Why getting Canadian citizenship can take longer than you expect

Naturalizing as a Canadian citizen is a lengthy process, taking over four years from start to finish.

The majority of wait time includes fulfilling the physical presence requirement and waiting for your citizenship application to be processed.

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This article covers the timeline for becoming a Canadian citizen through naturalization— overall, as well as for the various stages before, during, and after application processing.

Stage 1: Meeting the mandatory physical presence requirement

Before a permanent resident (PR) can become a Canadian citizen, they must first have “enough physical presence or time lived in Canada.”

What this means: You must have been physically present within Canada for at least 1,095 days (or three years) in the five years prior to applying for citizenship.

A total of 730 of those days must be spent while having PR status in Canada.

Time spent in Canada under temporary resident status (visitor, student, or worker) may be credited toward the physical presence requirement, provided it falls within the five-year eligibility window. This time is calculated at a reduced rate, with each day counting as half a day, up to a maximum of 365 days.

The same applies for those holding temporary resident permits (TRPs) and protected persons.

Immigration, Refugees and Citizenship Canada (IRCC) recommends exceeding the minimum 1,095 days to account for any potential miscalculations.

Note: Any time spent in prison, on parole, probation, or awaiting a refugee claim decision does not count toward the 1,095-day requirement.

Stage 2: Preparing for citizenship application submission

Before you submit a citizenship application, you will need to ensure you have all the necessary components required for submission (detailed in the document checklist), and these may take some time to gather.

With your citizenship application, you are required to provide a variety of documents and information, including

• Proof of English or French language (e.g., a valid language test, or credentials showing you attended a secondary or post-secondary program);
• Qualifying citizenship photos—two printed photos for paper applications, one digital photo for online applications;
• Accurate travel history (for the five-year eligibility period);
• Police certificates for the four years before the date of your application for any country you spent 183 or more consecutive days in.

Other documents may be required, depending on your personal situation.

Some of these documents can take more time than others to obtain—such as police certificates if required (from days to months) or new language test results if your existing results are invalid (two weeks to a month from booking to result receipt).

Further, if you don’t already have detailed notes on your travel in the last five years, this will likely take some time to retrieve, which can be done through methods such as:

• Looking at current/past passports;
• Reviewing your emails for electronic travel authorization confirmations (if applicable);
• Reviewing travel itineraries or old booking confirmations;
• Reviewing credit card and bank statements; and
• Double-checking social media posts and photos.

Depending on what is applicable to you, you can expect this stage to take anywhere from several days to months.

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Stage 3: Applying for Canadian citizenship

After fulfilling the physical presence requirement and satisfying all other eligibility criteria, you can begin filling out the citizenship application.

If you are applying online, you will have 60 days to submit an application once you begin the process. If you don’t do so within 60 days, you will have to create a new account and begin the application process from scratch.

If you’ve done sufficient preparatory work (stage two), it should take no more than two to four hours to complete all required forms, answer each question, and attach all required documentation.

Once you’ve done so, you can submit your application.

Stage 4: Waiting for a decision on your citizenship application

Your application will likely take at least one year to be processed, as IRCC’s service standard for processing 80% of citizenship grant applications is 12 months.

Recent processing times for citizenship grant applications, however, exceed this standard—hovering around a 13–14 month wait time.

After submitting your application, you can expect to be invited to take the citizenship test within a few weeks to a few months. For online applications, you will have 30 days to take this test. Once you complete the test, your results will be provided within a similar time frame, depending on the method by which you took it.

At the time of this writing, there are over 320,000 people awaiting a decision on their citizenship application.

Stage 5: Finalizing your citizenship status

If your application is approved, you will be invited to attend a citizenship ceremony where you will take the oath of citizenship. The invitation will be sent to you at least one week before the ceremony date and will last a few hours.

After the ceremony concludes, you will receive your citizenship certificate—the document that proves you are a Canadian citizen.

How long it takes to receive your certificate is dependent on the certificate format you selected in your application.

Electronic certificate (e-certificate): Available for download in the IRCC Portal within five business days of the immigration department receiving your signed and dated Oath or Affirmation of Citizenship (OAC) form.

Paper certificate: If you attended a virtual ceremony, your certificate will come via mail within two to four weeks of IRCC receiving your signed OAC form; for in-person ceremonies, you will receive it after taking the oath of citizenship.

Once you have your citizenship certificate, you may apply for a Canadian passport—which will be processed within 10 to 20 business days (not including mailing time).

Schedule a Free Canadian Citizenship Consultation with the Cohen Immigration Law Firm