Hi everyone, my name is Jade Calver. Today we're going to talk about a question
that I frequently get when people are first starting immigration process for
permanent residency and that question is: how long does it actually take until I
get permanent residency? So, right now it's September 2019 and we're going to
talk a little bit about how long it actually takes to get permanent
residency versus what's posted online. So I'll go through some of the major, the
most popular immigration programs and talk a little bit about what those
posted times look like and what actual processing is.
So, first we'll talk about the programs under Express Entry. So, that's the federal skilled
worker program, the Canadian experience class, and the federal skilled
traders class. So as we all know - and it's fairly well known worldwide - Canada has
this magical six months processing time for the Express Entry Program. Of course
this is a little bit misleading in some ways so six months - that actually means
from when we - you have an invitation to apply about six months starts at when
we've submitted the application. So again that doesn't count the two months that
you have before to get all of your documentation together and then of
course the months prior to that where you have to take your English language
exams or French and have your education your foreign education evaluated. So
overall - so a basic application is more like 10 months from when we actually
start the process. And then I would also note that as of right now I'm finding
overall that Express entry applications from the time
that we submit that six months is really looking more like eight months or more.
Again there are some cases, which are very straightforward again if you're
someone who's studied in Canada and just has that one year of work experience and
are going through the Canadian experience class and you're single again
that's a fairly straightforward application for an officer to review. If
you are coming from abroad or you have, for example, an LMIA-exempt work permit
and you have multiple family members - again, any of these factors - so how
complicated your work history is, how many people are on your application, the
countries in which you've lived, these things can all slow a case down and it
makes sense, of course, why an officer needs to make sure that there aren't any
criminality issues - there's just more documentation to review if you have a
longer work history and of course if you have more than one family member then
there are just more people in the application to review. And with express
entry I find that overall they're taking a little bit longer than the posted six
months. So I'd say about a year from start to finish when we start the
process and to when someone actually lands with permanent residency.
Another one of the most popular programs is spousal sponsorship. So as we know the
federal government a few years ago changed the processing times to say that
spousal sponsorships, it would take one year for processing. Overall, of course
this - I find that applications do take one year especially so the in-Canada
application - so inland applications, which is the spousal sponsorship in
Canada class. Those will usually take just over one year - I would say
thirteen to fourteen months and then from start to finish and then the
application is processed. Out land - so the family class application so that's where
the sponsored person lives outside of Canada I find that this really depends
on the immigration office so the visa office where it's being processed. So in
for example with the recent closures of the Havana visa office and then
reopening the that processing time is looking of course a lot longer because
people need to leave the country to get medical examinations done. Similarly if
they need to go to an interview - which are quite frequent with that visa office
they now need to leave the country there are other visa offices for spousal
sponsorships - so London, which is responsible for most of the Middle East
at the moment, again can be a bit of a slow office which means that a file can
actually take longer than that posted 12 months for spousal sponsorship. So again
spousal sponsorship in Canada that one year unless there are any abnormalities
with your case usually about 12 to 14 months. However, the outland case, it will
really will depend on which Visa office is processing your application and so I
encourage you to get in touch with us to discuss your case and we can talk a
little bit more about that.
Lastly are the PNPs. I'll talk mostly about Ontario today because my firm is based in
Ontario. Again so this really depends on the type of PNP that we're talking about
but so there are the paper-based applications, which are the traditional
PNP applications and then there are the Express Entry applications. So if your
application through the OINP goes to the Express Entry system again it's mostly
like a traditional Express entry system so that six months in a bit of time and
then you have also allot for the three months that the province will take to
review your provincial application first before you can apply through Express
entry. If it's a traditional paper-based application, then it can take a lot
longer. We have to send in applications now to the Ontario provincial government
and then you have to submit a paper based application to the federal
government, which can take 18 months or more. When you're planning your permanent
residency applications, it's important to keep these things in mind because the
PNPs, especially there's a two-step process where you first apply through the
province and then through the federal government and again as a general rule
paper-based applications go a lot slower than online Express entry applications.
So that's everything today for processing when it comes to permanent
residency applications. If you have any other questions about how long it's
going to take to process your permanent residency application, you can
contact us online at calverimmigrationservices.com