CIMM – Citizenship: In-Person and Video Oath Ceremonies – November 29, 2022

Key Messages

Since April 2020, IRCC has been conducting video oath ceremonies as a means of adapting to the global pandemic while continuing to offer services to IRCC clients.
Video oath ceremonies have helped improve client service by allowing citizenship processing to continue despite in-person service disruptions, and by providing flexibility to clients as they no longer need to travel to their citizenship ceremony.
Between April 2022 and October 2022, on average close to 31,000 applicants took the oath of citizenship each month.
In the month of October 2022 alone, over 32,000 applicants became new citizens, which includes adoptions, resumptions and grant applicants who may not require a ceremony.
While in-person ceremonies are now taking place, video oath ceremonies will continue to be the primary method of service delivery to ensure efficient, timely and flexible client service.
Between April 2022 and October 2022, 72 in-person ceremonies have taken place.

IRCC launched virtual ceremonies in April 2020, with proper safeguards in place to maintain clients’ privacy and ensure security.
In line with its modernization agenda, IRCC continues to conduct ceremonies virtually, bringing the Citizenship Program closer to a complete digital processing model; some limited in-person events continue to be scheduled in certain offices, for example for clients requiring accommodation and for selected special events.
Some in-person citizenship ceremonies are now taking place.

Number of New Citizens by Month, April 1st – October 31th, 2022
Citizenship Year/Month	Number of New Citizens
2022/04	29,017
2022/05	31,133
2022/06	30,934
2022/07	29,221
2022/08	35,540
2022/09	30,950
2022/10 (Oct. 1^st – 12^th)	31,520
Monthly Average (April – October)	31,188
Fiscal Year Total (April 1^st – October 31th)	218,315
Notes: Application category groups included: Grant, Resumption, and Adoption. New Citizens count included individual who were not required to take the Oath. Monthly average is calculated with data for April to October 2022. Data is operational and subject to change.

Number of ceremonies (in-person and virtual) by Month, April 1st - October 31th, 2022
Month/2022	# of In-Person Ceremonies	# of Virtual Ceremonies
April	0	309
May	0	319
June	0	318
July	5	276
August	11	296
September	14	245
October	42	229
Total	72	1,992
Average # of ceremonies per month in 2022 (total \ 7 (# of months)	10	285
Notes: Status of ceremonies equals "Completed, Scheduled, In-Progress"- Each week, data is compiled and is manually validated by each office Data are preliminary, subject to change, and may not match official IRCC reporting.

Source: IRCC CPPB Branch, Manually Tracked data as of November 7, 2022

DPU is relying on the quality assurance of CPPB for data accuracy.