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FDI Report 2024 methodology

The data story on foreign direct investment (FDI) for 2024 includes two major components:
FDI official statistics: Statistics Canada data related to global investment in Canada on foreign direct investment that either:
    • has flowed into Canada or
    • represents an international investment position at the end of the year
FDI activity: Information on past and potential future FDI opportunities sourced from:
    • fDi Markets, which tracks announced FDI projects or greenfield projects
    • PitchBook, which tracks announced, in progress, in bidding process, upcoming or completed cross-border M&A investments

Data for actual foreign investments and projected foreign investment opportunities is organized by calendar year. All dollar figures provided are in Canadian dollars (converted directly from the Bank of Canada’s daily exchange rates on June 2, 2025) unless otherwise stated. All figures are rounded to the nearest tenth.

CONTEXT


Statistics Canada’s balance of international payments data for FDI flows and international investment position data provide FDI data for Canada. These are direct investments that have been confirmed to have flowed into the country at some point in time. However, key limitations of these numbers are that they do not provide information on a company or at a provincial or territorial level.

To address these limitations, fDi Markets and PitchBook subscription tools were used to provide more detailed insights on FDI activity in Canada. These tools compile foreign investment announcements, including more information on global companies announcing their intentions to invest in Canada, and the provincial and territorial destinations of these announcements.
    • fDi Markets provides a database of announced FDI projects: cross-border investments to set up a new physical operation or expand an existing operation
    • PitchBook provides information on announced cross-border M&A investments

FDI OFFICIAL STATISTICS


Data on foreign investments from Statistics Canada for 2024 was retrieved on June 2, 2025 from the following tables, which are updated quarterly and annually:

There are certain limitations to this data. For instance:

  • provincial breakdowns of FDI flows and stock do not exist across tables
  • the industries table only features six industry categories for FDI flows

Note that FDI statistics on an ultimate investor country (UIC) basis do not exist for the FDI flows measure. These numbers exist for FDI stock, a measure that illustrates the total accumulated value of FDI at a particular point in time. FDI stock on a UIC basis presents the origin countries of the companies that have ultimately invested in Canada.

Year-over-year comparisons provided in the FDI Report 2024 are based on the latest available data at the time of data retrieval. This includes total net FDI flows into Canada and other Statistics Canada data, and reported data from fDi Markets and PitchBook.

FDI ACTIVITY


 FDI activity data for 2024, which represents investments from global companies investing in Canada, was retrieved on June 2, 2025. This data on announced investments is composed of two parts:
    • FDI projects, which are announced cross-border investments to set up a new physical operation or expand an existing investment
    • Announced cross-border M&A investments

FDI projects data is sourced from fDi Markets, and M&A investments data is sourced from PitchBook. The original source for most FDI projects and M&As, amalgamated by both tools, is company press releases.

This data is further segmented by source country, project or deal category, and industry. The data provides details on projected investment amounts to varying degrees, depending on whether the FDI announcement is for an FDI project or an M&A deal. Specifically, for announced FDI projects, fDi Markets provides projected investment amounts, referred to as capital expenditures (CAPEX), which includes estimated values when not initially disclosed. For announced M&As, investment amounts are provided when they are disclosed publicly by the acquiring company.

One key limitation of this data is that projected FDI opportunities come from external announcements, which are not necessarily confirmed investments. An announced FDI project could take several years to materialize into a confirmed FDI project, assuming it moves forward. Similarly, an announced M&A deal may take a few years to materialize, and the investment announcement may be split over different reporting periods.

This data is intended to provide a pipeline of potential future investment opportunities in Canada rather than a complete and accurate picture of job and dollar amounts.