FAQs

You can live and work anywhere in Canada without a permit, apply for a Canadian passport and a Social Insurance Number, register for health coverage in the province where you live once you meet that province's rules, and vote. Most of these start with a Citizenship Certificate. You normally need proof of your citizenship before you can apply for a passport, and it spares you delays at the border.

It is the document that proves you are a Canadian citizen. It confirms a status you already hold rather than granting you a new one. You may hold only one valid certificate at a time, so if you are replacing one, IRCC asks for the old one back.

That decision applied a rule that no longer applies. A refusal based on the first-generation limit does not stop you applying again under the current law, and applying again is a fresh application rather than an appeal against the old one. Whether the facts of your family qualify you now is a separate question, and it is the one worth answering first.

No. IRCC has said it will process applications made under the earlier interim measure using the new rules. You do not need to send a new application.

No. Bill C-3 changed the Citizenship Act permanently. It is not a programme that closes on a date. Waiting costs you in a different way: records get harder to obtain as time passes, and relatives who could confirm a detail are not always available later.

That depends on your family, and the eligibility page builds a list from your own situation. Most applications need the same three things: a long-form birth certificate for every generation in the line, proof that your Canadian ancestor held citizenship, and records accounting for any change of name along the way. IRCC requires each document to come from the authority that issued it, and an application cannot rest on third-party records alone.

IRCC sends it back to you rather than deciding it. Missing documents, or copies that are hard to read, mean the application is returned, together with a letter telling you what was missing. That is not a refusal and it does not count against you. What a return costs you is time: you fix the gap, submit again, and the wait starts from the beginning.

Leaving a section blank and getting a fact wrong are treated differently. A blank makes the application incomplete, so it comes back to you, and IRCC asks you to write “not applicable” rather than leave anything empty. Two things are hard to undo once it is filed: your date of birth cannot be changed after you submit, and your name only for a legal change of name or an error IRCC made itself. Deliberately false information is a separate matter, treated as a serious offence and checked against the documents you file.

A refusal is different from a returned application. It is a decision on your case, and IRCC keeps the processing fee. IRCC decides on the documents in front of it, so an application can be refused because the evidence did not establish the claim rather than because the claim was wrong. That is the reason to assemble the documentary chain before filing rather than after. If you want a court to review the decision, the route is judicial review in the Federal Court. It needs the court's permission to go ahead, and you have 30 days to begin.

Yes, although the route is a different one. A person adopted outside Canada by a Canadian parent applies for a grant of citizenship for adopted persons, not for proof of citizenship, and the certificate application is used only to replace a certificate already issued. The Senate committee that reviewed Bill C-3 noted that a gap remains for some children adopted from other countries, which is why adoption cases are read one at a time.

Canada allows it. Your other country may not, so check its law as well. If you are concerned that applying here could affect your status there, IRCC's own advice is to ask that country's embassy or consulate before you apply.

Processing times vary with IRCC's workload, the type of application, the quality of the evidence, and how complicated the family history is. Gathering documents often takes longer than the application itself.

Check IRCC's current processing times ↗ (opens in a new tab)