South African Immigrants Increasingly Choose British Columbia Over Ontario

Ask anyone with an opinion on where South Africans settle in Canada and Ontario comes up first — Toronto, the biggest South African community, the obvious answer. That answer is out of date. In 2025, for the first time, british columbia overtook ontario south african immigrants when it came to actual Express Entry admissions for the year, and the shift is worth understanding rather than repeating the old assumption.

So Ontario isn’t the top destination anymore?

It depends which number you’re looking at, and this is exactly where people go wrong. Ontario is still home to the largest existing South African-born population — 21,540 people by the 2021 Census, 41.7% of the national total, built up over decades of settlement. That’s the stock: who’s already there. The flow — where new arrivals are actually landing this year — tells a different story. The express entry landings by province year over year data for 2023–2025 combined shows Ontario at 825 and BC at 670, a real but narrowing gap. Break out 2025 alone and BC pulls ahead: 180 to Ontario’s 155, with Alberta a distant third at 65.

Why would BC pull ahead now?

The verified data doesn’t spell out a cause, and it would be a mistake to invent one. What can be said honestly: this is Express Entry-specific data, which excludes Quebec entirely and captures the economic-class pathway rather than every route into Canada. Where south africans are moving to in canada 2025 is a narrower question than where South Africans live overall — it’s about the newest arrivals choosing a province at the point of landing, not the accumulated community.

Does this mean Alberta or Ontario are worse choices?

No — a bc versus ontario south african newcomers comparison isn’t a verdict on either province. Ontario still has the deepest existing South African network, the most established diaspora infrastructure, and the biggest single city cluster in Toronto. Alberta, at 285 combined admissions over the same three years, is a real and growing third option, not an afterthought. BC’s 2025 lead reflects one year of one visa stream — a genuinely useful data point, not proof that BC is now “the” destination. It’s also worth remembering that Express Entry admissions exclude Quebec entirely, so this comparison was only ever between the provinces competing for the same pool of Express Entry landings in the first place.

What should a family actually do with this?

Treat it as one input, not a decision-maker. BC’s pull ahead of Ontario for South African newcomers held for one recent year on one visa stream — worth registering, not worth overweighting. If your occupation, provincial nomination options, or family ties point toward a specific province, that consideration will usually outweigh a one-year admissions shift. The honest takeaway is narrower than the headline suggests: BC edged past Ontario in Express Entry admissions for a single recent year, and that doesn’t rewrite where South Africans are actually settled today.

Our province-by-province guides go into the practical differences — nomination programs, cost of living, job markets — in more depth than a single year’s admissions count ever could.