Canada is closing an uncapped permanent-residence pathway for Hong Kong residents Monday after applications came to represent 48,560 people, leaving Ottawa to process the remaining cases through an immigration category where admissions space has been sharply constrained.
IRCC said approximately 30,315 applications representing 48,560 people had been submitted under the Hong Kong public policy as of June 30. Of those, more than 8,600 applications representing 13,485 people had been approved, while approximately 13,370 people had obtained permanent-resident status.
The agency will stop taking new applications after August 31 but will continue processing applications received by the deadline.
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The closure does not eliminate the program’s central pressure point. Unlike immigration programs where intake is restricted to match planned admissions, the Hong Kong pathways had no cap on applications. Cases are processed on a first-in, first-out basis, while the program does not receive a dedicated admissions target of its own.
Instead, Hong Kong cases fall within Canada’s broader Humanitarian and Compassionate and Other immigration category, alongside other public policies and humanitarian programs.
Ottawa has allocated 6,900 admissions to that entire category in 2026. The target falls to 5,000 in 2027 and 5,000 in 2028.
That gap between intake and available admissions space has already translated into long projected waits. In a December 2025 briefing prepared for Parliament’s immigration committee, IRCC said high demand for the Hong Kong pathways had produced significant delays. The department said wait times for new applicants were expected to exceed 10 years because of the volume of applications and limited space in Canada’s immigration levels plan.
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A March 2026 briefing repeated that reduced humanitarian admissions would lengthen waits, particularly for high-demand programs such as the Hong Kong pathways.
Work permits bridge the wait
Ottawa has created a temporary mechanism allowing eligible applicants to remain in the workforce while their permanent-residence cases are processed. Applicants who meet the requirements can obtain an open work permit valid for up to three years.
The measure was introduced in May 2024 after IRCC acknowledged that rising processing times were leaving some Hong Kong applicants at risk of losing temporary status before receiving a permanent-residence decision.
IRCC says eligible applicants have until May 2029 to apply for that permit.
The permanent-residence program itself dates to 2021 and contains two streams. One covers eligible Hong Kong residents with recent Canadian post-secondary education, while the other covers applicants with qualifying Canadian work experience.
Canada introduced the pathways as part of its response to deteriorating civil and political rights in Hong Kong following Beijing’s imposition of the National Security Law.
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