Canadian citizenship

Canadian citizenship is decided on days. Not on years of residence, not on how settled somebody is, but on a count of days physically in the country, and the count for keeping permanent residence is a different count with different rules.

About this work

What does a grant of citizenship actually require?

Subsection 5(1) of the Citizenship Act sets it out, and the central number is 1,095 days of physical presence in Canada during the five years immediately before the date of the application. Physical presence means physically here. Ties, property, family and intention do not enter into it.

Time spent in Canada before becoming a permanent resident is credited, but at half rate. Each day as a temporary resident or protected person counts as half a day, to a maximum of 365 days. For somebody who studied or worked here first, that credit is often what makes an application possible a year earlier than they expected.

Three other requirements sit alongside it. Income tax returns filed for three taxation years falling wholly or partly inside the same five years, where the Income Tax Act required a return at all. Adequate knowledge of English or French. And adequate knowledge of Canada and of the responsibilities and privileges of citizenship, tested by the citizenship test. The language and knowledge requirements apply to applicants who are 18 or older and under 55 at the date of application, so somebody who turns 55 before applying is outside both.

The fee for an adult grant is $653, which includes the right of citizenship fee. For a minor it is $100.

Written by the firm. Pending review by Kapil Rathod, Barrister and Solicitor, Law Society of Ontario licence 77122E.

What changed

Citizenship by descent changed on 15 December 2025

The first generation limit is gone. Until that date, a Canadian who was themselves born abroad could not pass citizenship to a child born abroad at all. Bill C-3 replaced that flat bar with a test the parent can actually satisfy, and it reached backwards as well as forwards.

  1. A substantial connection test replaced the flat bar

    A Canadian parent who was born or adopted outside Canada can now pass citizenship to a child born or adopted outside Canada, if that parent spent at least 1,095 days in Canada before the child's birth or adoption. The connection is the parent's, and it has to exist before the child arrives rather than being built afterwards.

  2. People born before that date are already citizens

    This is the part worth acting on. Anyone born before 15 December 2025 who would have been a citizen but for the first generation limit is a Canadian citizen now, by operation of the amended Act. No grant application is needed and none should be filed.

  3. What they apply for is proof, not citizenship

    The application is for a citizenship certificate, which costs $75. A grant application for an adult costs $653. Somebody in this group who files the wrong one pays roughly nine times as much for an application that does not fit their situation.

  4. It does not touch the residence rules for a grant

    Everything below about 1,095 days in five years, tax filing, language and the knowledge test applies as before to a permanent resident applying for a grant. The December change is about who is a citizen by birth, and it is a separate question.

Side by side

Two residence tests, and they are not the same

6 points of difference

Keeping permanent residence and becoming a citizen both count days, and almost every client assumes the counts work the same way. They do not, and the difference decides whether years spent abroad were wasted for one purpose and fine for the other.

Keeping permanent residence

What it requires
730 days inside any five year period
Where it comes from
Section 28 of the Immigration and Refugee Protection Act
Time abroad with a Canadian citizen spouse or partner
Counts toward the obligation
Time abroad working for a Canadian business
Counts, if the employment is full time and the business qualifies
Time here before you became a permanent resident
Not relevant to the obligation
What failing it costs
The status itself, through a report and an appeal

Becoming a citizen

What it requires
1,095 days in the five years immediately before the date of the application
Where it comes from
Subsection 5(1) of the Citizenship Act
Time abroad with a Canadian citizen spouse or partner
Does not count. Only days physically in Canada count
Time abroad working for a Canadian business
Does not count
Time here before you became a permanent resident
Half a day for each day as a temporary resident or protected person, up to 365 days
What failing it costs
The application. The status remains and it can be applied for again later

Before the meeting

What to bring to the first meeting

6 things to bring

Bring what you have and say what is missing. A meeting with the papers in front of it settles in one sitting what two telephone calls will not.

  • ✓Every passport covering the last five years, including expired ones
  • ✓The date you became a permanent resident, and your record of landing
  • ✓Your travel history, or the border agency report if you have ordered it
  • ✓Notices of assessment for the last five tax years
  • ✓Any charge, conviction or removal order, whatever its age
  • ✓For a descent question, the Canadian parent's own birth or citizenship record

Our approach

A clear path forward

The same four steps on every matter, whether it is a refusal at the Federal Court or a ticket at the Provincial Offences court.

Book a consultation
01

Understand

We take the full history and read the documents before offering an opinion. Most bad advice comes from acting on half the facts.

02

Assess

You get a candid read on strength, timeline and cost, including when the honest answer is that you do not need to hire anyone.

03

Act

We prepare the application, the defence or the appeal properly the first time, because fixing a weak record later is harder and dearer.

04

Report

You hear from us at each stage, and you hear what a wait actually means rather than a date chosen to sound better.

Reported decisions

What has this work produced?

7 allowed of 22 reported since 2023

Public judgments of the Federal Court with Kapil Rathod as counsel of record, each checkable by citation on the court's own site. The rest were dismissed and are listed with these ones.

All case outcomes, including the client accounts

Where to go next

Canadian citizenship is a count of days against a window that moves with the filing date, and the December 2025 change means a number of people are already citizens without knowing it.

