Waiting times are rising across several parts of Canada’s immigration system, with new figures showing growing delays for both citizenship documents and temporary residence applications.
One of the sharpest increases involves proof of Canadian citizenship applications. IRCC’s estimated processing time has climbed to 33 months, up from 25 months in August and just 12 months in May. Around 136,000 people are now waiting for a decision.
The growing backlog is being made worse by slower processing. IRCC finalized only 2,420 citizenship certificates in July, compared with an average of nearly 5,800 per month between January and May. The number of applications awaiting a final decision also jumped from about 99,500 at the end of June to more than 121,000 by the end of July.
The pressure follows changes to Canada’s citizenship-by-descent rules in December 2025, which expanded eligibility and contributed to a significant increase in applications for proof of citizenship.
Temporary residents are also seeing longer waits in several categories. As of September 16, in-Canada study permit processing increased from 7 to 8 weeks, while applications from Nigeria rose from 9 to 10 weeks. U.S.-based work permit applications increased from 2 to 3 weeks. Some of the biggest changes affected Super Visas, with processing from the U.S. rising from 66 to 116 days and from the Philippines from 64 to 90 days.
Not every category became slower, but the latest numbers show that applicants should be prepared for processing estimates to change considerably as IRCC deals with application volumes and existing inventories. These processing times are estimates rather than guaranteed deadlines, meaning individual cases can still take more or less time.
