sammy_2401 said:
Hi,
After submitting my application for Citizenship, I have plan to travel (out of Canada) during summer vacation for 4 months, May to August. Assuming my application is well prepared and there is no chance of any incomplete information for which CIC would return it back, is there any other concern, that I should not travel immediately after submitting the application.
Any advice/ suggestions in this regard. Thanks in advance.
-Sammy
Technically the applicant is advised (instructed), by CIC, to notify CIC of absences planned for longer than two weeks. However, until the AOR, there is no open file for such information to be noted in, so the effort to notify CIC would be ineffective this soon after applying.
For the vast majority of applicants, there is little chance (beyond, as you note, the possibility the application is returned as incomplete) that CIC will send a communication within the first four months, so there is a low risk of missing a communication and consequently missing a test or interview date, or failing to timely respond to a request. But some applicants have reported remarkably fast processing as fast as four months (I am, however, at least a little skeptical of reports the test and oath were scheduled that quickly . . . six months minimum seems more likely, with the majority being eight months or more, and for many it is much, much longer than that).
One of the requests sometimes sent fairly soon after applying is a fingerprint request. But here too, I suspect that the risk is low of this coming sooner than four months after applying, and only a small percentage of applicants are sent a fingerprint request.
Nonetheless, it is undoubtedly important that your mail arrive at an address where a trusted person is checking it very regularly, someone who can and would promptly notify you of any important communication from CIC.
A for-whatever-it-is-worth observation: Depending on the rest of your history, circumstances, and so on, you may want to consider what impression that lengthy of an absence immediately after applying might have on a stranger bureaucrat examining your passport at your interview, particularly if you are among those who are scheduled for the test/interview quickly (mine was less than eight months after my app arrived at CIC, and many others at my oath ceremony had timelines significantly shorter than that). CIC will sometimes look for indications an applicant
applied-on-the-way-to-the-airport, and this can lead to issues or even problems. Not saying that a four month absence will necessarily cause a problem, but depending on other circumstances, recognizing that very few people can afford to take months long holidays let alone a four month holiday (thus suggesting the possibility a four month absence is more about going home or to work abroad, as in home or employment are not really centralized in Canada), there is a risk it may make a less than favourable impression on the total stranger bureaucrat reviewing your case.
