IRCC reports continued reduction in immigration application backlog
The application backlog at Immigration, Refugees and Citizenship Canada (IRCC) has seen a steady decline in recent months.
As of April 30, 2025, the department reported a total number of 760,200 applications in its backlog.
With the backlog standing at 779,900 just a month earlier, this represents a 2.53% reduction.
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This is the fifth month in a row that the backlog has remained below 1 million applications, and also the lowest backlog seen in the last six months.
For further context, please view the table below to see the total immigration backlog figures on the last day of each month over the last six months.
| Month | Immigration backlog | Change relative to preceding month |
|---|---|---|
| November, 2024 | 1,006,500 | -4.70% |
| December, 2024 | 942,300 | -6.38% |
| January, 2025 | 891,100 | -5.33% |
| February, 2025 | 821,200 | -7.95% |
| March, 2025 | 779,900 | -5.03% |
| April, 2025 | 760,200 | -2.53% |
As of April 30, the total application inventory stood at 2,041,800, whereas last month the inventory contained 1,976,700—which means there were 65,100 additional applications in the inventory by April’s end.
What is a backlog?
IRCC aims to finalize all immigration applications within their published service standards. When an application isn’t finalized within these service standards, it is classified as part of the backlog. These service standards act as IRCC’s internal guidelines for the ideal processing time of applications.
Service standards will vary depending on the type of application. For example, the immigration department seeks to process Express Entry applications within six months, whereas family sponsorship applications have a service standard of 12 months.
If IRCC takes longer than six months to process an Express Entry application or more than 12 months to reach a decision on a family sponsorship application, the application will be considered to be part of the backlog.
IRCC asserts that it is committed to processing 80% of the applications submitted within its service standards. The reason behind allowing 20% of applications to exceed the service standards is because some cases are more complex, and therefore require additional documentation, evaluation, or decision-making.
Current backlog
Permanent resident applications
As of April 30, 2025, IRCC had a total of 880,800 applications in its inventory for permanent residence (PR) immigration programs. These consist of the Express Entry, Express Entry-aligned Provincial Nominee Program (PNP) streams, and family sponsorship applications.
A total of 489,800 (56%) of these applications were processed within IRCC’s service standards. This means 391,000 applications were considered backlog.
Compared with last month, there were 28,100 more applications in the inventory as of April 2025.
The immigration department doesn’t provide specific figures, they have noted that 22% of Express Entry applications were considered backlogged, higher than the department’s projected backlog of 20%.
When it comes to PNP applications through Express Entry, the backlog was at 49%—whereas the backlog target was 35%, meaning that there was a 14% disparity between actual and targeted backlogged applications. Compared to data from the previous month, only 44% of applications were backlogged compared to a 30% projected backlog.
Finally, the family sponsorship backlog was at 14% as of April 2025 compared to an internal 15% backlog target, meaning the family sponsorship backlog remained well within expected backlog, mirroring data seen last month.
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Temporary resident permit applications
As of April’s end, 65% of temporary residency (TR) applications were being processed within IRCC’s service standards. This category consists of work permits, study permits, and visitor visas.
Of the 918,500 TR applications that were awaiting processing, 594,200 of these applications were processed within service standards—consequently, 324,300 applications remained in the backlog.
When it comes to work permits, 36% of all work permit applications were in the backlog against a projected backlog of 26%. This is indicative of IRCC making progress processing work permit applications, as last month the backlog for work permit applications was at 42%.
The government has also reduced the study permit application backlog, as only 30% of applications were backlogged compared to 37% the month prior. The projected backlog for the last two months was 15%, however, which indicates that IRCC ultimately fell short of their projected backlog target.
As for visitor visas, 54% of applications were backlogged despite a 38% projected backlog for such submissions—a gap of 16%. The visitor visa backlog, however, was 4% smaller than at the end of March 2025.
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Citizenship grants
The backlog for Canadian citizenship grant applications has remained notably low compared to other application backlogs, which remains consistent with data from previous months.
The total number of citizenship applications in IRCC’s inventory sat at 242,500 as of April 2025’s end.
Of these applications, 81% were processed within service standards, leaving only 44,900 applications (or 19%) in the backlog.
For comparison purposes, at the end of March, 2025, the total number of citizenship applications in IRCC’s inventory was 239,400, with 43,600 (or 18%) of these applications remaining in the backlog.
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How is IRCC reducing the backlog?
The immigration department continues to chip away at its application backlog. Some factors that may contribute to their recent success are detailed below.
IRCC has been making use of the advanced analytics and automation technologies implemented late last year (2024). These technologies haven’t replaced human application evaluation but rather are helping immigration officers with tasks such as application sorting, identifying complex cases, and summarizing information.
Several immigration programs or pilots have caps which restrict the inflow of applications. Such is the case with the recent 2025 study permit cap (550,162 applications) that has been implemented or the 5,500 application cap for the Home Care Worker Pilots that opened for a very brief period earlier this year.
Additionally, the 2025-27 Immigration Levels Plan, unveiled by the federal government in October 2024, reduces permanent residency targets over the next three years.
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