
Entrepreneurial immigration through the Canada Start-up Visa Program (CSUV) is skyrocketing this year and is expected to welcome a record number of foreigners setting up new businesses here.
During the first five months of 2022, the CSUV Program saw 250 new permanent residents settle in Canada.
That helps Canada continue to welcome 600 new permanent residents through the program by 2022, the highest number since the program was first launched as a five-year pilot program in 2013.
Since the start of 2013, the Canada Start-up Visa Program (CSUV) has seen a record number of applications
In the five years from 2013 to 2019, the CSUV Program welcomed from just 55 new permanent residents in 2015 to more than nine times, 515 in 2019.
It was the last year before the global pandemic of Covid-19 hit Canada – Ottawa and other provinces adopted strict public health measures, including closing borders for a limited time, and immigration plummeted.
After welcoming 341,175 new permanent residents to Canada in 2019, immigration has dropped by 45.9%, to just 184,585 new permanent residents in 2020.
The number of foreign nationals who could come to Canada under the CSUV program and set up a business fell similarly that year, falling 49.5% to just 260 new permanent residents.
Last year, immigration boomed again, largely due to the Temporary Resident (TR) to Permanent Resident (PR) pathway, a one-time program designed to allow up to 90,000 foreign nationals to live in Canada on a temporary visa have the opportunity to apply for permanent residence.
As Canadian borders reopened and public health restrictions were gradually eased, a record number of 406,005 new permanent residents made Canada their new home country.
The CSUV program has recovered somewhat from its low in 2020, allowing 385 foreign nationals to become new Canadian permanent residents.
A new record in 2022
But the first 5 months of this year have witnessed the strongest growth of the CSUV Program. At the end of May, the show was on track to beat its previous record high in 2019 of 16.5%, if current trends continue.
The two provinces that received the biggest benefits from the CSUV Program last year were British Columbia, which welcomed 200 new permanent residents under the program, and Ontario, which saw 125 new permanent residents settle there under the CSUV Program.
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