The number of full-time international students in Canada fell by nearly a third over the last two academic years, bringing their levels down to those last recorded during the Covid-19 pandemic when global travel was severely disrupted.
These were among the findings of a study released on Tuesday by the Statistics Canada, the country’s data agency. Statistics Canada pointed out that from the 2003/2004 to 2023/2024 academic years, the number of full-time international students in public postsecondary institutions in the country “increased eightfold.”
“It then fell by almost one-third, according to new preliminary estimates now available for the 2024/2025 and 2025/2026 academic years,” the agency noted.
According to the estimates published on Tuesday, the number of such international students decreased by 4% in 2024/2025 and 26% in 2025/2026, bringing their numbers back to levels similar to those recorded in 2021/2022, the second academic year of the Covid-19 pandemic.
Since 2023-2024, those numbers have dropped by 124,000, bringing the total to approximately 300,000 in 2025-2026, numbers “similar” to that observed in 2021-2022.
College programmes, which include certificate courses, were worst hit, with a decline of 42% from 2023-2024, “bringing the number of international students below the level recorded in 2021/2022.”
As for numbers related to enrolment at university, those fell by 17% during the same period. “Nevertheless, the number of international students dropped to a level below that observed in 2019/2020,” the study pointed out.
Indians form the largest cohort in the international student cohort. According to data from Immigration, Refugees and Citizenship Canada, study permits issued dropped by nearly 25% or 131,010 in 2025 as against the previous year, with Indians accounting for a massive 72% of that fall. India is the largest source country for this category and their numbers fell from 188,175 in 2024 to 94,605 in 2025.
“Preliminary results suggest that the new government measures led to a sharp decline in the new cohorts of international students and, to a lesser extent, a decline in total international student enrolment in public postsecondary institutions,” StatCan said.
