Non-permanent residents and homeownership in Canada: What new StatCan data shows
A new report from Statistics Canada suggests that non-permanent residents (NPRs) play a far smaller role in Canada’s housing market than public perception might suggest, despite ongoing debates around immigration levels and housing affordability.
According to the report (released on December 11, 2025), less than 1% of all homeowners in Canada were NPRs at the start of 2022.
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NPRs, in this context, include individuals who hold valid temporary permits—such as work or study permits—or who had claimed refugee status as of December 31, 2021.
The report draws on 2022 data from the Canadian Housing Statistics Program (CHSP) and covers all provinces except Newfoundland and Labrador, Saskatchewan, and Quebec. Statistics Canada has not published figures for the territories due to small sample sizes.
What percentage of homeowners in Canada are non-permanent residents?
At the start of 2022, NPRs accounted for a very small share of Canada’s total homeowner population.
While the exact proportion varied by province, the share remained well below 0.5% in every province analyzed.
Prince Edward Island (PEI) recorded the highest share of NPR homeowners, while Alberta had the lowest.
You can view the table below to see the percentage of homeowners who are NPRS, by province:
| Province | Percentage of homeowners who are NPRs |
|---|---|
| Prince Edward Island | 0.39% |
| Manitoba | 0.25% |
| Nova Scotia | 0.17% |
| British Columbia | 0.13% |
| Ontario | 0.13% |
| New Brunswick | 0.10% |
| Alberta | 0.10% |
Further, NPR homeowners were generally concentrated in the largest city of each province, such as PEI’s Charlottetown or Calgary, for Alberta.
Even in provinces with the highest proportions, NPRs make up a negligible share of homeowners overall, reinforcing the report’s conclusion that their presence in the ownership market is minimal.
The report also makes clear that the homeownership rates were lower than the shares of NPRs in the total population for each province featured above.
What percentage of non-permanent residents own homes in Canada?
The report also examines homeownership rates among NPRs themselves—and finds them to be very low.
Among individuals who held a valid temporary permit at the start of 2022, only a small fraction owned a home.
The report highlighted two of Canada’s largest provinces to illustrate this point: Ontario and British Columbia.
In Ontario, just 1.64% of NPRs were homeowners, while this dropped to 1.41% for British Columbia.
By comparison, 40.3% of recent permanent residents (those who gained permanent resident status within the previous five years) and 47.8% of Canadian-born individuals owned homes in Ontario during the same period.
This stark contrast highlights the gap in housing outcomes between temporary residents and other population groups in Canada.
Why are non-permanent residents less likely to buy homes?
Statistics Canada notes that these findings are largely unsurprising, given the temporary nature of non-permanent resident status, which may discourage long-term financial commitments such as homeownership.
Other contributing factors identified in the report include:
- Many international students face limits on how many hours they can work, restricting income and employment stability.
- NPRs often have limited Canadian work and credit histories, which can affect mortgage eligibility.
- NPRs tend to be younger on average than Canadian-born individuals or permanent residents, leaving less time to accumulate savings for a down payment.
Together, these factors help explain why non-permanent residents remain largely absent from Canada’s homeownership market.
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