Immigrants in Victoria, British Columbia | Annual Arrivals and Census Trends

In 2025, Victoria was the destination for 3,205 new immigrants.

Source: IRCC

• In 2025, 50,640 new permanent residents were admitted to British Columbia, 6.3% of them landed in Victoria.
• From 2020 to 2025, Victoria was the destination for 17,280 new immigrants.
• Immigration data highlights a growing trend pre-pandemic levels, a sharp decline in 2020, a rebound in 2023, and decline through 2025.

Immigrants in Victoria in Recent Years

Since 2020 immigration has supported steady population growth in Victoria and the surrounding British Columbia region with the Victoria census metropolitan area acting as a moderate but consistent destination for newcomers to Canada. Pandemic restrictions caused a temporary drop in permanent resident arrivals that year but inflows recovered in the following years as federal targets rose and Victoria attracted growing numbers of economic immigrants skilled professionals and family reunifications along with some international students.

Immigrants make up about 19 percent of the Capital Region population and the area received roughly 5 percent of British Columbias recent immigrants between 2016 and 2021 with continued arrivals afterward. Newcomers have settled across various neighborhoods from urban cores in Victoria and Saanich to growing suburbs such as Langford while international migration has remained an important contributor to the citys demographic gains. Housing pressures and recent federal adjustments to moderate immigration volumes have started to influence trends yet migration continues to play a meaningful role in Victorias population increases.

Foreign-born people in Victoria (2011 Census)

In 2011, 60,075 immigrants resided in Victoria.

In 2011, Victoria (CMA) British Columbia was home of the 13th largest immigration population in Canada.

In 2011, 60,075 immigrants accounted for 18% of Victoria’s population.

In 2011, the top largest groups of immigrants in Victoria were from the United Kingdom, the United States and China. Other top source countries were India, Germany, the Philippines, Netherlands, Hong Kong, South Africa and Poland; all together represented 69% of Victoria’s immigrant population.

Portugal, Italy, South Korea, Japan, Taiwan, Ireland, Mexico and France were also in the top 20 sources of immigration to Victoria.

In Victoria, B.C. the immigrant population grew 4% from 57,590 in 2001 to 60,075 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.