(CANADA) — Immigration, Refugees and Citizenship Canada reported that refugee protection claims in Canada fell to a two-year low in 2026, with January claims down 36% from January 2025 and 55% from January 2024.

IRCC said the decline extended beyond a single month. Between January and April 2026, the number of people filing claims was 63% lower than in the same period in 2024.

Another IRCC measure pointed in the same direction. Claims filed by temporary resident visa holders in April 2026 fell to 1,580, down 84% from 10,095 in April 2024.

The drop followed policy changes that cut sharply into two streams of claims that had figured prominently in earlier years. A partial visa requirement for Mexican nationals drove Mexican airport asylum claims down 97% between February 2024 and March 2024, while changes tied to the Safe Third Country Agreement reduced claims made at the land border.

Under the Additional Protocol to the Safe Third Country Agreement, cross-border claims fell from an average of 165 claims per day in March 2023 to 13 claims per day. That shift changed a category that had drawn sustained attention after claimants crossed between official ports of entry.

UNHCR Canada reported a broader decline as well. Overall asylum claims in Canada were 34% lower in 2025 than in 2024, adding another year of downward movement before the lower 2026 figures recorded by IRCC.

Taken together, the numbers from IRCC and UNHCR Canada point to policy changes, not a general movement in migration patterns, as the main force behind the decline. The sharpest drops came in categories directly affected by the partial visa requirement and by the revised Safe Third Country Agreement rules.

That pattern is visible in the timing. Mexican airport claims fell almost immediately after the visa measure took effect, and cross-border claims dropped after the Additional Protocol closed off a route that had expanded under a previous gap in the agreement.

The monthly figures show how steep the change became by early 2026. January alone posted declines against both recent benchmarks, falling 36% from the same month in 2025 and 55% from the same month in 2024.

The January to April comparison gives a wider view. IRCC’s count for the first four months of 2026 was 63% below the same period in 2024, indicating that the decline was not confined to one month or one claimant group.

TRV-holder filings illustrate the same change through another category. By April 2026, that stream had fallen to 1,580 claims from 10,095 two years earlier, a contraction large enough to reshape the overall total even without a separate monthly breakdown for every claimant type.

The Mexican cases marked one of the clearest examples of a targeted measure producing an immediate effect. The partial visa requirement cut airport claims by Mexican nationals by 97% from February 2024 to March 2024, reducing a flow that had become a central part of Canada’s refugee protection claims picture.

Border dynamics shifted just as sharply at land crossings. After the Additional Protocol to the Safe Third Country Agreement took effect, the average daily number of cross-border claims fell from 165 in March 2023 to 13, narrowing another route that had contributed heavily to asylum intake.

Those two changes matter because they affected claim channels rather than claim processing alone. The visa rule influenced who could board a flight and arrive at an airport to seek protection, while the Safe Third Country Agreement amendment changed who could seek entry to make a claim after crossing from the United States.

IRCC’s figures and UNHCR Canada’s numbers align on the direction of travel across different timeframes. One tracks month-to-month and period comparisons, the other records the year-over-year national total, and both show claims moving lower through 2024, 2025 and into 2026.

The data also span several ways of measuring the change. IRCC cited monthly counts for January 2026, a four-month comparison for January to April 2026, and a claimant-category comparison for temporary resident visa holders in April 2026. The border data use daily averages, capturing how quickly the Safe Third Country Agreement revisions altered claim volumes.

UNHCR Canada’s 34% drop in overall asylum claims from 2024 to 2025 sits between the earlier policy shifts and the lower 2026 counts. That sequence supports the view that the decline did not occur in isolation in one calendar month, but followed a series of interventions that changed who could arrive and where claims could be made.

Canada’s refugee system still covers multiple entry paths and claimant groups, but the largest recent reductions came where Ottawa altered the rules directly. Mexican airport arrivals fell after the partial visa requirement, and land-border claims fell after the Additional Protocol to the Safe Third Country Agreement.

The result is a refugee protection claims total at its lowest point in two years, shaped by policy decisions that show up clearly in the numbers: 36% lower in January 2026 than a year earlier, 55% lower than two years earlier, 63% lower over the first four months than in the same stretch of 2024, and sharply reduced in the claimant streams most directly affected by the rule changes.

IRCC, UNHCR Canada and the cited footnotes [1], [2] and [3] all point to the same trajectory. Monthly counts, period comparisons and daily border averages each show Canada receiving fewer claims after the partial visa requirement and the Safe Third Country Agreement changes narrowed two of the most active routes into the asylum system.