Immigration to the Northwest Territories

440 immigrants chose The Northwest Territories as their destination in 2025.

From 2020 to 2025, 1,845 new immigrants (permanent residents) chose the Northwest Territories as their destination in Canada.

Immigration to the Northwest Territories in Recent Years

Immigration to the Northwest Territories since 2020 has played a key role in supporting population stability and modest growth amid ongoing net losses from interprovincial migration. Net international migration turned positive and began rising from late 2020 after pandemic related restrictions eased, with annual gains climbing from around 168 people in 2020 to 2021 up to peaks of over 600 in recent years such as 624 in 2024. The territory welcomed roughly 810 recent immigrants between 2016 and 2021 according to census data, and programs like the Northwest Territories Nominee Program helped attract skilled workers through employer driven streams that saw increased approvals in the early 2020s. Without this international inflow the population would likely have declined in several years given negative domestic migration and low natural increase. Overall the immigrant share of the population reached about 10 percent by 2021 with the total number of immigrants living in the territory rising gradually to around 456 by some later estimates though numbers remain small compared to southern Canada.

IMMIGRATION TO THE NORTHWEST TERRITORIES