IRCC processing times and what to do about delay
A published processing time is a forecast, and the department says so: the figures are not a maximum and not a guarantee. Knowing what they measure is what tells you whether your file is normal, late, or stalled.
About this work
What do IRCC's published processing times actually mean?
They are a forecast for an application received today. IRCC calculates each figure from how many applications are already in the inventory, how many staff process that type, and how many more it expects to receive. The estimate includes the time taken to give biometrics.
That is why comparing your wait against the posted number tells you less than people assume. The number describes a file starting now. Yours started earlier, under a different inventory and a different forecast, so a file at fourteen months and a posted figure of eight are not two measurements of the same thing.
The department states the position plainly: an application may take longer than the times shown, and the figures are not a maximum and not a guarantee.
Before you pay anybody
Nothing lawfully jumps the queue
There is no paid route to the front of an IRCC inventory, and the department does not offer one. What a representative can do is establish that the delay is unreasonable and ask a court to order a decision, which is a different thing from priority.
An enquiry before the posted time achieves nothing
The web form is gated on being past the figure, and an enquiry filed early is answered with the figure. Waiting until the gate opens is not passivity, it is the first step that counts.
Urgent processing is a defined thing, not a favour
IRCC operates urgent processing for specific situations with published criteria. It is worth checking whether a case actually fits one, and worth not building a plan on it if it does not.
A mandamus application is about the duty to decide
It asks the court to order a decision. It does not ask for approval, and a decision produced this way can be a refusal, which is why the refusal routes are worth understanding first.
Side by side
Stalled or refused?
4 routes, each with its own clock
The two situations feel similar to the person waiting and run on entirely different provisions, remedies and clocks. The first question is which one you actually have.
| A file that has stalled | A file that was refused | Why it matters | |
|---|---|---|---|
| What has happened | No decision has been made | A decision has been made and it went against you | Only the second one starts a deadline running |
| The remedy | Mandamus, an order to decide | Leave and judicial review of the decision, or an appeal where the Act gives one | Mandamus does not ask the court to approve anything |
| The clock | No filing deadline, though delay has to be established | 15 days inside Canada, 60 days outside, under section 72(2)(b) | A refusal can be missed for good. A delay cannot |
| What success looks like | A decision, which may still be a refusal | The decision set aside and the application redetermined | Neither remedy substitutes the court's view for the officer's |
The route
How does the process run?
5 stages, each with its own clock
Each step is worth completing before the next, because the later ones rely on the record the earlier ones create.
Check the posted figure for your exact stream
IRCC publishes and updates theseThe estimates differ by application type and, for most temporary streams, by the country you applied from. The figure for a visitor visa from India is not the figure for one from the United Kingdom, and the country used is the one on the application.
Check the status of the application itself
Before contacting anybodyThe account status and the posted estimate answer different questions. One tells you what stage your file has reached, the other tells you what a new file would face.
Use the web form once you are over the posted time
The first step that creates a recordThis is the department's own route and it is gated on being past the figure. Keep the reference number and the date, and keep the reply.
Order the GCMS notes
Free under the Privacy ActThe notes show what has actually happened on the file and what has not. A year of no entries is a different case from a year of security screening, and only the notes tell you which you have.
Take advice on whether mandamus fits
Federal CourtThe test is a public duty to act, everything required of you done, a demand for the decision met with delay, and delay longer than the process reasonably requires with no adequate explanation.
Before the meeting
What to bring to the first meeting
5 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 date IRCC received the complete application, and the receipt or acknowledgement
- ✓The posted processing time for your stream and country, with the date you read it
- ✓Every enquiry you have sent, with reference numbers, and every reply
- ✓The GCMS notes if they have arrived
- ✓Any request for documents or biometrics, and the date you answered it
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
IRCC processing times are a forecast for a file received today, and the department says they are not a maximum and not a guarantee.
Delay becomes actionable when it runs well past them, the decision has been asked for, and no adequate explanation is given.
Common questions
What do people ask about processing times and delay?
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.
When does the clock actually start?
On the day IRCC receives a complete application, and it ends when a decision is made. Those two dates are the whole of the measured period.
The word doing the work there is complete. An application missing a document may be delayed or returned, and a file that is returned and refiled starts its clock again on the later date. A great deal of what people experience as departmental delay begins as an incomplete filing.
Biometrics sit inside the estimate rather than outside it, so a long gap between the request and the appointment is already accounted for in the published figure.
When does a delay become something you can act on?
The first gate is the department's own. IRCC's web form accepts an enquiry about an application once it is over the normal processing time. Before that point there is no route, and the answer to a premature enquiry is the posted figure.
Past that point the enquiry matters for a second reason. Mandamus requires that you asked for the decision and were met with delay, so the enquiry and the reply, or the absence of one, become part of the record if the file ever reaches the Federal Court.
Slow is not the test. Waiting well beyond the published figure, with enquiries unanswered and no explanation offered, is the pattern that supports an application. The judicial review page sets out what the court asks and what it can order.
What the escalation actually achieves
Each step produces a record as well as an answer, and the record is what a later application rests on. A file with three unanswered enquiries and a set of GCMS notes showing no activity for a year describes itself.
Filing a mandamus application often produces a decision before it is ever heard, because the duty it asks the court to enforce is a duty to decide. It does not ask for approval and it cannot deliver one.
That is also the honest limit of this work. A decision extracted from a stalled file can be a refusal, and the routes after a refusal are a different question, dealt with separately.
My application is past the posted processing time. What can I do?
Use IRCC's web form, which accepts an enquiry about an application once it is over the normal processing time. Keep the reference number, the date and the reply. That enquiry is the first step that creates a record, and mandamus later requires that a decision was asked for and met with delay.
Does contacting IRCC make the application go faster?
Not by itself, and there is no lawful paid route to the front of the queue. What an enquiry does is establish that you asked, which matters if the file ever reaches the Federal Court, and it occasionally surfaces something stalled for a fixable reason such as an unanswered request.
Is my file being slow the same as being refused?
No, and the difference decides the remedy. A stalled file has had no decision, and the remedy is mandamus, an order that IRCC decide. A refused file has had one, and the remedy is judicial review or an appeal on a deadline of 15 days inside Canada or 60 outside it.
How long is too long?
There is no fixed figure, which is why the published estimate matters as a reference point rather than a rule. The question a court asks is whether the delay is longer than the nature of the process reasonably requires and whether any adequate explanation has been given for it.
Speak to someone this week
Bring the receipt date and every enquiry you have sent. Whether IRCC processing times have been exceeded far enough to act on is a question about the record, not about the wait.