Toronto Dropped to 412th in Metro Growth as 2025 Migration Patterns Reversed a Decade of Gains
The city that added 119,800 people in 2023 now ranks behind Kelowna, Kamloops, and Lethbridge in population growth. Between July 2024 and July 2025, Toronto's net gain was roughly 47,000 people, less than half its historical pace and the worst 12-month performance since the pandemic year of 2020.
The driver is not mysterious. Federal immigration policy shifted hard in late 2024, cutting planned permanent resident admissions from 485,000 to 395,000 and tightening temporary resident caps across the board. That policy change hit Toronto harder than anywhere else because Toronto has, for a decade, depended on immigration not just for growth but to offset the steady bleed of domestic out-migration.
That bleed is old news. Since 2015, Toronto has lost roughly 30,000 to 40,000 residents per year to other parts of Canada, most heading to the 905 suburbs, Calgary, and increasingly to smaller metros like Guelph and Kingston. For years, it didn't matter. International arrivals more than made up the difference. In 2022 and 2023, Toronto's immigrant intake was high enough that the city still led the country in absolute population gains despite the domestic exodus.
Now the math has inverted. Immigration is down by roughly 30%. Domestic out-migration continues at the same pace it has for years. The result is a net growth rate that looks more like Edmonton's than Toronto's.
What this means for the rental stock
Toronto added roughly 28,000 rental units between 2020 and 2024, most of them purpose-built apartments in the core and along the subway corridors. That construction was underwritten by a simple assumption: demand would keep climbing. Rents softened slightly in mid-2024, but the expectation was that it was a pause, not a turn.
A 47,000-person annual gain changes the absorption math. The city is still growing, but the velocity is half what developers modeled when they broke ground in 2022. Vacancy rates in new buildings downtown are already sitting above 4%, and landlords are offering one month free on 12-month leases for the first time since 2020. That's not a collapse. It's a repricing.
The bigger exposure is in the pre-construction condo pipeline. Roughly 65,000 units are scheduled for completion between 2025 and 2027, most of them bought by investors in 2021 and 2022 when Toronto's population growth was still running above 100,000 per year. If those buyers can't find tenants willing to cover the carrying cost, or if they decide to sell into a soft resale market instead, the absorption problem compounds quickly.
Where the people actually went
The 2025 data shows gains in second-tier metros that were growing slowly or shrinking a decade ago. Halifax added 11,200 people. Moncton added 4,800. Saskatoon, flat for most of the 2010s, grew by 6,100. These are not overflow cities absorbing Toronto's suburbs. They're regional anchors pulling people who would have defaulted to Toronto in 2018.
The interprovincial migration numbers tell the rest. Ontario lost 23,000 net residents to other provinces in the 12 months ending July 2025, the fourth consecutive year of outflows. Alberta gained 37,000, most of them under 35. The narrative that people leave Toronto for affordability but stay in Ontario is breaking down. They're leaving the province entirely.
Toronto will grow again when immigration policy loosens. But the reset has already happened. The gap between what the city planned for and what it will actually absorb over the next three years is wide enough to matter for everything downstream: transit ridership, tax revenue, rental fundamentals, and the viability of projects financed in 2021. The rank doesn't matter. The velocity does.
The city that added 119,800 people in 2023 now ranks behind Kelowna, Kamloops, and Lethbridge in population growth. Between July 2024 and July 2025, Toronto's net gain was roughly 47,000 people, less than half its historical pace and the worst 12-month performance since the pandemic year of 2020.
The driver is not mysterious. Federal immigration policy shifted hard in late 2024, cutting planned permanent resident admissions from 485,000 to 395,000 and tightening temporary resident caps across the board. That policy change hit Toronto harder than anywhere else because Toronto has, for a decade, depended on immigration not just for growth but to offset the steady bleed of domestic out-migration.
That bleed is old news. Since 2015, Toronto has lost roughly 30,000 to 40,000 residents per year to other parts of Canada, most heading to the 905 suburbs, Calgary, and increasingly to smaller metros like Guelph and Kingston. For years, it didn't matter. International arrivals more than made up the difference. In 2022 and 2023, Toronto's immigrant intake was high enough that the city still led the country in absolute population gains despite the domestic exodus.
Now the math has inverted. Immigration is down by roughly 30%. Domestic out-migration continues at the same pace it has for years. The result is a net growth rate that looks more like Edmonton's than Toronto's.
What this means for the rental stock
Toronto added roughly 28,000 rental units between 2020 and 2024, most of them purpose-built apartments in the core and along the subway corridors. That construction was underwritten by a simple assumption: demand would keep climbing. Rents softened slightly in mid-2024, but the expectation was that it was a pause, not a turn.
A 47,000-person annual gain changes the absorption math. The city is still growing, but the velocity is half what developers modeled when they broke ground in 2022. Vacancy rates in new buildings downtown are already sitting above 4%, and landlords are offering one month free on 12-month leases for the first time since 2020. That's not a collapse. It's a repricing.
The bigger exposure is in the pre-construction condo pipeline. Roughly 65,000 units are scheduled for completion between 2025 and 2027, most of them bought by investors in 2021 and 2022 when Toronto's population growth was still running above 100,000 per year. If those buyers can't find tenants willing to cover the carrying cost, or if they decide to sell into a soft resale market instead, the absorption problem compounds quickly.
Where the people actually went
The 2025 data shows gains in second-tier metros that were growing slowly or shrinking a decade ago. Halifax added 11,200 people. Moncton added 4,800. Saskatoon, flat for most of the 2010s, grew by 6,100. These are not overflow cities absorbing Toronto's suburbs. They're regional anchors pulling people who would have defaulted to Toronto in 2018.
The interprovincial migration numbers tell the rest. Ontario lost 23,000 net residents to other provinces in the 12 months ending July 2025, the fourth consecutive year of outflows. Alberta gained 37,000, most of them under 35. The narrative that people leave Toronto for affordability but stay in Ontario is breaking down. They're leaving the province entirely.
Toronto will grow again when immigration policy loosens. But the reset has already happened. The gap between what the city planned for and what it will actually absorb over the next three years is wide enough to matter for everything downstream: transit ridership, tax revenue, rental fundamentals, and the viability of projects financed in 2021. The rank doesn't matter. The velocity does.
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