Procedural fairness letter: how to answer one
IRCC sends a procedural fairness letter when an officer has a concern serious enough to refuse the application on, and has not yet decided. The letter states the concern and gives a date to answer by. What you send back is the answer, and there is no second one.
About this work
What is a procedural fairness letter?
It is notice. An officer reviewing your application has formed a concern that could refuse it, and you are told and given the chance to respond before the decision is made. The letter sets out the concern and a date to answer by.
The application is still open when it arrives. Nothing has been refused yet. That distinction carries more weight than it first appears, because the questions available to you change completely once a decision exists.
The concern is usually narrow and specific: a document IRCC believes is not genuine, an employment history it could not verify, a relationship it doubts, or an answer on one form that conflicts with something else on the file.
The clock
How long do you have to act?
5 years for a misrepresentation finding
Three dates matter after a fairness letter arrives, and only the first one is inside your control.
The five year period is section 40(2)(a) of the Immigration and Refugee Protection Act. It runs from a final determination of inadmissibility where the determination is made outside Canada, and from the day the removal order is enforced where it is made in Canada. Section 40(3) bars an application for permanent resident status during that period. The judicial review deadlines are section 72(2)(b) and run from the day you were notified of the decision.
The mistake that costs the most
Answering the application instead of the concern
A fairness letter names one thing. Replies that argue the whole application and leave that one thing untouched are the single most common way an answerable concern becomes a refusal.
Read what the officer actually doubted
The letter states the concern in a sentence or two. Everything in the reply should point at that sentence. Material that does not is filler the officer has no reason to weigh.
A denial on its own is not evidence
Where IRCC says a document could not be verified, replying that it is genuine repeats your position without moving it. A route the officer can check does move it.
The reply becomes part of the record
If the application is refused and the refusal goes to the Federal Court, the court reads what you sent. A thin reply narrows the argument available later.
Side by side
The letter and the refusal are different moments
5 routes, each with its own clock
Both arrive by email from IRCC and both concern the same doubt. What you can do about them is not the same.
| Fairness letter | Refusal letter | Why it matters | |
|---|---|---|---|
| When it arrives | Before a decision | It is the decision | One is an open file and the other a closed one |
| What it asks of you | An answer to a stated concern | Nothing | The letter is a question. The refusal is not. |
| Your deadline | The date printed in the letter | 15 days inside Canada, 60 days outside | Both can be missed and neither one pauses |
| If you do nothing | The officer decides on the file as it stands | The decision stands | Silence has the same effect at either stage |
| What is argued | Whether the concern is well founded | Whether the decision was reasonable | The second is a harder question than the first |
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.
- ✓The fairness letter, and the date you received it
- ✓The date the letter gives you to answer by
- ✓The application as filed, including every form and submission letter
- ✓The documents the letter puts in question, and where each one came from
- ✓Contact details for whoever prepared or translated the application
- ✓Your passport and any previous Canadian permits or visas
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 consultationUnderstand
We take the full history and read the documents before offering an opinion. Most bad advice comes from acting on half the facts.
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.
Act
We prepare the application, the defence or the appeal properly the first time, because fixing a weak record later is harder and dearer.
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.
Super visa, parents and grandparents
Sharifi v Canada (Citizenship and Immigration)
2026 FC 99Docket IMM-23381-24
Application allowedWork permit, Temporary Foreign Worker Program
Sing v Canada (Citizenship and Immigration)
2026 FC 105Docket IMM-18690-24
Application allowedTemporary resident visa
Rehman v Canada (Citizenship and Immigration)
2026 FC 805Docket IMM-20802-24
Application allowedPermanent residence, Express Entry
Goel v Canada (Citizenship and Immigration)
2025 FC 275Docket IMM-1797-24
Application allowedWork permit, job offer
Sharma v Canada (Citizenship and Immigration)
2024 FC 1928Docket IMM-6445-23
Application allowedStudy permit
Tandel v Canada (Citizenship and Immigration)
2024 FC 1487Docket IMM-3700-23
Application allowedTemporary resident visa
Gill v Canada (Citizenship and Immigration)
2024 FC 1453Docket IMM-10337-23
Application allowed
Where to go next
A procedural fairness letter is the chance to answer a concern before IRCC decides on it.
