CIMM – Quebec Processing Times – October 24, 2023

Key Facts and Figures

Processing times for applications for permanent residence can be affected by many factors, including available levels space. Specifically for Quebec cases, MIFI-set targets influence greatly IRCC’s published processing times. For example, family class applicants from Quebec are experiencing longer processing times as we have more applications in inventory than what Quebec targets allow us to process. This results in clients waiting in queue as IRCC must slow down production in order to not go over Quebec’s targets,

Admissions, Processing Inventory and Processing Times for Quebec Business and Quebec Skilled Workers: Jan. 2023 to Aug. 2023

Immigration Category Group	Subcategories	2022 Admissions	2023 Admissions	Processing Inventory as of August 31	Processing time for the last 6 months (in months)
Economic	Quebec Business	5,201	4,412	8,352	61
Economic	Quebec Skilled Workers	40,061	20,801	15,065	15

By the end of August, the processing times for Quebec Skilled Workers applications were 15 months, compared to the Department’s service standard of 11 months.

Processing times for Quebec-destined applications prior to the pandemic were already long due to a disparity between the number of applicants Quebec selects for immigration to the province and the levels space it provides to IRCC to complete the applications.
In addition, Quebec’s lower targeted levels in the last few years further limited the number of applications that IRCC could process. This increased IRCC’s inventory of permanent resident applications destined to Quebec and lengthened processing times.