What Statistics Canada's July 1, 2026 Estimate Means for Resale Demand, Student Rentals and Regional Markets
Credit: Homeowner.ca
Statistics Canada released its annual July 1 population estimate on September 23, 2026, and the headline is stark. Canada grew by 189,425 people, or 0.5%, to an estimated 41,798,407. That is the smallest year-over-year gain in absolute terms since the Second World War and the slowest percentage growth since the First World War. It also came in below the 2020/2021 pandemic year, when the border was largely closed.
Most coverage will treat this as an immigration story. For a homeowner, it reads differently. Population is the raw material of housing demand, and the release shows the raw material changing in composition as well as volume: fewer students, fewer people in their 20s, an older median age and a widening gap between Alberta and the three largest provinces. Some of that reaches the rental market within months. Some of it will not show up in resale demand for five to ten years, if it shows up at all.
This piece separates the two. It walks through what Statistics Canada actually measured, how the cohort changes connect to future buyers and current tenants, where the provinces diverge, and what population data cannot tell you about the value of your home. It is not a price forecast, and nothing here is a recommendation to buy, sell or renovate.
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The headline number comes from Statistics Canada's September 23 release in The Daily, and it carries two historical comparisons that are easy to blur. The absolute gain of 189,425 people was the smallest July-to-July increase since 1944/1945, when the population rose by about 126,000. The percentage rate of 0.5% was the lowest since 1915/1916, when growth was roughly 0.3%. So "lowest since 1945" is accurate for the number of people added, and "lowest since 1916" is accurate for the rate. They are not the same claim.
The trajectory matters as much as the level. Annual growth ran at 0.6% in 2020/2021, then climbed to 1.8%, 2.7% and a peak of 2.8% in 2023/2024. It has since slowed to 1.1% in 2024/2025 and 0.5% in 2025/2026. In other words, Canada went from its fastest modern growth to its slowest in two years. The second quarter of 2026 alone added 80,343 people, the weakest second quarter since the start of the pandemic in 2020.
Statistics Canada attributes nearly all of the swing since 2020 to international migration. Natural increase (births minus deaths) moves slowly by comparison. That is the key to reading the housing implications: the people who arrived in large numbers from 2022 to 2024, and who are now leaving or not arriving, skew young and skew toward renting.
This release also changed how non-permanent residents are counted. Statistics Canada now uses Canada Border Services Agency entry-and-exit data to estimate permit holders who leave before their permits expire, and it better accounts for people on maintained status while an extension is processed. Population estimates were revised back to July 1, 2021. The figures are preliminary, they are not 2026 Census counts, and they will be updated again. Treat the direction as solid and the exact decimals as provisional.
The single largest component was a decline in non-permanent residents: people living in Canada on work or study permits, plus asylum claimants and their families. Their number fell by 154,614 over the year to 2,779,774, or 6.7% of the population. That is the largest annual decline since comparable records began in 1971/1972, and it follows a peak of 2,984,285 (7.2% of the population) on October 1, 2024.
Inside that total, two groups did most of the work:
Statistics Canada describes the permanent-immigration figure as consistent with federal targets that were lowered in recent levels plans. Whatever one thinks of the policy, the housing-relevant point is mechanical: fewer arrivals and more departures in the youngest adult age bands means fewer new renter households forming this year, and a smaller pool of people ageing into ownership later.
The age data make that concrete. Canada's median age rose 0.3 years to 40.9, and the share of people 65 and older reached 20.0%. The two five-year age groups that shrank most were 20 to 24 (down 63,838, or 2.4%) and 25 to 29 (down 91,135, or 3.1%). Together, the population in its 20s fell by 154,973 people, or 2.8%, which Statistics Canada says is consistent with the fall in study permit holders, since international students tend to be young adults.
Most Canadians do not buy their first home in their early 20s. They rent first, often for a decade or more, and the transition to ownership concentrates in the late 20s and 30s. Statistics Canada's intergenerational study of millennials in the housing market shows how steep that curve is. In 2021, adjusted homeownership among millennials was 31.3% at ages 25 to 29, 52.6% at 30 to 34 and 64.2% at 35 to 39.
That curve is the fuse. Someone who was 25 in 2026 moves into the highest-transition ages over the next five to ten years. If that cohort is smaller than it would otherwise have been, the stream of first-time buyers bidding on starter condos, townhouses and older semis is thinner than the 2022–2024 trend implied. For owners of entry-level property, that is the relevant demographic question: not whether Canada is growing, but whether the specific group that buys your type of home is.
