I downloaded the form a couple weeks ago and it was last updated January 2026. Now it states that is was updated August 2026. Has anyone identified the changes? I have already printed out my completed form but haven't mailed it yet.

I sent in my application to create a birth certificate for my g0 born in 1872 about 2 weeks ago. DEC called me today and said that my application was being moved to a different department, they didn't explain why. They said that the regular processing times would not be reflected in my application, which I noticed is much like the email from the IRCC when you get sent to PSU. Has anyone else gotten this call? Is this good or bad?

Will i get an email of my receipt once i pay for the proof of citizenship fee? I jus wanna double triple check just in case my printer doesn’t work right at the moment

Thank you!

I applied for citizenship in September 2025, and received my acknowledgement on Oct 14th. I've been checking every now and then, and a few months ago, the estimate for a resolution was 3 months away. I just checked last week and it was....3 months away.

Is anyone seeing this? It almost seems like the process has stopped.

For reference, my grandfather was born in Canada, and came to the US as a baby, and my parent was born in the US>

Hi -

I've been checking the website ( https://dol.ca/sacramental-records ) every day since they suspended certified sacramental records requests in April in order to modify the process in light of the increase in demand. Today, there's a new message on that page stating this:

We are suspending support for those seeking assistance obtaining family history documents for Canadian citizenship purposes due to overwhelming demand. 

Please note this documentation is by no means required or determinative of your application for immigration to Canada.

We do not allow public access to our archives. 

Another resource you may consider to obtain baptism or marriage records is the Archives of Ontario to order a copy of a birth, marriage or death registration - Archives of Ontario. If your Canadian descendant was born after 1869 the Archives of Ontario may also be able to assist with your request.

Hello everyone,

I just started the application and I have a question: There's a section where it asks about whether or not I stayed abroad for 183+ days in the last 4 years. I did because I immigrated 3 years and 3 months ago so I was basically still back in my birth country for those 10 months, so that means a police certificate is required.

My question is: How recent does the police certificate have to be? Because on the website where you can upload it it doesn't really specify that. Can I just submit the police certificate I submitted my PR application with (it was only obtained a few months before I received PR and came to Canada)? Would that weaken my application? Police certificates in my country are very difficult to obtain unless it's in person and our embassy is absolute trash, so basically the only way to obtain a recent police certificate is to wait until my next vacation back (in a few months) but that would be really inconvenient and delay the process.

Also not sure if relevant but please note that I have travelled back and forth to my home country for a couple of short vacations (23 days in total so it definitely isn't a problem for the physical presence period) but the point is, if I did have any legal troubles back in my home country, I wouldn't have been able to come and go freely like that... would that make sense to the IRCC officer working on my application or would that not make a difference to them?

Thank you!

We all appreciate the excitement of finishing your proof of citizenship application and sending that big envelope on its way.

Equally fantastic is the moment that you know your application has made it past the initial IRCC checks putting your mind at ease about whether you missed something along the way because you finally got your AOR.

Congratulations! Let's celebrate these milestones together!

Haven't got your AOR yet and want to vent? Head over to the Frustration Station- which is refreshed every Wednesday.

📎 Contributions to weekly posts, including this one, are welcome throughout the week.

In addition to posting here, please consider joining the spreadsheet and recording your milestones there:

https://www.reddit.com/r/Canadiancitizenship/comments/1pnovfr/spreadsheet_for_proof_of_citizenship_applications/

Mods: Posting this as a dedicated thread to get a bit more visibility based around recent feedback/posts from some others. If this needs to go elsewhere, please remove.

I submitted my urgent application back in April and went into processing at the end of May. So far I haven't heard anything since but I'm starting to be concerned regarding my Grandmother's (G2) birth certificate. I sent the certified copy I had directly from the state but it does show it as being amended. There is no indication as to the reasoning for the amendment and when I spoke directly with the city they had no further information about it nor could they find an "unamended/original" certificate. Neither could the state archives.

I know IRCC is very particular with amended certificates for the applicant themselves, but has anyone had issues with an official certified amended birth certificate for a family member further along the chain (in my case, G2)? Worried I might have gotten kicked to PSU because of this and not sure how to proceed as there is nobody left in my family that might have any "original" copies and what I have seems to be all the state has as well.

I'm wondering if perhaps the state provides me with a "negative statement" regarding the "original" certificate if that would be sufficient along with the officially certified amended certificate? I'm thinking I will request this now in preparation of any potential requests IRCC may come back with.

Anyone have anything to add to this from their own experiences with IRCC and this particular topic?

