COW – Processing Times, Backlogs and Service Delivery – June 9, 2025

Key Facts and Figures

At the end of April 2025, there were 2,041,800 total applications in all IRCC inventories, a reduction of 8% compared to 2,220,200 at the end of April 2024.
At the end of April 2025, 63% of all applications in Immigration, Refugees and Citizenship’s (IRCC) inventory were within established service standards. This is an increase of 2% from March 2025 and up from 56% at the beginning of the year.

As IRCC continues to strengthen and modernize Canada’s immigration system and welcome new citizens, the Department remains committed to processing 80% of applications within service standards.
Processing times are influenced by a range of factors, including immigration targets, the complexity of individual cases, and how quickly applicants respond to requests for information. Despite these variables, the majority of applications are processed well within established service standards.
Canada remains a leading destination of choice with continued strong intake across lines of business. Under the 2025–2027 Immigration Levels Plan, both permanent and temporary resident targets have been reduced to help align immigration with Canada’s capacity to welcome and integrate newcomers. This will result in different processing times for lines of business where applications received are out pacing the planned targets.
IRCC continues to work towards achieving and maintaining established service standards on applicable lines of business, increasing transparency around all application processing time and status, and endeavours to provide best-in-class client support.
To meet these commitments, IRCC has amended client communications, made information more accessible, improved client-facing tools by allowing application tracking, and is actively working on implementing new tools and business processes including self-service options.

The Department’s goal is to process at least 80% of complete applications within established service standards. This allows for expected delays where a number of factors can influence, for example, the level of complexity or if we need more information from applicants before we can finalize their files.
Some categories of applications are seeing an overall improvement to processing times and as of April 30, 2025 applications for Canadian Experience Class, Quebec Skilled Workers, study permits and citizenship grants have processing times within service standards.
However, if there are more clients who are allowed to apply than available spaces as determined by the Levels Plan, it may not be possible to achieve this goal. Therefore, the processing times may increase in some categories as applications remain unprocessed in the inventory.
IRCC has been taking action to reduce the backlogs of applications within its inventories including: implementing intake controls for certain lines of business, reviewing and improving processes to streamline and use technologies that support employees and contribute to making application processing more efficient, while protecting and prioritizing the safety and security of Canadians.

IRCC is continuing to look for ways to better keep pace with the growing demand for client services, including modernizing tools and increasing clients’ options to self-serve.
The Department continues to modernize its systems by digitizing applications and using automation technologies to improve processing times, while maintaining rigorous standards for the safety and security of Canadians.
Over the coming years, Immigration, Refugees and Citizenship Canada (IRCC) is undergoing a significant business transformation to fundamentally change the way it delivers services. This end-to-end digital transformation will be delivered through IRCC’s Digital Platform Modernization (DPM) program.
We have already begun delivering on this modernization, with a new online account launched in 2024 initially for a subset of clients but which will eventually be rolled out to all IRCC clients.
IRCC continues to invest in ways to provide more accessible information to clients to help them make informed choices, and will continue making improvements to help clients more easily follow their application in the queue.

From January 1 to April 30, 2025, the Department responded to 1.63M enquiries by phone and email, including enquiries received by the Ministerial Centre for Members of Parliament and Senators (MCMPS) and the dedicated crisis line for Israel, West Bank and Gaza Strip.
The Department maintained a call answer rate of 40% from January to April 2025 despite an increase of 13% in the number of enquiries received in comparison to the same period in 2024.
Between January 2025 and April 2025, the Department responded to 58.3% of email enquiries within the established service standards (three business days); this is an increase of 45% by comparison to the same period in 2024.

2025-10-07