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Airdrie’s population reached 90,044 as of April 1, 2025 — an increase of 4,239 residents over the previous year, according to results of the city’s annual municipal census presented to council Wednesday.
“To put things into perspective, the growth that Airdrie had in this last year was the population of Jasper,” said Noshy Karbani, project lead for census and elections with Legislative Services. “This shines a light on how much the census matters. It is so crucial in helping council and administration make decisions relating to transportation, roads, recreation, parks, community services and all kinds of other services that residents rely on every day.”
Karbani added the province of Alberta reported a 3.51 per cent population growth over the past year.
“Which shows that our 4.9 per cent growth continues to exceed the provincial average,” she said.
In comparing 2025 numbers to 2024, Karbani said the number of dwellings increased.
“They did go up in 2025 compared to 2024. The dwelling count we have here in the habitable building went up by 6.69 per cent,” she said. “There was a housing boom. There was a lot of construction. We have the number of vacant dwellings, which more than doubled compared to last year, and this was because our snapshot is on April 1.”
“Sometimes the dwellings are being built, they're in the process of being built, or they had not been occupied. Sometimes they were occupied after April 1. So we can't count them as occupied as of April 1.”
Council documents note census data is “a cornerstone for the City’s long-term planning for municipal services, allocating funds, and understanding community needs.” The data also supports planning for schools, recreation, emergency services, and infrastructure projects.
“All our information is based on that day — that is our Census Day,” Karbani said. “What happens is that from April 1 to June 7, door hangers were hung up on every home in Airdrie by our enumerators, and that was done from April 1 to April 8.”
Rural door hangers were also mailed on April 1, each with a secure access code.
“Enumerators completed their zones and all remaining cleanup by June 2,” she said. “We had over 220 calls from the public dealing with census questions. Most of the calls were from senior citizens needing help completing their census online, or they didn’t have their secure access code. We helped them through the process.”
The city’s agenda report also stated census data “provide detailed pictures of the City’s population and demographic characteristics and is vital for tracking population growth, shifts in demographics and understanding the needs of different communities.”
Coun. Heather Spearman asked about the percentage of residents or homes reached through the census.
“What percentage of residents or homes, dwellings, let's say, did we actually get a response from in the end?” she asked.
“Our goal is 100 per cent completion,” Karbani replied. “There are people sometimes in the end who don't respond, and then we have columns that have no response. But basically, we do our best, we try to keep going back. That's why we extend it — not for the public, but just for our enumerators.”
“Sometimes we have five or six homes that are left, and we just see if we can go and ask neighbours for neighbour counts. The neighbour count is not asking for anything specific.”
She also noted quality assurance is a legislative requirement.
“That is where we are required to get a minimum of 384 responses back from residents to confirm that when an enumerator came to their door, these were the responses they gave,” she said. “It’s a check-and-balance system.”
Karbani said software developed by census operations allowed enumerators to contact residents via text or phone, depending on preferences. In total, 14,137 quality assurance texts and calls were made. Once 394 responses were received, outreach stopped.
Of those who participated, 70 per cent responded, with only two entries found to be incorrect due to minor age discrepancies — likely input errors. Those two were excluded. A total of 53 enumerators canvassed 63 communities.
In 2024, Airdrie’s population was 85,805, representing a 6.39 per cent growth rate from 2023.
Council documents state the City of Airdrie has conducted an annual census since 2001.
According to the City of Airdrie's website, a population prediction for 2025 previously forecast the 2025 population as 91,078 residents, representing a predicted 5.8 per cent growth in population. However, the website underlines that, "City administration creates a population forecast biannually in April and September. This forecast is a simplified representation of the April 2024 forecast and may have since been adjusted."
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