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

In 2025, Vancouver was the destination for 36,335 new immigrants.

Source: IRCC

• In 2025, 50,640 new permanent residents were admitted to British Columbia, 71.8% of them landed in Vancouver.
• From 2020 to 2025, Vancouver was the destination for 263,915 new immigrants.
• The immigration data highlights a growing trend pre-pandemic levels, a sharp decline in 2020, a strong rebound leading up to 2024, and continuous decline through 2025.

Immigrants in Vancouver in Recent Years

Since 2020 immigration has continued to shape Vancouver and its surrounding region in British Columbia with Greater Vancouver remaining a primary destination for newcomers to Canada. Although pandemic restrictions sharply reduced permanent resident arrivals in 2020 the numbers rebounded strongly in subsequent years as Canada pursued elevated national targets with Vancouver receiving a notable share of economic immigrants skilled workers and family reunifications.

Immigrants now account for over 40 percent of the metropolitan population and the area welcomed around 11.7 percent of recent immigrants to Canada in 2021. Much of this growth has concentrated in suburban municipalities such as Richmond and Burnaby while the City of Vancouver itself experienced more modest increases in its immigrant population. Housing pressures and policy shifts toward sustainable immigration levels in recent years have influenced settlement patterns yet international migration remains the dominant driver of population growth in the region.

Foreign-born people in Vancouver (2011 Census)

In 2011, a total of 913,310 immigrants resided in Vancouver.

• In 2011, the Census Metropolitan Area of Vancouver was home to the second largest immigrant population in Canada
• In 2011, a total of 913,310 immigrants accounted for 40% of Vancouver’s population, and they represented 21% of British Columbia’s population
• In 2011, Chinese, Indian and Filipino were the largest immigrant groups in Vancouver. Other top source countries of immigration were Hong Kong, United Kingdom, Taiwan, South Korea, Iran, United States and Viet Nam. All together represented 71% of the immigrant population in Vancouver.
• In Vancouver, the immigrant population grew 24% from 738,550 in 2001 to 913,310 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.