The Canada Border Services Agency says it cannot calculate how many foreign nationals may still be in Canada after their visas expired because it lacks a unified system to track the issue.

In a newly released parliamentary response, the agency said it does not have “a single, systematic metric” to estimate the so-called exit gap — foreign nationals whose visas expired in 2024 and 2025 but for whom there is no official departure record.

According to the response, Immigration, Refugees and Citizenship Canada would first need to provide a list of all expired visas, after which CBSA would manually compare those names against its records to determine whether an exit was recorded.

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The agency said such a process could not be completed within the time allotted for the parliamentary question and could risk releasing inaccurate information.

CBSA also said it does not systematically track the gap between expired immigration status and confirmed departures, despite collecting entry and exit information for operational purposes.

As of the response date, the agency said 1,787 foreign nationals found inadmissible for non-compliance since Jan. 1, 2024 were in its removal inventory, including 421 listed as wanted, 735 in progress for removal, and 631 classified as removal not possible.

The figures were released in response to a written parliamentary question from Conservative MP Adam Chambers.