Canadian citizenship certificate applications now facing nearly 3-year delays
Processing times for Canadian citizenship certificates have surged to nearly three years, a 32% increase since August. Officials attribute the backlog to a combination of factors, including the implementation of Bill C-3 and a significant rise in application volume.
Why it matters
The delay impacts thousands of individuals seeking legal proof of citizenship, highlighting administrative challenges within the Canadian immigration system.
More than 136,000 applications for citizenship certificates are now waiting for a decision — many of them from Americans. Those who apply today face an estimated wait of 33 months, according to figures posted on Immigration, Refugees and Citizenship Canada (IRCC)'s website.
That is a 32 per cent jump in wait time and an 11 per cent rise in the number of applications since the previous update on Aug. 10.
In May 2025, prior to Bill C-3 going into effect, the estimated processing time for citizenship certificate applications was five months.
Christine Beltempo, chair of the Canadian Bar Association's immigration section and a lawyer with McCarthy Tétrault, said her members are concerned about the "exponential increase" of processing times for citizenship certificate applications.
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