2025 Agri‑Food and Parent/Grandparent Intake Caps

Summary#

These are two sets of ministerial instructions under the Immigration and Refugee Protection Act about who Canada will accept for processing in 2025. One sets a cap for the Agri-Food Immigration Class intake; the other pauses new intakes for parents and grandparents and limits 2025 processing to applications received in 2024. Both take effect January 1, 2025 and were signed on December 19, 2024 by The Hon. Marc Miller, P.C., M.P.

What it does#

• Ministerial Instructions regarding the processing of applications under the Agri-Food Immigration Class

  • The government will accept up to 1 000 applications submitted online for permanent residence under the Agri-Food Immigration Class in 2025.
  • A separate, much smaller cap of 10 applications is set for people who must use alternate submission formats (for example, if they cannot apply online).
  • Applications are counted in the order they are received. Only those that meet required completeness rules will be entered into processing. Applications that fail a separate registration rule will not count toward the cap.

• Ministerial Instructions with respect to the processing of applications for a permanent resident visa made by parents or grandparents

  • No new parent or grandparent permanent-residence applications or related sponsorships will be accepted for processing in 2025 unless they were received in 2024.
  • The Department will accept up to 15 000 sponsorship applications received in 2024 to be processed during 2025.
  • To be processed, those 2024 applications must meet specific conditions: they generally had to be submitted online, match the information from a prior “interest to sponsor” or invitation, include required documents, and meet the deadline tied to the sponsor’s invitation.
  • Sponsors given an invitation must submit applications within at least 60 calendar days; in some cases the department may grant an extra 30 calendar days to provide missing documents.
  • Humanitarian-and-compassionate requests filed from outside Canada that accompany an application not accepted for processing will not be considered.

Who's affected#

• Prospective immigrants applying under the Agri-Food Immigration Class who plan to submit a 2025 application — only the first 1 000 online applicants (and 10 in alternate formats) will be accepted for processing.
• People planning to sponsor their parents or grandparents under the family class — new sponsorships not already received in 2024 will not be accepted in 2025.
• Sponsors and applicants who submitted an interest or were invited earlier (including the randomized invitations linked to interests submitted in 2020) — their 2024 applications may still be processed in 2025 if they meet the conditions.
• People who intended to apply in 2025 but did not submit in 2024 — they will be blocked from having new applications processed in 2025.
• Anyone submitting humanitarian-and-compassionate requests from outside Canada along with an application that is not accepted — those requests will not be processed.

Why it matters#

• These instructions set clear limits on how many people can move forward in two immigration streams in 2025. That affects who gets considered and when.
• For farm and food-sector workers, the numeric cap could make the intake competitive and mean some applicants are turned away even if they apply.
• For families, the pause on new parent-and-grandparent intakes in 2025 slows family reunification for people who did not already submit in 2024.
• People whose applications are not accepted will have their application and fees returned, and some humanitarian requests tied to those applications will not be reviewed.