India received 3,494 work permit rejections last August.. TCS NEWS India Beijing, September 21. Canada has refused nearly three-fourths of Indian student visa applications in August this year, a significant rise over the rejection rate during the same month in 2023, which was nearly one-third. This increase is consistent with a more recent trend by Canada to tighten up on student visa permits for international students, particularly those who have obtained fake admission letters. The number of Indian student applications has plummeted from approximately 20,900 in August 2023 to as low as 4,515 in August 2025, marking a sharp decline in interest due to stricter visa checks. India, which was previously the top country of origin for international students coming to Canada, now has the highest refusal rate among all nations with more than 1,000 accepted applicants.
Canada’s immigration policies are designed to slow temporary migration and clamp down on visa fraud; more than 1,550 fraudulent study permit applications were discovered in 2023, primarily from India. Forty-two-plane upgrades, and the enhanced document checker flagged over 14,000 suspect documents globally. The Canadian authorities have also increased financial demands on international students.
The visa clampdown comes at a time of strained diplomatic relations between Canada and India, as political tension over the murder of an accused Canadian Sikh separatist leader’s murder in 2023 — denied by India — spilled onto the public stage. By contrast, Canadian universities have been reporting steep declines in the number of Indian students enrolled, with drops of as much as two-thirds at institutions such as the University of Waterloo, the University of Regina, and the University of Saskatchewan.
The visa denial rate for Indian students is significantly higher than the overall international refusal rate of 40 percent. Also, it exceeds the approximately 24 percent rejection rate for Chinese applicants in August 2025. Despite a decline in applications and high rejection rates, Indian students have made a significant contribution to Canada’s academic landscape.
This changing situation shows how immigration policy changes, fraud prevention, geopolitical tensions, and their effects on Indian students’ hopes of studying in Canada are all connected.