Three qualifications keep this from becoming a forecast.
First, not every person in the missing 154,973 would have stayed, let alone bought. Some international students leave when their studies end, and those who stay can take years to reach ownership.
Second, cohort size has never been the only driver of ownership. The same Statistics Canada study found millennial ownership at ages 25 to 39 was 49.9% in 2021, compared with 56.2% for Gen-Xers in 2006 and 55.9% for baby boomers in 1991 at the same ages. A large generation did not automatically produce a higher ownership rate, and Statistics Canada points to affordability and later life milestones as part of the explanation.
Third, household formation is elastic. The share of Canadians aged 25 to 29 living with their parents doubled from 15.7% in 1991 to 31.1% in 2021, reaching 48.6% in Toronto and 36.9% in Vancouver. That is a large reservoir of delayed demand. If prices or rents ease, some of those young adults move out and form households, partly offsetting a smaller cohort.
The honest summary: a smaller young-adult population removes a demographic tailwind. It does not, by itself, create a headwind strong enough to predict prices.
For recent context on how resale activity has actually been moving, see our coverage of May resales jumping 5.5% as price erosion neared a floor.
Most Canadians do not buy their first home in their early 20s. They rent first, often for a decade or more, and the transition to ownership concentrates in the late 20s and 30s. Statistics Canada's intergenerational study of millennials in the housing market shows how steep that curve is. In 2021, adjusted homeownership among millennials was 31.3% at ages 25 to 29, 52.6% at 30 to 34 and 64.2% at 35 to 39.
That curve is the fuse. Someone who was 25 in 2026 moves into the highest-transition ages over the next five to ten years. If that cohort is smaller than it would otherwise have been, the stream of first-time buyers bidding on starter condos, townhouses and older semis is thinner than the 2022–2024 trend implied. For owners of entry-level property, that is the relevant demographic question: not whether Canada is growing, but whether the specific group that buys your type of home is.
Three qualifications keep this from becoming a forecast.
First, not every person in the missing 154,973 would have stayed, let alone bought. Some international students leave when their studies end, and those who stay can take years to reach ownership.
Second, cohort size has never been the only driver of ownership. The same Statistics Canada study found millennial ownership at ages 25 to 39 was 49.9% in 2021, compared with 56.2% for Gen-Xers in 2006 and 55.9% for baby boomers in 1991 at the same ages. A large generation did not automatically produce a higher ownership rate, and Statistics Canada points to affordability and later life milestones as part of the explanation.
Third, household formation is elastic. The share of Canadians aged 25 to 29 living with their parents doubled from 15.7% in 1991 to 31.1% in 2021, reaching 48.6% in Toronto and 36.9% in Vancouver. That is a large reservoir of delayed demand. If prices or rents ease, some of those young adults move out and form households, partly offsetting a smaller cohort.
The honest summary: a smaller young-adult population removes a demographic tailwind. It does not, by itself, create a headwind strong enough to predict prices.
For recent context on how resale activity has actually been moving, see our coverage of May resales jumping 5.5% as price erosion neared a floor.
If the resale implication runs on a five-to-ten-year fuse, the rental implication is closer to real time. Students form rental households the month they arrive and vacate them the month they leave. The 140,827 decline in study permit holders lands directly on units near campuses, in basement suites and in small condos that were underwritten on student demand.
The market was already showing it. The 2025 Rental Market Report from Canada Mortgage and Housing Corporation (CMHC) found the national purpose-built vacancy rate rose from 2.2% in 2024 to 3.1% in 2025, above its 10-year average. CMHC said vacancies climbed most in areas with new rental completions or near post-secondary institutions where international-student demand fell. In Toronto's Downsview, the vacancy rate went from 0.7% in 2023 to 3.1% in 2025, and post-secondary neighbourhoods in Mississauga and Brampton exceeded 4%. CMHC also identified departing study- and work-permit holders aged 15 to 34 as primary drivers of weaker rental household formation in 2025.
Rents available to new tenants followed. CMHC's average two-bedroom turnover rent fell from $2,883 to $2,696 in Vancouver, from $2,612 to $2,547 in Toronto and from $1,927 to $1,836 in Calgary. Those are the rents a landlord actually faces when a unit turns over, which makes them more relevant to a suite owner than the average rent across all occupied units.