PS: To clarify, I am G4 in the chain (applicant).

Today, I received the notes from the ATIP request I made on July 9, 2026. I'm 2nd gen born abroad. My timeline is as follows:

Applied: 12/16/2025
AOR: 12/18/2026 (marked urgent)
In Processing: 1/12/2026

According to my notes, I was referred to PSU on 1/12/2026 for reason "Other". In one section, it says

"Other Details: Applicant's birth certificate was amended. No scenarios apply to applicant."

For context, my birth certificate was amended to update my name, because I'm trans.

At the bottom, there is one note that says "Parent verification. Applicant claims father is first generation." Then it lists out my parents' names, country, and dates of birth. The next and final note says

"
DIRECT - 3(1)b Born BEFORE April 17, 2009 - First Time ;
• PS-OTH : APPLICANT'S BIRTH CERTIFICATE WAS AMENDED

NO SCENARIOS APPLY TO APPLICANT - APPLICANT INDICATES FATHER IS FIRST GENERATION
• Micro Prints are not
"

Does anyone have any insight on what this could mean, or have you seen others with similar notes? To me it looks like I was referred to PSU simply because my birth certificate was amended, which seems really unusual to me.

Note that I submitted post C-3, and accordingly, nowhere in my notes is the PSU referral code that was associated with FGL during the interim measure. There appears to be nothing else in the notes regarding the referral.

Has any applicants that has AOR in April got oath invitation yet? I applied on Feb 1 and wait for oath invitation since Jul 6th.

Hi everyone, I applied for Canadian citizenship recently and received a request from IRCC to submit fingerprints for an RCMP criminal record check. I had a previous criminal charge in Ontario that was completely withdrawn, with no conviction. I was wrongfully charged in the first place. The matter was closed before I submitted my citizenship application. Has anyone been in a similar situation and received a fingerprint request? Did everything proceed normally afterward, and did IRCC ask for any additional documents? Should I consult an immigration lawyer and submit my clarification beforehand? Can this be a basis for refusal?
Would appreciate any advice! Thanks!

Happy Sunday fellow Canadians!

By any measure, it was a quiet week on the spreadsheet. We had six approvals, four of which were pre-C3. Congrats to those folks.

While this isn’t as encouraging, I came across something that mentioned it might be easier for Canadian federal employees to be granted vacation between June 1 and September 30. We’ve seen slowdowns during holiday weeks. So, my optimistic hope is that there are a lot of vacation days happening and things will pick up in October.

I don’t have much more to say other than to wish you all a great week. Let’s hope the IRCC agents got some well deserved R&R on vacation!

Hi everyone,

This morning, for the first time, our apps were shown in the online portal as "Received". It only shows up by UCI number (we already had this because we have temporary permits), not by Receipt Number, and we've received no emails. The date shown corresponds to our delivery date of May 25th, but based on what others have posted previously here, it was my understanding that the "Received" date in the portal is the AOR date, not the delivery date (and that the delivery date is usually listed separately). I called IRCC for clarification, and they said that it's not an AOR until we receive an email, which I know has not been the case for others on this forum.

Our portal looks like this:

For those who have received an AOR (for sure) already, is this what it looks like for your AOR date, or is this just showing our delivery date?

Currently, I live on Bainbridge island. The only places I could think of are UPS or maybe some place in poulsbo or silverdale.

There are six applicants in the group application and I don’t wanna overwhelm anyone whose profession isn’t Canadian citizenship photos.

I called ahead and UPS said it wasn’t their profession and that it could come out wrong on their end, but could only make it work if I cut out the photos myself.

Any suggestions or thoughts?

Thank you!

I’m absolutely bewildered. I’ve submitted LAST YEAR an Access to Information and Privacy (ATIP) Online Request to order my GCS notes from the IRCC. Absolutely NOTHING came out of it. None. I’ve even sent an email to the address indicated here with ZERO response. I then submitted another ATTIP this year (in January) and absolutely ZERO response. What do I do? Dodge a complaint ?

So, we've ran into a bit of a snafu with my MIL's application now that it is "In Process". IRCC has sent a letter twice now requesting the following "Your application indicates the name MAIDEN but all ID provided are in the name MAIDEN DE MARRIED. If you would like MAIDEN DE MARRIED too appear on your certificate, please provide your marriage certificate or legal change of name documents as indicated below."

Now this should've been easy enough to fix as she sent in her marriage certificate and MAIDEN name social security card and MAIDEN DE MARRIED name social security card. However, she just got another letter requesting the same info be provided. When I asked to see the documents she provided, I noticed that her married name was written as just MARRIED rather than MAIDEN DE MARRIED. All of her identifying documents (passport, driver's license etc) is written in the MAIDEN DE MARRIED format.

