From roots to routes: Immigrant entrepreneurs and how they are shaping Canada’s trade future
Over the past decade, immigrant-owned businesses have grown in number, scale, and influence, becoming essential contributors to job creation, investment, and public revenues.
Our report — produced by the Canadian Chamber of Commerce’s Business Data Lab (BDL) in partnership with Toronto Metropolitan University — takes a close, data-driven look at who Canada’s immigrant entrepreneurs are, how they have built their businesses, and what that means for the country’s economic future. It is a comprehensive portrait grounded in linked microdata from Statistics Canada’s Canadian Employer Employee Dynamics Database (CEEDD) for 2010–2020 and paired with custom tabulations from the Canadian Survey on Business Conditions (CSBC) for 2020–2024.
Throughout the 2010s, Canada’s immigration system increasingly prioritized skilled migrants and business-class entrants — individuals who often arrived with professional experience, financial capital, and international networks. These attributes, combined with growing settlement supports and increasingly diverse urban economies, created a more enabling environment for immigrant entrepreneurs to succeed — particularly in sectors that reward agility, innovation, and cross-border perspectives.
Our report shows that immigrants are more likely than Canadian-born to own a business (11.9% of immigrants vs. 8.4% of Canadian-born). They employed hundreds of thousands, generated hundreds of billions in revenue, strengthened the tax base, and deepened our global trade links. In 2020, 16.4% of all Canadian exporters that were active in goods trade were immigrant-owned.
Immigrant-owned businesses are already building Canada’s future economy. Yet their potential remains underleveraged in growth, innovation, and export strategies. With the proper supports — targeted access to capital, integrated business development and export-readiness programs, streamlined credential recognition, and inclusive procurement — Canada can unlock more of that potential. And in doing so, we not only support the entrepreneurs themselves, but also advance a more inclusive, competitive, and globally connected economy.