Canada’s refugee protection claim backlog continued to decline in August 2026, with 259,085 claims pending before the Refugee Protection Division (RPD) at the end of the month. The latest Immigration and Refugee Board of Canada (IRB) statistics show that finalizations continued to exceed new claim intake.
The August figures mark another step down from the 300,084 pending claims recorded at the end of December 2025. They also represent the lowest monthly RPD inventory recorded so far in 2026.
Canada Refugee Claim Backlog Continues to Shrink
The IRB reported 2,898 new refugee protection claims in August 2026, while 11,590 claims were finalized.
That difference reduced the pending inventory from 267,726 at the end of July to 259,085 at the end of August.
The latest figures continue a trend that became particularly visible during the middle of 2026.
| Month | New claims | Finalizations | Pending claims |
| January 2026 | 6,497 | 6,672 | 299,907 |
| February | 5,840 | 7,593 | 298,149 |
| March | 5,890 | 8,592 | 295,448 |
| April | 2,662 | 5,116 | 292,997 |
| May | 3,021 | 9,078 | 286,982 |
| June | 2,705 | 13,072 | 276,650 |
| July | 2,670 | 11,621 | 267,726 |
| August | 2,898 | 11,590 | 259,085 |
The IRB cautions that monthly statistics are higher-level data and can be subject to change. It also notes that claims finalized in a particular month may have been referred to the RPD earlier.
Source: Canada Refugee Claim Backlog
New Refugee Claim Intake Remains Much Lower Than in 2024
The change becomes clearer when August 2026 is compared with August 2024.
In August 2024, the RPD recorded 13,235 new claims. In August 2026, intake was 2,898.
That represents a substantially lower monthly intake than two years earlier.
The reduction in new claims, combined with a higher volume of finalizations, has contributed to the decline in the pending inventory.
However, the statistics alone do not establish why the number of new claims changed. The IRB publishes the intake, finalization and inventory figures but does not attribute the monthly changes to a single cause in this dataset.
RPD Finalizations Accelerated During 2026
The IRB finalized 11,590 refugee protection claims in August.
That was slightly below the 13,072 finalizations recorded in June, which was the highest monthly figure in the 2026 data supplied by the IRB.
Finalizations remained above new intake throughout each month from January through August 2026 except where the difference was relatively narrow in January.
This has allowed the pending inventory to decline from nearly 300,000 cases at the beginning of the year to 259,085 by the end of August.
What Happens to a Refugee Protection Claim?
A refugee protection claim can be made at a port of entry or at an inland office.
An officer from the Canada Border Services Agency or Immigration, Refugees and Citizenship Canada first determines whether the claim is eligible to be referred to the IRB.
If eligible, the claim is referred to the Refugee Protection Division, which is responsible for determining whether the claimant is a Convention refugee or a person in need of protection.
The RPD’s published finalization figures include accepted, rejected, abandoned, withdrawn and other cases.
Therefore, the number of finalized claims should not be interpreted as the number of successful refugee claims.
Refugee Appeals Move in the Opposite Direction
While the RPD inventory declined, the number of pending appeals before the Refugee Appeal Division (RAD) increased.
The IRB reported:
- 1,125 appeals filed in August 2026
- 875 appeals finalized
- 6,199 appeals pending at the end of August
The pending RAD inventory rose from 5,949 in July to 6,199 in August.
This means the reduction in the RPD backlog has not been accompanied by a similar reduction in the refugee appeals inventory.
The IRB explains that appeals finalized during a particular period may have been filed earlier.
Why the RPD and RAD numbers are different
The RPD and RAD perform different functions within Canada’s refugee determination system.
The RPD is responsible for making first-instance decisions on eligible refugee protection claims.
The RAD deals with appeals of eligible RPD decisions.
As a result, changes in the RPD inventory and RAD inventory should be analyzed separately.
A decline in pending RPD claims does not automatically mean that the number of pending appeals will also decline.
What the Latest Refugee Statistics Mean for Canada Immigration
The latest figures show that Canada’s refugee protection system is processing a large number of cases while receiving fewer new claims than in earlier periods covered by the data.
From a system-capacity perspective, the decline in pending RPD cases is significant because the inventory has fallen for eight consecutive months from its December 2025 level.
At the same time, the RAD inventory demonstrates that case processing does not end with an RPD decision for every claimant.
For anyone involved in a refugee protection claim, the individual facts of the case remain much more important than national inventory statistics.
Refugee Claim Statistics Should Not Be U sed to predict an individual case
A lower national backlog does not mean every refugee claimant will receive a faster decision.
Processing can depend on factors such as the nature of the claim, scheduling, documentation, procedural requirements and whether the case moves into an appeal or another proceeding.
The IRB also notes that its monthly data is approximate and subject to change.
Claimants should therefore use their individual case information and official IRB communications rather than national statistics to determine the status of their own proceedings.
The Canada refugee claim backlog fell to 259,085 pending cases at the end of August 2026, the lowest monthly level recorded in the 2026 figures provided by the IRB.
The RPD received 2,898 new claims and finalized 11,590 cases during August. This continued the broader decline from 300,084 pending claims at the end of December 2025.
At the same time, pending refugee appeals increased to 6,199 at the RAD. The contrasting trends show why RPD and RAD inventories need to be examined separately.
For the latest Canada immigration and refugee policy updates, applicants should rely on official IRB and IRCC information and obtain case-specific legal or immigration advice where appropriate.