Last month, an industry report projected that study permit extensions will likely account for over 60% of student visas issued in 2025. As the report highlighted, IRCC’s net zero growth model for its 2024 study permits target estimated about 20% of permits would go toward student visa extensions. This means that extensions accounting for 60% of all permit issuances in 2025 will be triple IRCC’s estimate for the previous year.

Visa extensions outnumbering new visa issuances risks long-term sustainability in Canada’s education sector. A declining volume of incoming students disrupts the continuity of enrolment cycles, posing challenges for institutional planning, resource allocation, and long-term funding models.

The consequences of this imbalance won’t be felt equally across the country. Larger provinces with sizable international student populations may grapple with program under-enrolment and funding volatility, while smaller provinces risk losing students altogether if extensions do not translate into long-term retention. These pressures will test how well provincial strategies can adapt to shifting enrolment flows.

Study Permit Extensions Trends Relative to Total Issuances

Study permit extensions represent students who are extending their studies, as well as onshore students who are changing programs or study levels. As of November 2024, students require an extension to change institutions whereas previously they could do so under their prior study permit.

The proportion of study permit extensions has climbed sharply since 2024, reflecting a fundamental shift in Canada’s international student population¹. This trend marks a departure from historical patterns, where new student intake consistently drove overall permit volumes.

Prior to the policy changes in 2024, study permit extensions accounted for about 30% of issued student visas. This means the estimated 20% under 2024’s net zero growth model was already a significant underrepresentation of historical norms. 

In total, about 257,000 study permit extensions and 163,000 new study permits are projected for the full-year 2025. This would bring 2025’s total issuances close to IRCC’s annual target; however, with extensions doing most of the heavy lifting, it heightens the risk of deeper enrolment shortfalls in the years ahead.

What Are the Provincial Implications of Canada’s Shift Toward Permit Extensions?

With extensions expected to comprise a growing share of study permit issuances, institutions across Canada may need to recalibrate how and where they compete for international enrolments. The shift could force new strategic priorities, especially for schools that have historically relied on steady growth from new student intake.

Study permit issuances for eight of Canada’s ten provinces are projected to be at least 50% in extensions in 2025. Newfoundland and Labrador (40%) and New Brunswick (35%) are the exceptions in this forecast, though in New Brunswick’s case, the share of extensions is still nearly twice as high as it was in 2022 and 2023.

It’s important to note that these projections reflect total study permit issuances, including those exempt from the provincial attestation process—such as K-12 students, priority groups and vulnerable cohorts—and extensions at the same DLI and study level. IRCC’s 2025 target allocates 120,700 permits to these exemptions, including 72,200 for K–12 students. 

That K–12 figure appears significantly underestimated and could place additional limitations on post-secondary allocations. In both 2023 and 2024, roughly 120,000 study permits were issued to K-12 students. Hitting the 2025 target would require a 39% drop in that number. Yet as of now, K-12 permit issuances are up 4% year over year—suggesting Canada is on track to match previous years, not reduce.

Do Visa Processing Times Hint at a Coming Change of Course?

Though 2025’s overall targets haven’t changed, trends in processing times may reflect shifting emphasis between different types of study permits. While processing times have always fluctuated, institutions watching these patterns may gain early insight into how permit composition could evolve in the months ahead, including into the fall intake and beyond.

Study permit extension wait times fell significantly in the first quarter of 2025 compared to late 2024, but spiked dramatically in April. On April 1, the posted wait time was 120 days. By April 30, it had surged to 220 days, nearly doubling in a month and marking the highest overall processing time on record². Wait times held steady in the 230-day range through May before easing slightly in June.

New study permit applications from students already onshore followed a similar pattern: a sharp decline in wait times early in the year, followed by a sudden spike. For this cohort, however, the increase occurred primarily in June, with wait times reaching 14 weeks by June 24 after falling as low as 3 weeks in April³. Meanwhile, wait times for new offshore students show the opposite—a rise in early 2025, followed by declines in May and June.

While not definitive, these diverging trends hint at a possible reordering of processing priorities. For institutions, they offer a directional signal that could help inform how different student cohorts are being prioritized operationally—especially as they assess what to expect from future permit composition.

How Capio Can Help Institutions Navigate a Structurally Difference Student Landscape

As permit extensions take on an outsized role in Canada’s international education landscape, institutions must navigate a more complex mix of policy effects, shifting student pathways, and uneven regional impacts. This year’s study permit system isn’t just smaller—it’s structurally different, and that difference brings both planning challenges and strategic opportunities.

Capio helps institutions move with greater clarity through this complexity. With near-real-time data on permit issuances, approval rates, and processing timelines by study level, province, and source country, Capio equips institutional teams to monitor not only how much student demand is shifting, but where and when. From understanding regional permit composition to anticipating processing slowdowns, Capio’s tools help institutions adapt with speed and precision.

Key Findings Today

• Study permit extensions are projected to account for over 60% of total student visas in 2025, triple the proportion estimated under IRCC’s 2024 net zero growth model. This shift risks future enrolment shortfalls if new student intake continues to decline.
• Eight out of ten provinces are forecasted to issue at least half of their permits as extensions, with smaller provinces still seeing sharp increases over historical norms. This shift may push institutions to re-evaluate recruitment and retention strategies across regions.
• K-12 student permits remain well above target levels, which could squeeze available volume for post-secondary institutions under IRCC’s current caps.

1. All data courtesy of IRCC. For the purposes of this article, all withdrawn applications have been removed from the data.
2. Prior to December 20, 2023, IRCC published separate wait times for online and paper-based extension applications. Since then, only a combined processing time has been listed, as online submissions have been mandatory for most applicants since June 2019. Between April 2021 and December 2023, the longest online processing time reached 164 days, while paper applications exceeded 200 days in May of both 2022 and 2023.
3. IRCC reports wait times for new study permits in weeks and for extensions in days. To enable comparison, we calculated the monthly average for new permits in weeks and converted it to days by multiplying by seven.