December 20, 2022

IRCC Processing Times 

Immigration to Canada and the movement of individuals from one country to another for the purpose of resettlement is an integral piece of Canadian history. People immigrate to Canada for a multitude of reasons and yearly, we receive a considerable number of immigrants. In order to process newcomers efficiently, the IRCC has created immigration categories.  

Each immigration category has different processing times, and the table below breaks down the number of months it took the IRCC to finalize applications in each immigration category. 

The shortest processing time is for the Canadian Experience Class applicants (CEC), at an average of 7 months for both 2020 and 2021. CEC applicants must have over a year of full-time skilled Canadian work experience or 1560 hours of part-time skilled Canadian working experience, and with CEC applications having the shortest processing time, successful individuals are able to contribute to Canada’s economy relatively quickly. The longest processing time in 2021 was for the Caregiver category, with majority of applications being finalized at 29 months.  

Generally, the processing times for each category increased from 2020 to 2021 – Caregiver saw an increase of 10 months while Federal Skilled and Trade saw a notable increase of 13 months. Ministerial Instruction Economic Programs and SPC shared an increase of 3 months in 2021.  

Notably, IRCC’s attempts at combatting the backlog and expediting processing times may help explain the 9-month decrease in H&C, Other, Public Policy processing times.   

This table helps breakdown the processing times over the last two years. While there are significant changes in some categories, and no change at all in others, the present research shows interesting statistics that could change how people wanting to immigrate to Canada might explore other avenues and applications as a means of getting here.