 2 · The crossing

How people like you cross over.

Becoming permanent almost always means transitioning from a temporary status you already hold. Very few people arrive from abroad and land as PRs in one step. The most travelled road runs study permit → PGWP → Canadian Experience Class, one status flowing into the next. The chart below counts how many people made each crossing, so you can see which routes are well-worn and which are quieter. If your own plan follows one of the busier paths, that is a good sign: it means you’re walking a road the system already knows how to process.

Temporary → permanent, by prior program

Number of people who became PRs, by the status they held first (latest full year)

Study Permit169,435
Details
Study Permit169,435
Official · IRCCIRCC transitions from temporary to permanent
Each bar counts people, not percentages, and the tallest one tells the real story: the study → PGWP → PR path is the most common route to permanent residence in the country. It isn’t a side door or a lucky shortcut; it is the main entrance, the one most families actually walk through. That matters when the process feels uncertain, because it means the road you’re on has been travelled by hundreds of thousands of people before you. It is also widening. Category-based draws for healthcare, trades, and French have grown in volume and can invite at lower CRS cut-offs than the general pool, which we look at closely in the next act.
Sign in and claim your timeline to see exactly where you stand in this journey: your dates, your wait, your community.

Source: IRCC — IRCC: study-permit holders. Data through Apr 2026 · published 2026-06-16 View on open.canada.ca · Open Government Licence – Canada

Source: IRCC — IRCC: work-permit holders. Data through Apr 2026 · published 2026-06-16 View on open.canada.ca · Open Government Licence – Canada

Source: IRCC — IRCC: transitions from temporary to permanent residence. Data through Apr 2026 · published 2026-06-16 View on open.canada.ca · Open Government Licence – Canada