Two numbers describe Canada's international student population, and property managers near campuses keep forecasting on the wrong one. The stock number counts how many study permit holders are in the country on a given day. The flow number counts how many new students arrive in a year. A renewal runs on the stock. A vacant unit runs on the flow.
Both numbers fell. They did not fall by the same amount, and the gap is wide enough to change a lease-up plan.
The stock fell by a quarter, the flow by more than half
Immigration, Refugees and Citizenship Canada reported roughly 691,215 study permit holders in Canada as of December 31, 2025, down from 928,430 at the end of 2024. That is a drop of about 26 per cent in a single year. By February 28, 2026 the count had edged back up to 698,510.
The arrival number moved further. Against a 2025 target of 305,900 new students, about 115,000 arrived. IRCC puts that at 61 per cent fewer new international students than 2024.
The headline population figure understates what happened to new lease demand. A building whose residents mostly renew lost a quarter of its market. A building that fills its last rooms every September from first-time arrivals lost well over half.
What the 2026 cap allows
IRCC expects to issue up to 408,000 study permits in 2026. That total splits into 155,000 for newly arriving students and 253,000 extensions for students already in the country. Only the first figure is new housing demand. The second describes people who already have an address.
Beneath the issuance target sits an application cap. A total of 309,670 study permit application spaces are available for 2026, which IRCC describes as 7 per cent lower than the 2025 issuance target of 437,000. Most applicants have to hold a provincial or territorial attestation letter confirming they were allocated a space under that cap.
Read your province's allocation, not the national one
The national figure says little about one campus town. Each province distributes its own allocation to its designated learning institutions, so the ceiling over your units is provincial. IRCC published the 2026 allocations on November 25, 2025:
- Ontario: 104,780
- Quebec: 93,069
- British Columbia: 32,596
- Alberta: 32,271
- Saskatchewan: 11,349
- Manitoba: 11,196
- Nova Scotia: 8,480
- New Brunswick: 8,004
- Newfoundland and Labrador: 5,507
- Prince Edward Island: 1,376
- Northwest Territories: 785
- Yukon: 257
- Nunavut: 0
Two things follow from that table. Quebec holds an allocation close to Ontario's on a far smaller population base, so a Montreal student building and a Hamilton student building are not working under the same ceiling. And an allocation is a cap on application spaces, not a forecast of arrivals. Canada issued about 403,600 permits in 2025 against a target of 437,000, so the allocation sets the upper bound on what can happen, not what will.
What a student lease-up should change
Three adjustments follow from forecasting on the flow rather than the stock.
Weight renewals ahead of new leases. The 253,000 extensions in the 2026 plan are the stable half of the market. A student who extends a permit needs housing next year, and the cheapest unit for them to take is the one they are already in. Renewal outreach that used to begin in February earns its keep before the fall term settles.
Stop treating the September fill as given. A per-room student house that counts on incoming international students to absorb the last two rooms is exposed to the number that fell 61 per cent. Price and market those rooms as though they compete for domestic students and young workers, because that is who is left to take them.
Ask which institutions hold allocation. Provinces hand their spaces to designated learning institutions, and not in even shares. A campus whose allocation share shrank will show up in your leasing long before it shows up in a housing report. Ask the institution's housing office what the incoming international cohort looks like in beds, not in percentages.
The 2027 number arrives after the decisions it would inform
The Immigration Levels Plan for 2026 to 2028 carries notional targets of 150,000 new students for 2027 and 150,000 for 2028. The plan attaches a footnote to both:
Notional targets and ranges for 2027 and 2028 will be confirmed or adjusted by November 1 of each year.
IRCC's own planning documents list setting the 2027 study permit cap and seeking ministerial approval of provincial and territorial allocations as fall 2026 work. The provincial allocation you would want for a September 2027 lease-up is therefore unpublished while you set rents and renewal terms for that cycle. Plan on the notional 150,000 and the shape of the 2026 table, then revisit once the confirmed figures land in late autumn.
One further commitment sits behind all of it: the federal goal of bringing Canada's temporary resident population below 5 per cent of the total population by the end of 2027. The direction of travel across the next two lease-up cycles is set by that target rather than by any single year's guideline.
The short version
Forecast new leases on new arrivals and renewals on the permit holder stock. Pull your own province's allocation instead of the national figure. Treat a published allocation as a ceiling, not a prediction. And expect the 2027 provincial numbers in late autumn, after the decisions they would have informed.