How many Canadians overstay their US visas annually?

1. The headline number most reporters cite — about 100K–120K annually — and where it comes from

Analysts and news outlets relying on Department of Homeland Security tabulations have pointed to roughly 119,000 Canadian overstays in fiscal 2016, a figure highlighted by Pew Research and widely circulated in press summaries as the largest single-country total for air/sea arrivals that year ^[1]. Statista and mainstream outlets likewise reported that total annual U.S. overstays in 2016 were close to 740,000, with Canadians and Mexicans comprising the biggest national groups among those counted — underpinning the mid‑six‑figure Canadian estimate ^[2].

2. The rate matters as much as the count — Canadians overstay less often, but there are many visitors

Although the absolute count of Canadian overstays was large, the overstay rate for Canadians has generally been low — about 1 percent in the cited reports — because tens of millions of short-term Canadian visits generate a large denominator (for example, roughly 9.2 million expected Canadian departures cited in contemporaneous reporting) ^[3][7]. In short, Canadians show up as a large raw number of overstays because so many Canadians legally enter the U.S. each year, not because their propensity to overstay is unusually high ^[3][7].

3. DHS methodology and caveats — “suspected” overstays and data gaps

DHS overstay reports classify entries as “suspected in-country overstays” and also count out-of-country overstays; they rely on arrival/departure records, carrier data, and ad hoc data-sharing (for example, a Canada data‑sharing arrangement yielding millions of departure records), meaning these are best understood as informed estimates rather than a definitive census of unauthorized Canadians ^[6][8]. Congress’s CRS and DHS themselves stress measurement uncertainty, and the reports count overstay events — not necessarily unique individuals — so multiple overstays by a single person can inflate counts ^[5][6].

4. How the picture changed and why recent reports don’t produce a neat single-year Canadian total in headlines

DHS has continued publishing entry/exit overstay reports and has refined categories (B-1/B-2, VWP, F/M/J students, temporary workers), but later reports fragment totals by admission class and by “suspected in‑country” versus “out‑of‑country,” which complicates simple year‑to‑year comparisons and headline numbers for Canada without consulting tables in the full reports ^[9][4]. Observers also note that policy focus, seasonal travel patterns, and pandemic-era travel disruptions altered recent flows and counts, so a 2016-style single-number headline requires careful reading of the latest DHS tables ^[5][10].

5. Where estimates like “~60,000 undocumented Canadians” fit in

Independent estimates of undocumented Canadians living in the U.S. (for example, an often-cited ~60,000 figure) are within the broad order of magnitude of some researcher estimates but reflect different methodologies and timeframes — one measures current unauthorized residents while DHS overstay counts reflect annual overstay events tied to admissions and expected departures ^[11]. Because the datasets answer related but distinct questions, they cannot be conflated without risk of error.

Bottom line: a defensible short answer

For public discussion grounded in DHS and analyst reporting, the defensible short answer is that Canadian overstays have been on the order of about 100,000–120,000 people in a given year during the mid‑2010s, with an overstay rate roughly around 1 percent; DHS reports continue to flag Canadians as a leading national group in its overstay tallies, but measurement methods and changes in reporting scope mean exact annual totals vary and should be taken as estimates ^[1][2][5].