On October 24, 2024, the Government of Canada announced a significant reduction in immigration targets through its 2025-2027 Immigration Levels Plan, later updated for 2026-2028. These changes represent the first planned reduction in decades.
The New Targets
Permanent resident admissions targets have been adjusted:
- 2025: 395,000 (down from the original 500,000 target)
- 2026: 380,000
- 2027: 365,000
This represents a roughly 20% reduction from previous plans. The government cited housing affordability, healthcare capacity, and integration concerns as key factors.
What This Means for Citizenship Applicants
If you're already a permanent resident preparing for your citizenship test, these changes don't directly affect your eligibility. However:
- Processing times may improve — With fewer new applications, IRCC may allocate more resources to processing the existing citizenship backlog of approximately 320,000 applications
- Test availability should be stable — The shift to online testing as the default has already increased capacity
- The test content hasn't changed — All questions still come from the Discover Canada guide
Current Citizenship Requirements
As a permanent resident, you can apply for citizenship once you've met these requirements:
- Lived in Canada for at least 1,095 days (3 years) within the 5 years before applying
- Filed Canadian income taxes for at least 3 taxation years
- Demonstrate adequate knowledge of English or French (ages 18-54)
- Pass the citizenship test (ages 18-54)
Ready to prepare? Our free practice tests cover all the material you need. With 1,400+ questions based on the Discover Canada guide, you can practice until you're confident.