Canada announces new incentives for international recruitment of master’s and PhD students

On the heels of this week's announcement of a significant reduction in Canada's foreign enrolment cap, Immigration, Refugees and Citizenship Canada (IRCC) has issued additional guidance for students pursuing advanced degrees.

First, IRCC says that it will now offer expedited study permit processing for applicants admitted to doctoral programmes. Specifically:

• Study permit applications lodged by doctoral candidates from outside Canada will now be processed within 14 days
• That expedited processed will also extend to accompanying family members, so long as they apply at the same time as the doctoral student

IRCC adds: "Canada recognizes the important contributions doctoral degree students make to Canada’s research ecosystem and innovation agenda, including advancements in critical sectors like health care. Faster processing will make it that much easier for high-performing international doctoral students to pursue their education, research and post-graduation career here."

In addition, students enrolling in master's or doctoral programmes at public designated learning institutions (DLIs) will, as of January 2026, be exempt from the enrolment cap. This means that they will no longer require a provincial/territorial attestation letter (PAL/TAL).

IRCC clarifies that, "Master’s and doctoral degree students enrolling at a private DLI will continue to be subject to the intake cap’s [provincial/territorial attestation letter] requirement and will be counted as part of each province and territory’s overall allocation [under the enrolment cap]."

This means in turn that year-to-year comparisons now become a little tricker when relating this year's cap limit and the newly announced limits for 2026 (and after).

Historically, students in advanced degree programmes – including both master's and doctoral students – have represented a relatively small proportion of Canada's foreign enrolment base. In 2023, for example, graduate students accounted for just over 10% of all study permits approved.

Master's and doctoral students accounted for roughly 10% of the study permits approved in 2023, or just over 53,000 permits that year. Statistics Canada tells us otherwise that, as of the 2022/23 academic year, there were roughly 65,000 students enrolled in advanced degree programmes.

In simple terms, that would suggest that Canada could welcome another 30,000–50,000 students (or more) in advanced degree programmes in 2026 on top of the newly established cap limit of 155,000 new study permits for the year. That would mean that the reduction in the cap limit, rather than being -49% as initially calculated, could be anywhere from -41% to -30%.

The other thing that could be reasonably inferred from this new guidance is that IRCC has introduced some structural bias into the study permit system, and one that explicitly encourages public universities in Canada to expand recruitment for advanced degree programmes.

Along that line, an additional backgrounder from IRCC sets out Canada's intention to more aggressively compete for global talent by "expanding faster processing and [streamlining] the application process."

Indeed, IRCC has just released a special landing page targeted to graduate students which highlights some of these new incentives, notably the expedited processing for doctoral students and the cap exemption for graduate students enrolled in public institutions as of 1 January 2026.

For additional background, please see:

• "Canada cuts foreign enrolment cap by nearly 50% as current year trends below COVID levels"
• "Canada: Study permit numbers are in steep decline in 2025"
• "Measuring the impacts of the first full year of Canada’s foreign student enrolment cap"