The date in the letter is the deadline, section 40 of the Immigration and Refugee Protection Act sets the five year cost of a misrepresentation finding, and a reply aimed at the concern the officer actually raised is the whole of the opportunity.
Common questions
What do people ask about procedural fairness letters?
7 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.
Why do most of these letters point at section 40?
Section 40(1)(a) of the Immigration and Refugee Protection Act makes a person inadmissible for misrepresentation for directly or indirectly misrepresenting or withholding material facts relating to a relevant matter that induces or could induce an error in the administration of the Act.
Three words in that provision do most of the work. Indirectly means the statement did not have to come from you. Could induce means IRCC does not have to show any officer was actually misled, only that the error was possible. Material means the fact had to bear on something being decided.
Read together, those words set a lower bar than most people expect. A concern can be made out on a file where nobody intended to deceive anyone and no decision was actually affected.
What does a section 40 finding cost?
Section 40(2)(a) sets the period at five years. Where the determination is made outside Canada it runs from a final determination of inadmissibility. Where it is made in Canada it runs from the day the removal order is enforced, which is a later date than the refusal and sometimes much later.
Section 40(3) adds that a foreign national who is inadmissible under section 40 may not apply for permanent resident status during that period.
IRCC's published list of consequences goes past the bar itself. It states that the application will be refused, that a person could be banned from Canada for at least five years, could have a permanent record of fraud with IRCC, could have temporary or permanent resident status or Canadian citizenship taken away, could be banned from applying for citizenship for five years, and could be removed from Canada.
Does it matter who filled in the form?
Not to the finding. IRCC states that you are responsible for all the information in your application, even if a representative completes it for you, and section 40(1)(a) reaches a misrepresentation made indirectly.
The department is explicit that the consequences follow where you, your representative or your interpreter send false documents or information. A consultant who improved a work history, or an interpreter who smoothed over an answer, creates a problem that lands on the applicant.
That is worth saying plainly to anyone whose first instinct on opening the letter is to forward it to whoever prepared the application and wait to hear back.
How do you answer a fairness letter?
In writing, by the date the letter gives, addressing the concern the letter actually states. IRCC sets that date in the letter itself and the windows differ between programmes and situations, so your own letter is the only reliable source for your deadline.
Answer the concern raised rather than the application as a whole. A reply that restates why the applicant is a strong candidate, and never touches the document or the discrepancy the officer named, leaves the concern exactly where it was.
Evidence moves an officer further than explanation does. Where the concern is that a document is not genuine, the answer is a source IRCC can verify it against. Where the concern is an employer nobody could reach, the answer is a route to reach them.
Silence is not neutral. The officer decides on the material in front of them, and a concern nobody answered is decided as it stands.
Is a procedural fairness letter a refusal?
No. It is notice of a concern that could lead to one, sent while the application is still open and before the officer has decided. What it asks for is your answer to that concern, by the date printed in the letter.
How long do I have to reply to one?
Only your own letter tells you. IRCC sets the period in the letter itself and it differs between programmes and situations, so no general figure is reliable. Work from the date on the letter in front of you and treat it as fixed.
What happens if a misrepresentation finding is made?
Section 40(2)(a) of the Immigration and Refugee Protection Act makes the person inadmissible for five years, and section 40(3) bars an application for permanent resident status during that period. IRCC also states that status already held can be taken away and that a record of the fraud is kept.
Speak to someone this week
Bring the letter and the date you have to answer by. A procedural fairness letter is answered once, and what goes into that reply decides both the application and what can be argued about it afterwards.