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Understanding the status of your citizenship application

You can only check your application status after you’ve received an acknowledgement of receipt (AOR) letter or email.

Select your citizenship application type:

Online application: Citizenship certificate

You can check your application status in your account(opens in a new tab) .

  • Under “View my submitted applications or profiles,” click on “Check status and messages”.
  • Your application status will tell you where we are with processing your application, including when we make a decision.

If your application is:

  • delayed, it means we need more time to look at your application
  • refused, it means you’re not eligible for a proof of citizenship
  • withdrawn, it means you told us to stop processing your application
  • cancelled, it means we made a mistake and had to recreate your application
  • abandoned, it means that we could not process your application because you did not respond to our requests for information

In all cases, you will get a message with details in your account.

Paper application: Citizenship certificate

When you check your application status (opens in a new tab)   for your application, you’ll see one of these status updates:

Received

“Received” means your application is ready to be processed and you

  • answered all the questions on the form
  • sent all the required documents
  • paid the fees

After we receive your application, it may take several weeks before we’re ready to process it. 

In process

“In process” means we started processing your application. If we need more information from you before we make a decision, we’ll contact you.
Decision made

“Decision made” means we either approved or refused your application.

If we approved your application, we’ll send you your citizenship certificate.

If we refuse your application, we’ll let you know in writing. The processing fee will not be refunded.

Becoming a Canadian citizen: Minor applying with a parent or legal guardian ‐ Citizenship application tracker

Your application status will be in your citizenship tracker account (opens in a new tab) 

  • You need a Chrome (opens in a new tab), Safari (opens in a new tab) or Firefox (opens in a new tab) web browser to access your account.

In the account, you’ll see

Overall status

At the top of the page, you’ll see one of the following statuses:

  • “In progress” means we’re still reviewing your application.
  • A “Congratulations!” message means you’ve successfully become a Canadian citizen.
  • “Closed” means
    • we refused your application, or
    • you withdrew (cancelled) or abandoned your application

We’ll contact you before we close your application.

Your next steps

In this section, we’ll let you know if we need more information or documents from you. For example, we may ask you to

  • send us more information or documents
  • respond to your citizenship test or ceremony invitation

Be sure to check the “Your next steps” section regularly.

Details of your application status

You’ll see 6 sections of your application. We’ll only review 3 out of the 6 sections.

 Sections we review

Each reviewed section can have one of the following statuses:

  • “Waiting on you” means we need more information or documents from you.
  • “In progress” means we
    • are still reviewing the section, or
    • have scheduled your ceremony (wait for your invitation)
  • “Waived” means the section isn’t applicable to your situation.
    • For example, if we approve your request to waive (be exempt from) the citizenship ceremony.
    • You don’t need to do anything further if the section is waived.
  • “Not started”
    • This status only applies to the citizenship ceremony.
    • It means we have not sent an invitation to the ceremony.
  • “Completed” means we finished reviewing that section of your application.

 Sections we don’t review

You can ignore the following sections:

The statuses of these sections will be “Not started” or “In progress,” but you don’t need to do anything further. We’re working to update our system to only show statuses that apply to your situation.

Application history

This shows all updates to your application.

Becoming a Canadian citizen: Minor applying alone without a Canadian parent ‐ Citizenship application tracker

Your application status will be in your citizenship tracker account (opens in a new tab) 

  • You need a Chrome (opens in a new tab), Safari (opens in a new tab) or Firefox (opens in a new tab) web browser to access your account.

In the account, you’ll see

Overall status

At the top of the page, you’ll see one of the following statuses:

  • “In progress” means we’re still reviewing your application.
  • A “Congratulations!” message means you’ve successfully become a Canadian citizen.
  • “Closed” means
    • we refused your application, or
    • you withdrew (cancelled) or abandoned your application

We’ll contact you before we close your application.

Your next steps

In this section, we’ll let you know if we need more information or documents from you. For example, we may ask you to

  • send us more information or documents
  • respond to your citizenship test or ceremony invitation

Be sure to check the “Your next steps” section regularly.

Details of your application status

You’ll see 6 sections of your application. We’ll only review 4 out of the 6 sections.

 Sections we review

Each reviewed section can have one of the following statuses:

  • “Waiting on you” means we need more information or documents from you.
  • “In progress” means we
    • are still reviewing the section, or
    • have scheduled your ceremony (wait for your invitation)
  • “Waived” means the section isn’t applicable to your situation.
    • For example, if we approve your request to waive (be exempt from) the citizenship ceremony.
    • You don’t need to do anything further if the section is waived.
  • “Not started” (citizenship ceremony) means we have not invited you to the ceremony.
  • “Completed” means we finished reviewing that section of your application.

 Sections we don’t review

You can ignore the following sections:

The statuses of these sections will be “Not started” or “In progress,” but you don’t need to do anything further. We’re working to update our system to only show statuses that apply to your situation.

Application history

This shows all updates to your application.

Becoming a Canadian citizen: Adult ‐ Citizenship application tracker

Your application status will be in your citizenship tracker account (opens in a new tab) 

  • You need a Chrome (opens in a new tab), Safari (opens in a new tab) or Firefox (opens in a new tab) web browser to access your account.

In the account, you’ll see

Overall status

At the top of the page, you’ll see one of the following statuses:

  • “In progress” means we’re still reviewing your application.
  • A “Congratulations!” message means you’ve successfully become a Canadian citizen.
  • “Closed” means
    • we refused your application, or
    • you withdrew (cancelled) or abandoned your application

We’ll contact you before we close your application.

Your next steps

In this section, we’ll let you know if we need more information or documents from you. For example, we may ask you to

  • send us more information or documents
  • respond to your citizenship test or ceremony invitation

Be sure to check the “Your next steps” section regularly.

Details of your application status

You’ll see 6 sections of your application that we need to review:

Each section can have one of the following statuses:

  • “Waiting on you” means we need more information or documents from you.
  • Depending on the section, “In progress” means the following:
    • Citizenship test: we’re reviewing a submitted test or we’ve rescheduled your test
    • Citizenship ceremony: we’ve scheduled your ceremony
    • Other sections: we’re still reviewing the section
  • “Waived” means the section isn’t applicable to your situation.
    • For example, if we approve your request to waive (be exempt from) the citizenship test due to a medical condition.
    • You don’t need to do anything further if the section is waived.
  • “Not started”
    • This status only applies to the citizenship test and ceremony.
    • It means we have not invited you to take the test or attend the ceremony.
  • “Completed” means we finished reviewing that section of your application.

Application history

This shows all updates to your application.

Client Application Status tool

When you check your application status for your citizenship grant application, you’ll see one of these status updates:

Received

“Received” means your application is ready to be processed and you:

  • answered all the questions on the form
  • sent all the required documents
  • paid the fees

It may be several weeks between when we get your application and it’s ready to be processed.

In process

“In process” means we started processing your application.

While your application is in process, we’ll invite you to the citizenship test, if you need to take it, interview, and hearing if you need one.

If we need more information from you before we make a decision, we’ll contact you.

Decision made

“Decision made” means we either approved or refused your application. A citizenship official makes a decision on your application after the test, if you had to take it, interview, and hearing, if you had one.

If we approved your application, you passed the citizenship test, if you had to take it, and meet all the requirements for citizenship. We’ll send you an invitation to take the Oath of Citizenship at a citizenship ceremony. You must continue to meet all of the requirements for citizenship until you take the Oath at the ceremony. We can change the decision if your situation changes and you no longer meet the requirements.

If we refused your application, you don’t meet the requirements for citizenship. We’ll send you a letter by registered mail explaining why.

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