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Hi, what did you end up doing? From the Question, it has asked for Status, not Visa, because a person is granted H1b status only when they are admitted or did COS.
I do not know what the OP did. If you know you had immigration status (including temporary status, contrary to some comments above) that should be disclosed, including the date obtained and the date it ended.
I will elaborate in regards to how visitor visas fit into this below.
So, in a general sense, if a PR applying for citizenship has been issued a visa, that's a good clue they had immigration status they need to disclose. What information, such as the beginning and end dates, is not always easily established. So, like many questions, the applicant needs to use due discretion and their personal judgment in figuring out what is the best, honest answer. Of course formally issued status document, if available, should have this information, again
if available.
Some Further Observations:
There is a more recent and in-depth conversation about this question (Q 13 in the paper form) in the thread titled
New requirement to disclose travel history from birth ?? here:
Hello, I am getting really confused about what I read on the CIC website:
https://www.cicnews.com/2025/10/wha...medium=email&utm_campaign=newsletter-20251015
On there they said that IRCC confirmed that "The need to include a lifelong travel history, rather than only travel history as an adult or in the five or ten years preceding your application, has been confirmed in recent correspondence between immigration lawyers and Immigration, Refugees and Citizenship Canada...
Here, you identify a significant distinction in what is requested, this is about immigration status not visas. The other discussion was triggered by a CIC News article that failed to recognize that and similar distinctions big time and, in particular, conflated travel dates for dates of status.
But yes, again, the information to disclose is what status a person had, the date they obtained that status, and the date it expired. That, however, is not always easily recognized information.
The reason some (including me) reference visas in this context is that they correlate to information readily recognized and generally known to and understood by most travelers (more about this below).
Formally issued status documents, in contrast, are a definite indicator of immigration status. For Canada there are various status documents such as IMM 1442, which include study and work permits, and visitor records, as well as PR cards, Refugee documents, and VOS documents; these documents should specifically state the particular status, the date obtained, the date it expires. So, for someone applying for citizenship, if they have had formally issued status documents, that is their best source of information when answering Q 13.
The discussion in the other topic, however, was oriented to
whether applicants really need to provide this information for their entire life even for brief visits to a country (the CIC News article asserted that applicants need to disclose ALL travel dates including, for example, brief airport layovers in transit . . . going all the way back to the applicant's birth).
Many in the forum (including me) have the view that the question is far more broad than what IRCC actually wants and it should be OK to overlook (not disclose) some older brief visits (this warrants further clarification). Here too, however, there is a tendency to conflate what IRCC is actually asking versus what IRCC actually wants. Overly broad questions are common in immigration applications.
In the citizenship application in particular, for example, the applicant is asked "
is someone helping you fill out this form?" (Q 8a in paper form). Many of us answered [NO] even though our spouse or sister or good friend helped, even if we participated in forums like this to get help, and in particular we answered [No]
despite the question specifically instructing applicants to answer [Yes] even if the help was unpaid assistance from family or friend. No need to dive into the weeds to justify responding [No], other than this is largely a personal judgment call based on an understanding that in the individual applicant's personal situation IRCC does not actually want disclosure, so it is practically OK . . . but, make no mistake, IRCC is actually asking for this information. (So deciding to not disclose some information is, of course, is at the applicant's risk.)
Why the Reference to Visas:
The reason some (including me) reference visas in this context is that visas typically correlate with information about status and they are readily recognized, and generally known to, and understood by most travelers. They are often (in the past almost always) evidenced by stamps or something otherwise affixed in the traveler's passport. Anyone who has been issued a visa and who traveled to that country should readily recognize and understand they had immigration status, and of course that is a big clue they should divulge that information in response to this question.
Nonetheless, the particular information to disclose, as you reference, is details about the status the applicant had.
Notwithstanding the blatantly erroneous posts above, in this thread, asserting that temporary status is not an immigration status (some referencing U.S. law, which is NOT the standard), most here correctly acknowledge (and there should be no doubt) that temporary status to study or work in a country is considered (by Canadian immigration) to be immigration status.
How this applies to visitor status, however, has been questioned.
Visitor Status In Particular:
In addition to confusing travel dates for dates of status, the other thread was largely about whether the applicant needs to disclose having had visitor status in a country. I dropped the ball there in failing to clearly convey that IRCC is indeed asking about having had visitor status (visitor status, after all, is in the drop down list, and at least in Canada having visitor status is recognized as having temporary resident status), so the default is YES, applicants are asked to disclose when they had visitor status in another country.
It is not entirely clear how other forum participants think Q 13 applies to periods with visitor status in another country.
Some apparently assert that IRCC is not asking for the disclosure of visitor status at all . . . but that view is contrary to what the question actually asks . . . again, after all, "
visitor" is in the drop down list of statuses to disclose.
Another view, or approach, as is discussed in the other thread in some detail, which I agreed with, is that it should be OK for applicants to exercise due discretion and personal judgment in overlooking or otherwise leaving out some . . . let's say "
insignificant" or "
irrelevant" instances in the past that should be of little if any concern to IRCC.
I want to be more clear than I was in the other discussion: the question clearly asks the applicant to disclose visitor status in other countries, at least if that constitutes immigration status (I believe there are many circumstances in which the citizen of one country can visit another without being given immigration status; for just one example, a citizen of Belgium can visit France without being granted immigration status in France, given the rights a citizen of Belgium has pursuant to the country's membership in the EU).
But is it OK to not dredge up every occasion in which they visited another country? At least some of us say yes, it is OK to not dredge up and disclose every occasion.
But in that other discussion I somewhat glossed over distinguishing that as being OK as a practical matter, a personal judgment call. Somewhat like answering [No] to Q 8 even if a friend or family member helped in making the application.
I did make an effort, in regards to distinguishing occasions that should be disclosed:
Avoiding that morass, and sorting out factually challenging cases, for now anyway, it is worth focusing on what is clear. If a person has been issued a visa, that's a grant of immigration status. That should clarify things a little. If a visitor visa has been issued, Q 13 is asking for that to be disclosed.
Small correction: I refer to a visa as "
a grant of immigration status," when technically is just a travel authorization, so I should have been more clear (sorry for assuming what was meant would be easily understood) that it is an indicator of the grant of status.
It appears that some, such as
@armoured (whose rather rude and snide characterization of what I said about this as bunkum, that is "
bunk," I forgive), missed the point: if a visa has been formally issued (and it was used for travel to that country), the individual knows they had status . . . and they should recognize there is a digital/paper trail of that, and in many instances a passport stamp or paper visa affixed in the passport.
So I said:
Here's my take: if a visitor visa was issued, IRCC is clearly asking for that to be disclosed in the application.
Again, not because the visa itself is a grant of status but because it clearly indicates the grant of status.
