BC Capped International Enrolment at 30 Percent: What It Changes for Domestic Students
By Muntasir Minhaz • Published Aug 19, 2026 • Canadian Universities & Colleges, Canada Higher Ed News & Policy
British Columbia capped international student enrolment at 30 percent of each public institution's student body from July 2024, but UBC, SFU and UVic already sit under that limit, so a separate federal cut to study permits is doing most of the financial damage.
🏠 The 30 percent cap applies per institution and targets capacity to deliver housing and student services.
SFU cut 80 positions after an $18 million operating shortfall.
UVic international undergraduate enrolment fell from 2,109 students in 2022 to a target of 1,340 in 2025-26.
UBC's international tuition revenue dropped from $626 million to $606 million, even as its overall budget posted an $80 million surplus.
Smaller programs, like a UNBC MBA cohort and VCC's hospitality program, took the sharpest hits.
What BC's 30 percent cap does
In July 2024, British Columbia's Ministry of Post-Secondary Education and Future Skills introduced a guideline limiting international students to 30 percent of the total student body at each public post-secondary institution. The province said the limit exists to keep international enrolment from straining an institution's capacity to provide housing, advising and other student services.
The cap works per institution, not province-wide. UBC, SFU and UVic have all said their international enrolment share sits below 30 percent already, so the provincial cap itself does not force them to cut seats. SFU, for example, targets a 25 percent international share and reported around 6,400 international students in fall 2023, about 21 percent of its total enrolment. The institutions most constrained by the 30 percent ceiling tend to be smaller colleges and specialized programs that had built a much larger share of international enrolment before the rule arrived.
The bigger driver: federal study permit cuts
A separate federal policy is doing more damage to BC campus budgets than the provincial cap. Immigration, Refugees and Citizenship Canada capped new study permit approvals nationally at 485,000 for 2024, with British Columbia allotted 83,000 study permit applications for 2024 (about 49,800 projected approvals), an 18% cut from 2023, though the actual number issued came in lower. BC's public institutions compete for a shrinking pool of federal permits regardless of whether they sit under the province's 30 percent ceiling.
The financial effect shows up across BC's three largest research universities even though none of them hit the provincial cap. SFU eliminated 80 positions to close an $18 million operating shortfall tied to falling international enrolment. UVic's international undergraduate enrolment fell from 2,109 students in 2022 to 1,587 in 2023 and 1,504 in 2024, with a target of 1,340 for 2025-26, a drop of more than a third from the 2022 peak. UVic laid off about 20 employees, alongside retirements and voluntary departures, to reach a 4 percent budget reduction. UBC's international tuition revenue fell from $626 million in 2023-24 to $606 million, a 3 percent decline, though the university still projected an $80 million surplus for its 2025-26 budget, helped by a roughly $3 billion endowment.
Where the pressure lands hardest
Smaller and specialized programs feel the swing more than large universities with diversified revenue. The University of Northern British Columbia saw an 80 percent drop in international applications to its MBA program, forcing one cohort onto hiatus. At Vancouver Community College, where more than 90 percent of hospitality management students are international, the January 2025 intake shrank to a single 25-student cohort, down from four cohorts a year earlier.
What this means if you are a domestic BC student
Institutions losing international revenue are cutting staff and administrative positions rather than raising domestic tuition, which BC regulates separately.
Your classmates in high-demand faculties like business and health sciences skew more domestic than in past intakes, since those programs often carried the largest international cohorts.