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Alberta population nearly hit 5 million in April, as people continue to flock to the province
Alberta's rate of population growth slowed but the province still grew by 20,562 people in the first three months of the year, according to new data released Wednesday by Statistics Canada, mainly due to permanent immigration and people moving from other provinces.
The number of temporary foreign residents in Alberta, meanwhile, declined for the first time in years.
All told, the growth edged the population ever closer to the five-million mark.
As of April 1, Alberta was home to 4,980,659 people, according to these latest estimates from StatsCan.
Meanwhile, Canada's population grew by just 20,107 over the same period.
"This was the smallest quarterly growth since the third quarter of 2020, when the population decreased by 1,232 people in the wake of border restrictions to slow the spread of the COVID-19 pandemic," Statistics Canada said in a release.
The total national population growth was actually smaller than Alberta's population growth, as the rest of the country lost people during the first three months of the year.
Alberta continued to be the top destination for people moving within Canada, as the province gained 7,176 people due to interprovincial migration in the first quarter of 2025.
Continuing an ongoing trend, most of the interprovincial migrants came from Ontario and British Columbia.
Statistics Canada estimates that 7,342 Ontarians moved to Alberta in the first three months of the year, versus 3,768 Albertans who moved to Ontario, for a net gain of 3,574 people.
An estimated 7,217 British Columbians moved to Alberta, meanwhile, compared to 5,334 Albertans who moved to B.C., for a net gain of 1,883.
According to an analysis from ATB Financial, people are moving to Alberta for different reasons than in the past.
"It's not driven by the typical energy boom, but based on a wider range of opportunities and, in particular, relative housing affordability," the financial institution said in a release on Wednesday.
International migration — on a permanent basis — accounted for an even larger share of Alberta's population growth at the beginning of 2025, with the province gaining 11,630 residents from other countries from January through March.
The population naturally increased (that is, through more births than deaths) by 3,118 people.
For the first time in three years, meanwhile, the number of temporary international residents in the province declined, shrinking by 1,362 over the first three months of 2025.
This trend was seen across the country, after new federal rules for temporary residents have taken effect, in particular when it comes to study permits for international students attending post-secondary institutions.
"The largest decrease in non-permanent residents in the first quarter of 2025 came from people holding only a study permit (-53,669)," Statistics Canada said in its release.
"Most of this decline occurred in Ontario (-30,160) and British Columbia (-11,742), which are the provinces with the highest numbers of study permit holders."
Every province saw declines in the number of temporary foreign residents during the first three months of 2025, according to Statistics Canada.
