The Northwest Territories’ population dipped from 46,031 to 45,904 between July 2025 and July 2026, estimates published by the NWT Bureau of Statistics this week suggest.
The territory was the only Canadian jurisdiction to show a year-on-year decline for that period.
Nationwide, average growth was 0.5 percent (the NWT’s was -0.3 percent). Yukon and Nunavut, which recorded the largest leaps, grew by 2.5 percent and 2.3 percent respectively.
This is the first time the NWT’s July 1 population figure has flatlined or decreased year-on-year since 2023.
In the past quarter, interprovincial migration – people moving between the NWT and other parts of Canada – had a large effect, the NWT Bureau of Statistics said in a briefing note outlining the latest figures.
Advertisement.
Advertisement.
While 548 people entered the NWT from the rest of Canada between April and June 2026, an estimated 933 people left the territory to live elsewhere in the country. That net loss of 385 residents is the largest such quarterly figure in recent years. (Net migration to the NWT from other countries, which makes up some of the difference, has held relatively steady for the past few years.)
The statistics bureau did not directly attribute the population decrease to any factors.
Two of the NWT’s three diamond mines, each major employers, have begun to close down this year. While the territory is expecting major defence and construction investment driven by the federal government in the years ahead – and a consequent population bump, particularly for Yellowknife – the effects of that have yet to meaningfully kick in.
The territorial statistics bureau also noted the increasing proportion of seniors in the NWT’s population.
Advertisement.
Advertisement.
Seniors were 12 percent of the NWT’s population in 2016, the bureau reported, and now comprise 17.8 percent of the population.
That increase of roughly 50 percent is the third-largest in Canada over the past decade, behind Nunavut (69 percent) and Yukon (53 percent). Nationally, the proportion of seniors aged 60-plus has increased by 34 percent in the same period as the Baby Boom generation reaches that age.
Even so, the NWT retains a young median age compared to the country as a whole. As of July 1 this year, the territory’s median age was 35.9 years. Canada’s was 40.9.
