Archives of Ontario moves to online payment for records Americans need to prove Canadian citizenship

Applicants ordering Ontario records to prove Canadian citizenship by descent can now pay the Archives of Ontario online.

The Archives updated its website on October 28, 2026. When an order is ready, customers now get an invoice with a link to a secure online payment portal. The Archives delivers the order once payment arrives.

Before this change, the archives listed Visa and Mastercard payments by phone and debit payments in person. For applicants outside Canada, paying for a record meant calling the archives in Toronto or mailing a cheque across the border. The online portal removes that hurdle.

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Cheques and money orders payable to the “Minister of Finance” are still accepted, as is cash in person. The archives haven’t said which cards the portal accepts, or whether phone payments are still possible.

End wait times will be reduced as applicants will pay faster

Anticipated time savings come at the end of the process. The archives only ship records once they have been paid for. Settling the invoice online the day it arrives can get records moving sooner than a mailed cheque would.

Order updates still come by email. The archives asks customers to reply to any email carrying their case number if they need help.

Notably, the following parts of the record-ordering process will continue to remain the same:

• Prices are the same. A certification still costs $33.00 plus printing. A standard copy is $1.11 per page.
• The service standard is the same. Regular orders take 14 business days. Certified copies have no rush option.
• Ordering is the same. The form for birth, marriage, and death registrations hasn’t changed. Applicants still need the person’s name, the date of the event and its registration number.

The archives’ Reading Room is also temporarily closed. Research help is available by email at reference@ontario.ca, or by phone at 416-327-1600 or 1-800-668-9933 (toll-free).

Why Ontario records matter for proof of citizenship

Since Bill C-3 took effect on December 15, 2025, millions of people with a Canadian ancestor in their direct lineage may already be Canadian citizens. Their claim must run through a Canadian parent, grandparent, or earlier direct ancestor to be recognized.

To confirm their status, these new Canadians apply for a proof of citizenship certificate, the document that shows someone is a Canadian citizen.

Applicants must submit records for every generation in their family line, showing that their ancestor was Canadian and linking every generation between that ancestor and themselves. Immigration, Refugees and Citizenship Canada (IRCC) requires those records to come from the office that created or keeps them.

For Ontario records, that office depends on the year. The Archives of Ontario holds births from 1869 to 1919, marriages to 1944 and deaths to 1954. ServiceOntario holds later records.

A copy certified by the Archivist of Ontario can stand in for an original certificate for legal and government purposes.

Americans have flooded Ontario archives with requests

Demand for these records jumped after Bill C-3, much of it from the United States. Archives across Canada have reported the same pattern, as Americans hunt for the documents that prove their claims.

In May, an Archives of Ontario official spoke to genealogy writer Bill Gladstone. She said the archives was getting at least 200 requests for certified copies a day. At the time, it advised requesters to expect six to 10 weeks, plus time for invoicing and shipping.

Church archives feel it too. They hold baptism records, which often fill gaps where no government birth record exists. The Roman Catholic Diocese of London, Ontario, normally gets about 100 genealogy requests a year, none from Americans. From January to March 2026, it received more than 200 from the U.S., archivist Debra Majer told Canadian Affairs.

The Ontario Genealogical Society (OGS) has seen a similar rise. In May, Office Manager Coral Harkies said requests for research help had “more than doubled.” Before Bill C-3, the OGS handled one or two requests a day. By May, it was handling four or five.

One of the society’s branches used to get one or two research requests a month. It received more than 15 in a single month this spring.

“The phone requests have all been Americans,” Harkies said. Email requests are harder to trace, but Harkies said most likely come from Americans as well.

The most common request is for Ontario birth records from before July 1869, when civil registration began. Births before then were never registered with the province, so applicants often turn to church records instead.

The society doesn’t hold those records itself. “As we do not have access to the records, we are mostly directing them to the right place,” Harkies noted. Some branch volunteers also check the indexes the society holds.

Not sure whether your Ontario ancestor makes you Canadian? Check your eligibility with CanadaVisa’s citizenship by descent calculator.

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