Immigrants in Hamilton, Ontario | Annual Arrivals and Census Trends

In 2025, Hamilton was the destination for 5,945 new immigrants.

Source: IRCC

• In 2025, 169,550 new permanent residents were admitted to Ontario, 3.5% of them landed in Hamilton.
• From 2020 to 2025, Hamilton was the destination for 34,865 new immigrants.
• Hamilton immigration data highlights a steady trend pre-pandemic levels, a sharp decline in 2020, a rebound in 2021, and decline by 2025.

Immigrants in Hamilton in Recent Years

Since 2020 immigration has contributed notably to population growth in Hamilton and the surrounding Ontario region with the Hamilton census metropolitan area serving as an attractive destination for newcomers to Canada. Pandemic restrictions caused a temporary decline in permanent resident arrivals that year but numbers recovered in the following years as national targets expanded and Hamilton drew increasing shares of economic immigrants skilled professionals and family reunifications. Immigrants represent roughly 26 percent of the metropolitan population and the area has absorbed a meaningful portion of recent arrivals to the province. Newcomers have settled across diverse neighborhoods from central urban zones to expanding suburbs while international migration has acted as the leading factor in the citys demographic expansion. Housing strains and recent federal efforts to moderate immigration volumes have begun shaping settlement dynamics yet migration continues to support Hamiltons steady population increases.

Foreign-born people in Hamilton (2011 Census)

In 2011, 232,195 foreign citizens resided in Hamilton, Ontario.

 In 2011, Hamilton was among the top ten immigration receiving Census Metropolitan Areas (CMAs) in Canada.

In 2011, 232,195 immigrants accounted for 23.5% of Hamilton’s population.

In 2011, the top three largest groups of immigrants were from the United Kingdom, Italy and India. Other top immigration countries were Poland, Portugal, Philippines, USA, Croatia, China, Germany, the Netherlands, Iraq, Pakistan and Bosnia & Herzegovina; all together represented 65.3% of Hamilton’s immigrant population.

Viet Nam, Jamaica, Romania, Serbia, Colombia and South Korea were also in the top 20 sources of immigration to Hamilton.

In Hamilton, the immigrant population grew 7.8% from 154,655 in 2001 to 166,755 in 2011.

Note:

We would like to point out that we used data from the National Household Survey (NHS) knowing that its quality is still under criticism because this survey was conducted on a voluntary basis, so its validity, reliability and comparability with other instruments, such as population censuses, have become an issue. In fact, before the first release of the NHS results, Statistics Canada issued warnings and cautions when using the NHS data, so use this data cautiously.