The September 2026 release does not measure rents. What it does is confirm that the population behind that softening kept shrinking through July 1, 2026, at a faster pace than before.
Our earlier reporting on Canadian rents falling to a 33-month low as population decline and new supply reshaped the market covers the landlord side in more detail.
If rental income from a suite or condo is part of how you qualify for, or plan to carry, a mortgage, check your assumption against current turnover rents in your specific neighbourhood rather than the rent you achieved in 2024. Proximity to a college or university is the variable most exposed to the study permit decline.
A 0.5% national figure blends very different provincial realities. Statistics Canada notes that Ontario, Quebec and British Columbia tend to receive the largest share of international migrants and so were hit hardest when migration fell. Alberta led the provinces, but it was not alone above the national rate.
Growth was slower in every province than the year before. The practical takeaway is less about Alberta's lead and more about the bottom three rows: the provinces that hold most of Canada's housing equity grew at one-fifth to three-fifths of the national rate.
Population growth describes demand. Prices and rents are set where demand meets supply. Alberta illustrates the difference. CMHC's rental data showed Calgary's purpose-built vacancy rate holding at 5.0% in 2025, even as the city's rental stock grew by a record 11%. CMHC said population and employment supported demand, but slower migration and higher youth unemployment slowed household formation. Faster population growth did not translate into a tight rental market because supply grew faster still.
The same logic runs in reverse for Ontario and British Columbia. Slow population growth in a market that is still structurally short of housing may soften conditions rather than reverse them. Local supply pipelines matter as much as the provincial headline.
For a recent example of prices moving differently by region, see new home prices falling 0.4% in April as Alberta and Ontario led the national retreat.
Population is one input. It is not a price model, and the federal housing agency is explicit about that. CMHC's framework for estimating housing supply shortages treats population, household formation, incomes, interest rates, housing costs and supply as interacting drivers rather than assuming a fixed number of homes per person. Its modelling finds that lower prices can prompt adult children to leave the parental home and form new households; in its additional-supply scenario, total households in 2035 were roughly 2% higher than otherwise. Demand, in that view, responds to affordability as well as headcount.
Financing costs can move demand faster than demographics. Bank of Canada staff research published in August 2026 found that lower interest rates raise housing demand quickly, lift housing starts with a delay and push prices up persistently, with larger effects when unemployment is low. The authors concluded that demand generally responds more strongly than supply, and that labour-market conditions materially change the response.
Put together, a useful way to hold this release is as a set of dials rather than a verdict:
Only the first two are in this release. The other two can offset or amplify them.
Our coverage of home prices posting their first monthly gain since November 2024 as inventory fell to 4.7 months shows how supply and inventory can move prices in the short run regardless of population trend.
The release supports a few planning considerations, each with different timing and confidence.
For owners of entry-level homes in Ontario, Quebec and B.C., the case for assuming that rapid population growth will keep lifting demand has weakened. That does not mean values will fall. It means a demographic tailwind is a riskier assumption than it was in 2023, and long-range plans that depend on it deserve a second look.
For owners weighing a renovation partly on expected resale recovery, the release is a reminder that resale value depends on who is buying. A smaller pool of young buyers is one more reason to judge a project on how much you will use it, with any resale payback treated as uncertain rather than assumed.
For suite landlords and small condo investors, the signal is nearer term and more local. Units priced for international students near post-secondary campuses face the most direct exposure, and CMHC's neighbourhood data show that exposure is uneven even within a single metro area.
For anyone in the six provinces growing faster than the national rate, the relative picture is stronger, but supply in those markets decides whether growth shows up in rents and prices.
Demographic data describe the pool of potential buyers and tenants. They do not predict what your home will sell for, and they are not a reason on their own to buy, sell, move or renovate. Local supply, interest rates and your own timeline matter more to any individual decision.
The broader market has already been adjusting to uncertainty in its own way, as seen in the CPA Canada survey finding 55% of homeowners staying put indefinitely.
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About the Author
Ryan is the founder of Homeowner.ca and a proud Canadian homeowner based in Guelph, Ontario. Over his 25-year career in digital publishing, he has focused on transforming complex information into clear, practical guidance that helps people make confident, well-informed decisions.