Both questions are answered from documents rather than from recollection.

Permanent residenceInadmissibilityBook a consultation

Common questions

What do people ask about Canadian citizenship?

9 answered here

Written to be read once and acted on rather than to be rung about. Each answer is complete where the law allows a complete answer.

How is physical presence counted, and where does it go wrong?

The five year window ends on the date the application is signed and sent, which means it moves. An applicant who calculates in March and files in July has moved the window four months, and days at the far end of it have dropped out of the count. Recalculating at the moment of filing is not a formality.

Every absence counts, including short ones. Weekends across the border, a funeral abroad, a week's holiday. The count is of days present, and the day of departure and the day of return are both treated as days in Canada, which is the one piece of arithmetic that runs in the applicant's favour.

Applying at exactly 1,095 days is the most common avoidable mistake on these files. There is no margin in it, and any absence the applicant has forgotten, or any day the department counts differently, takes the application below the line. A buffer of some weeks costs nothing and removes the whole category of risk.

Where the count is doubted, the department sends a residence questionnaire. It asks for passports, entry and exit records, employment, schooling and addresses across the whole period, and it is answered with documents rather than with a statement of what somebody remembers. Canada Border Services Agency travel history is available and is worth having before the questionnaire arrives rather than after.

Who became a citizen on 15 December 2025?

Anyone born outside Canada, before that date, to a Canadian parent, who was blocked only by the first generation limit. The amended Act treats them as having been a citizen, so the question is not whether they can become one but whether they can prove they already are.

The proof is a citizenship certificate, applied for at $75. It is what a passport application will ask for, and it is what an employer or a provincial health plan will accept. Until it is issued the person is a citizen with nothing to show for it, which is a practical problem rather than a legal one.

For children born or adopted abroad on or after 15 December 2025, the test is prospective. The Canadian parent, if they were themselves born or adopted abroad, needs at least 1,095 days in Canada before the birth or adoption. Those days are the parent's and they have to be documented, so a family planning a birth abroad is better off establishing the parent's presence record in advance than reconstructing it afterwards.

What can stop an application?

The prohibitions in the Citizenship Act, and they are about criminality and about status. Serving a sentence in Canada, whether in prison, on parole or on probation. Being charged with, on trial for, or appealing an indictable offence in Canada or an equivalent offence abroad. Being under a removal order. Matters involving war crimes or crimes against humanity. A previous revocation of citizenship.

A conviction inside the relevant period does not merely delay an application, it bars it, and the period runs backwards from the application date. Anybody with a charge outstanding should know where it sits before filing rather than after, because a bar discovered mid process costs the fee and the time.

Misrepresentation is the other way these fail. A presence calculation that understates absences is not treated as an arithmetic error when the travel history contradicts it. The safer course on a doubtful count is to disclose the doubt and document it.

What if the permanent resident obligation is not met?

Section 28 requires 730 days inside a five year period, and days abroad can count where the permanent resident was accompanying a Canadian citizen spouse or common law partner, or was employed full time by a Canadian business or a public administration, or was accompanying a permanent resident spouse who was. Those allowances have no equivalent in the citizenship count.

Where the obligation is not met, the finding usually comes at a port of entry or on an application to renew a permanent resident card, and it produces a report and then a removal order. There is an appeal to the Immigration Appeal Division, and on that appeal humanitarian and compassionate considerations can be raised, including the best interests of any child directly affected.

That appeal is where most of these are actually won or lost, and it turns on the reasons for the absence rather than on the arithmetic. Somebody who was abroad caring for a dying parent is in a different position from somebody who simply lived elsewhere, and the evidence for that has to be assembled rather than asserted.

My parent is Canadian but was born abroad. Am I a citizen?

Possibly, and if you were born before 15 December 2025 you may already be one. The first generation limit that would have blocked you was replaced on that date, and people born before it who were caught only by that limit are treated as citizens. What you would apply for is a citizenship certificate at $75, not a grant of citizenship at $653.

Does time working abroad for a Canadian company count toward citizenship?

No. It counts toward keeping permanent residence under section 28 of the Immigration and Refugee Protection Act, and that is where the confusion comes from. The citizenship count under subsection 5(1) of the Citizenship Act is days physically in Canada, and employment abroad does not add to it however Canadian the employer is.

Do my years as a student count?

At half rate, and capped. Every day in Canada as a temporary resident or protected person before you became a permanent resident counts as half a day, up to a maximum of 365 days credited. Two years as a student therefore contributes the full 365 and no more.

I have 1,095 days exactly. Should I apply?

We would not. There is no margin at exactly the threshold, and a single forgotten absence, or a day counted differently by the department, puts the application under the line and costs the fee and the wait. A buffer of a few weeks removes the risk entirely and costs nothing but time you were going to spend anyway.

Do I have to take the test if I am 56?

No. The language and knowledge requirements apply to applicants who are 18 or older and under 55 at the date of the application. Somebody who is 55 or older when they apply is outside both, though every other requirement, including the 1,095 days and the tax filing, still applies.

Speak to someone this week

Bring your passports and the date you landed. Canadian citizenship is worked out from a day count, and the documents settle it faster than any conversation.

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