Tens of thousands of overseas students with postgraduate work permits will see their visas expire this year, casting doubt on their prospects in Canada and prompting economists to speculate whether some may remain in the country as unauthorized citizens, reports The Globe and Mail.
At times, work permits expire without being extended. You can restore your work permit within the first 90 days after its expiration, allowing you to remain in Canada until instructions are received, but you must cease working until the permit is restored.
If the 90-day period elapses without action, you must leave Canada immediately; failure to do so could result in deportation, with future entry requiring permission from an immigration officer.
According to data from Immigration, Refugees and Citizenship Canada (IRCC) provided to The Globe and Mail, there were 31,610 people with valid postgraduate work permits in the country as of September 30, and those visas will expire by December 31.
Many had taken on massive sums of debt to pay for overseas student fees, with the intention of eventually obtaining permanent residency. Some are among the 31,610 individuals whose visas will expire in the coming weeks.
These figures have recently come under investigation by economists and immigration experts since it is unknown how many temporary residents stay in the country after their visas expire, contributing to the unauthorized population.
Canada Work Permit
A post-graduation work permit (PGWP) may be valid anywhere between 8 months and up to 3 years. Unless you’ve graduated from a master’s degree program, the length of your permit will depend on the length of the study program you completed in Canada.
According to recent data, temporary residents account for 7.3% of the overall population, or three million individuals. However, those figures do not include people who are still in the country on expired visas as they seek a new path to permanent status. The federal government intends to reduce that amount to 5% by the end of 2027, one year later than originally intended.
“How many expired visa-holders remain and are still residents of Canada? In previous research, we estimated that number to be close to one million, with the overwhelming majority being expired temporary visa-holders who arrived in Canada legally, as long as a generation (or two) ago,” wrote CIBC deputy chief economist Benjamin Tal in an April report.
In a statement to The Globe, the federal Immigration Department said it did not have an estimate of the number of people in Canada on expired postgraduate work permits.
“Once someone receives a permit, they must abide by the condition of their permit, including the legal requirement to leave Canada at the end of the authorized period of stay,” the IRCC said in the e-mailed statement to The Globe.
Last year, the Canada Border Services Agency deported around 18,000 persons, but the agency does not disclose the breakdown by study or work permit.
Canada Work Permit Data
The latest IRCC data show that the number of expiring postgraduate work permits is down sharply from the same period last year, when approximately 70,000 were due to expire.
It is difficult to estimate how many overseas students departed the country after their visas expired, found new occupations on alternative work permits, successfully transitioned to permanent residency, or remained without status.
According to IRCC data, of the approximately 115,000 postgraduate work permit holders whose visas expired in 2025, just 12% had their work permits extended or moved to another permit.
These figures do not include those who have moved to permanent residency. According to Statistics Canada data, 12% of those who became permanent residents in 2022 had previously obtained postgraduate work permits.
Because of the large number of study permits awarded to foreign students in the last five years to cover pandemic-era job shortages, international students have become a fixture in the debate over Canada’s immigration rules.
The number of overseas students increased from about 350,000 in 2015 to more than a million by 2023. The number of postgraduate work permits, which are one- to three-year visas, increased even more dramatically over that time: from 33,615 to 240,200, a more than 600% rise.
