CANADA: Immitracker vs. IRCC, immigration processing time insights (September & October 2024)
Immitracker is presenting the latest processing time statistics for Canada! With the help of our users who thoughtfully put in their case information, we’re able to glean valuable insights regarding actual processing times for the most popular Canadian immigration programs.
For each visa and immigration program and citizenship, the IRCC provides average processing time estimates. These official estimates by program can be found here. From the cases that get logged in the Canadian trackers on Immitracker, we noticed that the actual processing times can vary significantly from the ones presented by the IRCC.
This time we’re presenting the combined analysis for both September and October 2024 and the programs that Immitracker reviewed are from the most popular trackers and include:
Key Report Takeaways
In the graph below, we display the government processing time estimates for each of the programs (last updated by the IRCC on September 17th) on the left side and the actual processing time estimates calculated by Immitracker on the right side. Below are some of the most interesting observations we made based on this data:
Our case numbers have grown! For most programs, we have dozens of cases that we reviewed. They provide a more reliable sample size to identify real processing time trends
Citizenship applications remain surprisingly fast! The government states that the processing times are around 7 months but we’re still seeing most applications get processed in around 4.5 months. What could be the reason for this citizenship application acceleration?
The distribution of shortest to longest processing times for CEC and PNP are huge! The longest cases for these programs are respectively 685 and 542 days…. For CEC, the longest case took over 2 years!
This trend of huge processing time variations is continuing since it started earlier in the summer. There are always 2-4 cases that took an unusually long time.
What do these longest cases have in common? Looks like nationality…
For CEC, all 4 longest cases were from Chinese nationals. For PNP, the 2 longest cases were from Chinese and Iranian nationals.
The Immitracker numbers were calculated based on the cases that successfully finished processing in September and October (data for both months combined). Case timelines were counted from application submission to final approval.
In the sections below, we break down our Immitracker processing time insights by individual program including the quantity of cases that were analyzed and the number of days it took on average for the case to go from application submission to the final processing milestone (Passport Request / PPR or final application approval letter).
Processing Time Analysis by Program
Citizenship
For Citizenship applicants, we analyzed 48 cases that received their Oath Letter (the letter in which the IRCC provides the applicant with an invitation to and date for their citizenship ceremony). This entire process took them on average around 135 days / 4.5 months.
Citizenship remains unusually fast and significantly different from the 7 month processing time posted by the IRCC.
Spousal Sponsorship
For Spousal Sponsorship applicants (both inland and outland), we analyzed 17 cases that received their PPR and it on average took them 225 days / 7.5 months in order to receive it.
This is the first time this year we included spousal sponsorship in our analysis. Based on the data, we can see that in general, the cases are moving quicker than both the inland and outland spousal sponsorship processing times posted by the IRCC.
Express Entry Provincial Nominee Programs (PNPs)
For Provincial Nominee (PNP) through Express Entry applicants, a total of 52 cases received their PPR and it on average took them 150 days / 5 months in order to receive it.
Since this summer, we’ve been seeing unusually long processing times for a few PNP cases. This time, we also saw two cases that took 500+ days to be approved.
Express Entry Federal Skilled Worker Program (FSW) Program
For Federal Skilled Worker (FSW) applicants, a total of 18 cases received their PPR and it on average took them 109 days / 3.6 months in order to receive it.
FSW was unusually fast this fall! During our previous analysis, we saw a 5.1 month processing time average. The average has consistently remained around 5 months or more throughout this year but we saw a big acceleration in the application processing starting September. We’re also seeing much less FSW cases in general but they’re moving quickly.
Express Entry Canadian Experience Class (CEC) Program
For Canadian Experience Class (CEC) applicants, a total of 87 cases received their PPR and it on average took them 156 days / 5.2 months in order to receive it.
CEC remains consistent with its processing time average and it matches what the IRCC presents. However, once again we saw a few outlier cases that took over 500 (and even over 600!) days to process. The quantity of completed cases for CEC increased which reflects the government’s new focus on transitioning temporary residents in Canada to permanent residence.
September & October 2024 Summary Infographic
If you’re interested in getting a copy of our data analysis summaries, you can download them along with the infographic for free at the following link!
Looking for processing time insights for other programs? Check out the Immitracker trackers or reach out to us through our Contact Form and we can help you find the answers!