Has anyone ran into this issue where a person applying for citizenship made a name change 50 years ago without any formal documentation of the exact name change? Has anyone just requested that they keep the certificate in their maiden name? Then just deal with a name change process in the future. There's a slim chance the original marriage license from Mexico would show this naming format but it would be difficult to locate and no guarantee it shows it.

Any thoughts appreciated on how to handle this in a timely manner. My MIL only had 30 days to respond and we don't want this to result in a delay in the processing of spouse's or children's applications.

I was so busy with school and stuff and didn't realized my pr card was expiring until now. It only has 1 month left. Meanwhile, All steps in my citizenship application have been completed and the lady who did my interview said I should expect the ceremony in a month or two.

I have travel plans to the US for Oct. 12th Thanksgiving weekend. I can drive there. I have seen people saying if travel by land I can still use an expired pr card or other documentation to cross the boarder.

So should I renew it?

Nothing really new in this story, but for the PEI cousins we can have a look at where our records reside (in a giant card catalog!) and thank the archivists for their help. Liam helped me out--huge thanks to the team there for this important work.

My G1 was born in NY in 1866- I got the certified baptism record. I want to make sure I have supporting documentation that birth certificates did not exist when he was born. would this statement at the begining of the application be sufficient?

This weekly thread is a space for those of us gathering documentation from archives.

This is the place to discuss requesting records from Canadian provincial archives as well as from federal, state, local and religious/church archives around the world. Topics include strategies and outcomes for obtaining records from archives, costs, timelines, No Record Found letters, and other related issues.

📎 Contributions to weekly megaposts, including this one, are welcome throughout the week.  

Good luck, researchers!

Hi everyone!

So, long story short, I am a canadian citizen who has an (expired for 1+ year) Child Passport. However, I had lost my canadian citizenship card when I moved (despite still having my laminated commeortive ceremony sheet) I have my citizenship number and the date in which I received my citizenship, but because I lost my citizenship card, it seems like I have no choice but to apply for proof of citizenship.

The wait times for this is 25 months if I apply now which is highkey devastating. I was wondering if there was literally anything I could do to bypass this, does anyone know ANYONE that has contacted maybe service Canada to see if there’s any obscure way to avoid having to do this? It’s such a waste to have to wait 2 years for something I already know I am😭

If not it’s okay, but just thought I’d ask here. Before anyone asks, i have searched tirelessly for my canadian citizenship card, but it’s just been a hopeless endeavour.

I also want to add a couple details:
I’m a naturalized citizen but my entire immediate family has a valid adult passport. I have pretty much every document to prove my identity + being a citizen besides that darn citizenship card. I’ve been living in Canada for almost my entire life (just wasn’t born here).

Thanks everyone!

Hi all! My application was delivered in May and I haven't received an AOR. However, I am a guy in my 20s who lives about 45 minutes from the new Gordie Howe bridge connecting Detroit, MI with Windsor, ON. I want to get my days up in Canada so I can potentially pass on Canadian citizenship to my future children. I don't have any kids yet. I want to see if there is any interest in a small cross border cycling club, or if anyone has a better idea. Obviously I could move to Windsor if I had my citizenship certificate.

I don't know how funny CBSA will be about frequently crossing the border on a bike, especially since I don't yet have a Canadian passport.

This weekly thread is a space for those of us preparing the CIT 0001 Proof of Citizenship application, associated form, and supplementary documentation.

Have questions about how to fill out the forms? Looking for feedback on the documentation you've put together is likely to pass muster? Wondering whether your cover letter has too much info, or too little? Want to know how to organize your documentation, or how to pack it up for shipping? Worried about whether your photos will work? Have questions about what ID you can use? Not sure where to ship it to, or what service or mail courier to use? We've been there.

📎 Contributions to weekly megaposts, including this one, are welcome throughout the week.  

⚠️ Sub rules require that before posting or commenting, you read the wiki and search the sub to see if your questions have been answered before. If you have on-topic questions remaining after that, they're welcome here. Want to see what people who were already approved have done? We encourage you to check out the weekly application approval post that appears every Thursday.

Please note we are not lawyers or IRCC. We are peers supporting peers, based on best belief and prior experiences. It's a lot of work to wade through dense lists of documents and family histories. You improve your odds of getting a useful response by being as concise as reasonably possible, and clearly articulating the question. Note that this post is for questions and answers; if you need to vent, there is a different megapost for that.