Hi everyone. My name is Jade Calver. I own and operate Calveer and Associates
Canadian Immigration Services. We're a full-service immigration firm located in
the heart of Oshawa, Ontario, Canada. Today we're going to talk about processing and
request times for various parts of the immigration process.
We receive a lot of questions from our clients asking about when they'll receive certain letters or
certain request letters from Immigration Canada. So, today I'm going to clarify
what these timelines look like. Again, this is as of March 2020.
So if you're watching this in the future, remember that these times may have changed.
So our first question from one of our clients was how long will it take
to receive my biometrics instruction letter. So again, as of last year,
Immigration Canada requires everybody coming on a temporary residency
application, for the most part to have their fingerprints taken before they
come to Canada. So for temporary residency, usually you will receive the
biometrics letter within a month of having applied for your visa. So you'll
apply for your visa online. So, whether it be a work permit or a study permit or a
temporary resident visa and then usually within about a month you'll receive the
biometrics letter. Again, you have the 30 days to complete your biometrics so that
means you'll have to take the letter and your passport to the visa application
center and provide biometrics. If, for example, you're asking about the
biometrics letter for a permanent residency application. Those applications
we usually see the biometrics instruction letter come in closer to the
end of the process. So, if it's an Express Entry application, it's usually about
around month five or six, sometimes closer to
seven or eight depending on how long the application is taking. Same thing for a
spousal sponsorship application - usually closer to month 11 or 12. Again closer to the end of the process.
The next question that we get is when will I receive my
medical exam instruction letter. For temporary residency applications, it
depends on the country, of course usually again it's about halfway through the
process. So I find if a country takes three weeks to process an application
you'll get it again almost instantly within a week or two. If your country, if
your local visa office takes three to four months to process temporary
applications, again it can take a couple of months to arrive. For permanent
residency applications, with medical exam requests, usually those come if you can
submit after, after you've submitted a permanent residency application. Usually
those requests come closer to the end of processing. So usually depending on how
long the process takes. So, for example with a spousal sponsorship application
that usually comes in around month, you know, six to eight and then the
application is processed shortly thereafter.
Lots of people ask when we're finalizing permanent residency applications how
about my confirmation of permanent residency? How quickly will I get that
back from the visa office once I've submitted my passport, pictures, and other
documents to the visa office? General turnaround time is about four weeks for
you to get your passport back. Again remember some countries don't actually
have visa offices and the visa application center doesn't actually
stamp your passport. So for example as some you know Persian Gulf countries
they're actually sending your passport to a regional visa office for stamping
so that can take a little bit longer - closer up to, you know up to six weeks to
get your visa and your passport back. So just keep that in mind when planning travel to Canada.
A frequent question that we have, especially with the
popularity of express entry is: How long will my WES results take to be
processed? And how long will my english test results take to get back? So I'll
start with WES applications. Again, this is very country specific and it's also
dependent on how quickly you as an applicant get documentation to them and
how quickly your institution gets documentation to them. Again, I've seen
WES reports issued within about three weeks
from when a client started the process but I've also seen it take up to four
months. A lot of the time when it takes longer, it's because you're issuing
institution has - there's been a delay in them providing the documentation to WES
and again everything has to be sent to here in Canada. But generally, on
average, I find it takes about two months for from start to finish for a WES
report to be issued. When it comes to language results, again
on the processing center but it's fairly standard from the date that you take the
test whether it's IELTS or the CELPIP, it takes about three weeks for you to
get your results. You'll get a soft copy of your results via email so you'll know
how you did it and then you'll get the hard copy, which you need to apply for a
permanent residency via the mail usually within about three weeks from the date of the test.
The last question that we get in terms of processing times and
requests from Immigration Canada is: How long will it take me for the to get the
request for the Citizenship test and for the citizenship ceremony? So generally
how it works is that once you apply for citizenship, you will get a request for
fingerprinting usually within about three months from when you've applied.
The citizenship test usually happens around month, I would say anywhere from
four to seven and then that citizenship exam can happen anywhere from month six
until month 12. So, again, I always tell my clients to plan for 12 months total when applying for
citizenship. Again I've seen it happen, you know, citizenship happened within
about six months but you should always plan for what's stated by Immigration
Canada, which is 12 months for citizenship.
Thanks everyone. I hope I was able to clarify processing times for 2020 for IRCC
requests. If you have any questions regarding these timelines or any other
immigration questions, you can contact our firm. We're online at Calverimmigrationservices.com