Year of immigration of immigrant

Status: This standard was approved as a departmental standard on July 31, 2026.

Definition

Year of immigration refers to the year in which the immigrant first obtained permanent resident (landed immigrant) status.

Immigrant refers to a person who is, or who has ever been, a permanent resident (landed immigrant). Such a person has been granted the right to live in Canada permanently by immigration authorities. Immigrants who have obtained Canadian citizenship by naturalization are included in this group.

Conformity to relevant internationally recognized standards

This standard is compatible with the recommendations for censuses contained in the United Nations' "Conference of European Statisticians Recommendations for the 2030 round of population and housing censuses", 2025. This document states that "Some countries may, for national policy needs, also wish to collect information on the year that permanent residency was granted for international migrants. This may be different from the year of arrival, and provides a measure of the duration of the time permanent residency (that is, the legal right to live in a country as a permanent resident) was granted". This standard follows this recommendation.

Measurements

• 'Calendar year' is expressed in single years, from the earliest year on the file to the reference year.
  
  Note: Single years can be collapsed to form larger categories, typically of five or ten years. February 15, 2016 to current

Additional information

To create periods of immigration for analytic purposes, single years of immigration can be collapsed to form larger categories, typically of five or ten years.

See:

• Citizenship of person
• Immigrant status of person
• Place of birth of person

Relation to previous version

• Year of immigration of immigrant July 31, 2026 to current

  The definitions of the concept "year of immigration" and of the statistical unit "immigrant" have been modified.

• Year of immigration of immigrant February 15, 2016 to July 30, 2026

  This standard has been updated by revising the definition of immigrant as well as the Measurement note.

• Year of immigration of immigrant April 18, 2011 to February 14, 2016

  This reformats and replaces the earlier standard 'Year or period of immigration' and is compatible with it.

• Year or period of immigration July 15, 1998 to April 17, 2011

  This was the departmental standard from July 15, 1998 to April 17, 2011.

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