Alberta’s population clock continues to move past 5 million—it’s just ticking a little slower now.

The latest ‘official’ quarterly reading was released this morning for April 1, 2025. It shows Alberta’s population at 4,980,659 as of that date.

But it's now mid-June, and the population clock (rebased to today’s quarterly data) has the current population in excess of 5 million.

Population boom continues, Alberta leads country

Alberta continued to lead all provinces in population growth. 

• During the first quarter of 2025, there were 20,562 people added to Alberta, by far the largest increase of any province. Interestingly, Alberta gained more people than Canada as a whole (+20,107) over this period due to population declines in four provinces and one territory (Ontario, Quebec, B.C., Newfoundland and Labrador, and Yukon).
• Over the latest one year period (April 1, 2024 to April 1, 2025),  Alberta’s population gain was 138,136 for a country-leading growth rate of 2.9% and well above the national increase of 1.2%. Alberta accounted for a whopping 27% of Canada’s total population growth over this period (despite having 12% of the nation’s population).

Persistent inflows from other provinces

Why has Alberta’s population been persistently higher than other provinces? The main differentiator is interprovincial migration, though higher natural increase (births minus deaths) also plays a role. In the first quarter, only the prairie provinces and territories recorded natural increase (i.e. births exceeded deaths)—the remaining provinces had natural decrease.

Alberta added people from the rest of the country for the 11th straight quarter. Once again, people came predominately from Ontario and B.C., though the gains were widespread from all provinces. Net inflows have slowed slightly, but remain persistently strong. We have explored this issue in detail, showing that people are coming 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.

Broad-based population slowdown on fewer NPRs

The main reason the population is slowing in Alberta and across Canada is fewer non-permanent residents (NPRs).* Outside the pandemic period, Canada saw the largest first quarter decline in NPRs (-61,111) on record. The main decrease was from international students holding a study permit, with losses highly concentrated in Ontario and B.C. The federal government previously announced lower targets for both the NPR and permanent immigration streams, and that’s showing up in the data.

Canada admitted 104,256 immigrants in the first quarter—the lowest first quarter reading in four years.

As for Alberta, NPRs dropped 1,362 last quarter, with immigration easing to 13,661.

Forecast implications

The latest data are tracking in line with our forecast. We expect a 2.5% increase in population growth based on mid-year readings (July 1, 2025 vs. July 1, 2024), slowing to 1.8% in 2026 and 1.6% in 2027 (our full forecast will be released next week). While easing, we see population growth far exceeding the national average driven by interprovincial migration, reflecting relatively affordable housing and stronger economic prospects in the current trade war environment.

Homebuilders have responded with record housing starts, fueled by multi-family units. We see home construction as one factor pushing Alberta’s economic growth ahead of other provinces this year. One challenge is adding enough jobs to accommodate the inflows, with a fast-growing labour force pushing up the unemployment rate. We expect the unemployment rate to remain elevated this year (average 7.3% according to our latest tracking).

*Non-permanent resident refers to a person from another country with a usual place of residence in Canada and who has a work or study permit, or who has claimed refugee status (asylum claimants, protected persons and related groups). Family members living with work or study permit holders are also included unless these family members are already Canadian citizens, landed immigrants (permanent residents) or non-permanent residents themselves.

Answer to the previous trivia question: The Pomeroy Kananaskis Mountain Lodge was built for the 1988 Winter Olympics.

Today’s trivia question: After Alberta, which province grew the most in absolute terms in the first quarter of 2025?