The number of people who are receiving Canada visitor visas has reduced drastically over the past one year. Latest statistics show that countries including Kenya have seen a large drop in the number of visitor visas for Canada.
The latest data shows that the number of Kenyans given Canada visitor visas in 2024 dropped by 72 percent from 11,464 to 3,199. Kenya was not the only affected country as Nigeria saw a drop from 79,378 to 51,828 visitor visas.
At the same time, the number of visitor visas granted to Bangladeshi citizens dropped to 27,975 from 45,322 while for Haitians, the number dropped to 5,487 from 8,984.
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In 2024, statistics show that Canada gave visitor visas to 330 Afghans. This was down from 468. 38,075 Iranians received visas to visit Canada down from 57,127 while 2,019 Ugandans got the visas down from 6,096. The data further shows that 1,174 Syrians received the visitor visas. This number was a decrease from the 2,716 that was recorded in the previous 2023 year.
Altogether, Canada issued about 1.5 million visitor visas in 2024, down from about 1.8 million in 2023. These drops come as Canada faces historic refugee claims that have been attributed to issuance of visitor visas to applicants from countries considered as high sources of refugee claimants.
For instance, data from the Immigration and Refugee Board shows that the number of pending claims is currently at a historic high of over 278,457. In the month of January 2025 alone, 11,840 people filed refugee claims in Canada. This was however a drop from the high of 19,821 that was recorded in July 2024.
