March 2025 - Citizenship Applications

[tanjid12]

Hi, I had my interview on Feb 24th, they just wanted to check my entry stamp into Canada when I first came as a visitor. My LPP is all done. Waiting for oath now. Glad to be almost done with the process!!

So happy for you! Hope they schedule an interview for my wife soon as well!

 

[mint-l]

Hello everyone, can someone tell me what does "Due date" means in GMCS notes, my prohibitions due date is approaching but knowing the process I believe those dates can be easily extended

 

[Hwallikniw]

I

Hello everyone, can someone tell me what does "Due date" means in GMCS notes, my prohibitions due date is approaching but knowing the process I believe those dates can be easily extended

believe it's a year from assignment to officer. they need to review it again. did you end up getting your background approval?

 

[mint-l]

I

believe it's a year from assignment to officer. they need to review it again. did you end up getting your background approval?

not yet, both background and prohibitions are in progress.

 

[dreamscanadian]

I am also in the fingerprints june 11 crowd. Absolutely no movement - officially the 1 year since application date.

 

[ashsense]

handful of people with fingerprint requests in June 11 are here waiting on BG. my spouse has similar AOR to you. no FP request and still waiting on BG and PB

When was the last time your spouse submitted their FP before applying for citizenship?

 

[ashsense]

I am also in the fingerprints june 11 crowd. Absolutely no movement - officially the 1 year since application date.

And the processing times keep increasing. I wonder when does it become sensible to file for mandamus

 

[dreamscanadian]

The general citizenship grant tracker says we have about 3 more months and 60,100 people ahead of us.

 

[ashsense]

The general citizenship grant tracker says we have about 3 more months and 60,100 people ahead of us.

It's been saying 3 months since mid December

 

[mint-l]

It's been saying 3 months since mid December

it is 2 months now

 

[m34]

There are now 5,500 fewer applicants ahead of us in the queue (54.5k). However, the total number of outstanding applications has increased from 313,000 to 320,300. Interestingly, the average processing time has dropped back to 13 months from 14. This could suggest that IRCC has hired more staff and expects to process applications more quickly, or that they plan to speed up processing regardless. Otherwise, it’s hard to explain how the processing time could decrease while the total number of outstanding applications has increased.

Its March 2026 and here we are waiting for our files to be completed, 1 year later.

 

[Hwallikniw]

it is 2 months now

I have a feeling it's going to stay "2 months" for another 5 to 6 months.

 

[armoured]

There are now 5,500 fewer applicants ahead of us in the queue (54.5k). However, the total number of outstanding applications has increased from 313,000 to 320,300. Interestingly, the average processing time has dropped back to 13 months from 14. This could suggest that IRCC has hired more staff and expects to process applications more quickly, or that they plan to speed up processing regardless. Otherwise, it’s hard to explain how the processing time could decrease while the total number of outstanding applications has increased.

Its March 2026 and here we are waiting for our files to be completed, 1 year later.

I /think/ - having kept some records of this from the last few months - that currently (as of this Mar 11 update) means that there are ~4700 individuals in our (monthly) cohort, down from ~5800 last month, i.e. there should have been about 1100 cleared. (I assume at this stage this means that the vast majority were approved, but there may have been some disqualified or withdrawn or whatever within that - but probably insignificant numbers of those).

But of course the rate of clearances will decline (as the remaining in the cohort gets smaller) each month. I've not done proper math on this to figure out that decline rate.

But eyeballing it: it looks like it declines fairly rapidly (or has done for the cohorts ahead of us), by about 200 clearances less per month. And when that monthly clearance rate per cohort falls below ~200 per month, they (currently) switch the message to 'more time needed.' After that the clearance rate for each remaining month falls and settles below 100 per cohort (at which point it starts to look random because they're rounding to 100s so as to avoid disclosing enough info to allow identification of individuals/families).

Or more prosaically, when the cohort size gets to about ~2400 a month (which we might expect in 3-5 months), it will start to look quite slow indeed - roughly corresponding to cohorts from Jan-August '24 or so look now.

Big caveats, this is very preliminary eyeballing and assuming I've not made stupid errors in understanding cohort movements - and will be wrong to some degree, it's very much a rough estimate, I just don't know how wrong or in which way. It's not very optimistic in some senses, although on the other hand, if I'm approximately right, about half of those now remaining from March 25 cohort should get cleared/finalized in the next 3-4 months.

 

[m34]

Is it fair to assume that background checks are typically cleared within about three months when everything is straightforward, but can extend beyond 24 months when security screening is involved? I haven’t come across any cases where the background check alone took (say) around a year to complete. It seems to be either resolved in roughly three months or prolonged for closer to two years. In most timelines around the 12-month mark, the delay appears to be due to something other than the background check itself. But when the background check is culprit, it often turns into a multi-year process.

Is this a reasonable reading?

 

[Hwallikniw]

Is it fair to assume that background checks are typically cleared within about three months when everything is straightforward, but can extend beyond 24 months when security screening is involved? I haven’t come across any cases where the background check alone took (say) around a year to complete. It seems to be either resolved in roughly three months or prolonged for closer to two years. In most timelines around the 12-month mark, the delay appears to be due to something other than the background check itself. But when the background check is culprit, it often turns into a multi-year process.

Is this a reasonable reading?

this was my assumption too until end of year last year. those time when I kept tracking FB pages, I noticed a huge batch release of BG for folks with AOR in December 2024. so roughly around 12 months after the start of their security, they got the BG approved. having said that, I think armoured analysis is pretty accurate. if we don't get any news by the few few months, April or may so, then it's safe to assume we'll be hitting +24 months wait! (personally scared to death about that because all my life plans will be ruined but well it is what it is)