Hi everyone.
While checking the
official IRCC statistics of the number of applications, I have found that there was an enormous surge in applications in November/December 2025.
As for March 26th, the processing time tracker shows for applicants:
- applied in November 2025: estimated time left - 7 months, about 175,600 people ahead of you
- applien in December 2025: estimated time left - 13 months, about 306,000 people ahead of you | + 129,400 applications
- applien in January 2026: estimated time left - 13 months, about 317,300 people ahead of you
- applien in February 2026: estimated time left - 13 months, about 318,900 people ahead of you
What has happened in November? Is there any reasonable explanation for that 130k surge in the span of only one month? Thanks
I think this is a data clean-up issue or some other 'phantom' / technical thing going on that I cannot fully explain. But I'm quite confident it's a phantom in that it does NOT represent a huge surge in applications.
How can I tell? I've been tracking the total numbers of apps 'ahead' per the (somewhat) newer IRCC methodology, and there's consistently a month where the number of applications 'ahead' jumps by ~100k. I've been tracking (inputting the tedious info each month) since November.
By month:
In November, the jump month was August (Aug-July difference was 98900)
December: jump in November, Nov-Oct ~86400)
Jan: jump in Dec, Dec-Nov 100400)
Feb: jump in Nov, Nov-Oct 129900
Mar: jump in Dec, Dec-Nov 130400
I can't account for these numbers or why they jump around. The fact it keeps moving (usually) suggests to me it's some kind of data artefact or consistent error that gets corrected once in a while. It's possible it's something like applications rec'd and miscategorized (possibly applications for citizenship certificates? only a guess), applications returned, or applications not correctly attributed to month. Possibly applications that do not appear to be eligible (physical presence count wrong by applicant's own count? Or by CBSA data?) and are removed from the pool pending some clarification.
[I'm human and it's possible I made a mistake in here somewhere recording the info by hand, but I of course don't think that's it.]
To be clear on why I think there's something else going on (like a data clean-up procedure), month by month there is a somewhat consistent trend:
-the numbers mostly do not fall or by tiny numbers (relative to outstandings ahead eg 1-5k) for the first 1-3 months after application;
-there's the big 'burp' month of 85k-200k;
-then the change per month starts out fairly high (25-30k per month), declining fairly rapidly per month to ~5k per month in about 6-8 months after that, with fairly slow declines per month after that until it falls below ~2k per month and thereafter somewhere around or below 100 per month.
The numbers are quite plausible and make sense with overall estimates of how many files might be approved by IRCC per year (I think). The ~100k bump doesn't fit.
Again the 'numbers' I'm putting here are the differences per month. Eg cohort size of month X - month (X-1), and how rapidly that cohort size changes month to month (as reported by their tool).
Hope this helps. Note it's partially conjecture and based on my eyeballing.
