Immigration, Refugees and Citizenship Canada (IRCC) has announced on Oct 8, 2025 that it does not plan to clear the entirety of PR applications received until now in this year. Only some of the PR applications will be cleared this year with the rest bound to be cleared in the next year. 

As per the immigration department’s most recent Minister Transition Binder, only Express Entry Program, Express Entry aligned Provincial Nominee Program (PNP) stream, IRCC’s community pilot and Quebec skilled worker pathway will see their total inventory of applications processed in 2025.

Other economic PR pathways will maintain inventories at different levels (depending on each pathway) and only a portion of their respective inventories will be processed in 2025.

This article will look into the plan for application processing, inventory and wait times for Canada’s federally managed economic PR pathways. 

IRCC seeks to clear entire application inventory of the following economic PR pathways in 2025 namely:

1. The Canadian Experience Class
2. Community Pilots
3. The Federal Skilled Workers Program
4. The Federal Skilled Trades Program
5. Enhanced PNP streams
6. Quebec Experience Class
7. Quebec Pilot Program
8. Quebec Skilled Worker Selection Program

Remaining PR pathways will see only a few percent of its inventory of applications to be processed in 2025.

Express Entry:

All inventory of applications under Express Entry scheme will be processed in 2025.

This includes CEC and FSW programs

Applications wait times (in months) over the last year for these pathways is given below:

Provincial Nominee Program (PNP) 

PNP streams that are aligned with Express Entry (Also known as enhanced PNP stream) will see their full application inventory processed in 2025. PNP streams that are not aligned with Express Entry will only see 35% of their application inventory processed in 2025. Base PNP streams are those that do not align with Express Entry. 

Application wait times (in months) given for these pathways are given below:

Quebec:

Quebec’s skilled worker pathways including Quebec Skilled Worker Selection Program, Quebec Experience Class and Quebec Pilot Program are set to be cleared of inventory in 2025. On the other hand Quebec’s Business Pathways (including Quebec Investor Program, Quebec Entrepreneur Program and Quebec Self-Employed Program) will see only 3% of the inventory to be cleared. 

Application Wait in Times (in months) for these two classes are given below:

Atlantic Immigration Program (AIP):

IRCC will process 33% of AIP application inventory in the remainder of 2025.

AIP application wait times (in months) over the last year is given below:

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Federal Economic Pilots:

Canada’s federal economic pilots include Agrifood Pilot (now closed), caregiver pilots (including Home Care Worker Immigration Pilots (HCWP), Home Child Care Provider Pilot (closed) and Home Support Worker Pilot (Closed)) and the Economic Mobility Pathways Pilot (EMPP). 

The percentage of inventory to be cleared each pathway in 2025 is given below, alongside the inventory numbers that this percentage corresponds to:

Historic Wait Times (in months) for the last year for these pilots is given below:

A point to be noted is that IRCC has recently closed the intake for “applicants not in Canada” stream of HCWP, indicating that the department would not add to caregiver inventory this year.

Federal Community Pilots:

Federal Community Pilots include Rural Immigration Community Program (RCIP), Francophone Community Immigration Program (FCIP) and the Rural and Northern Immigration Pilot (RNIP) (now closed)

In 2025, IRCC plans to clear its remaining application inventory for the following programs:

Applicant wait times for these pilots (in months) over the last year given below:

Start Up Visa (SUV):

Canada’s Federal Startup Visa program will only process 2% of its inventory this year:

Applicant wait times for SUV (in months) over the last year given below:

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