IRCC makes vital dent in immigration backlog…

Immigration, Refugees, and Citizenship Canada’s (IRCC) backlog has fallen under a million purposes for the primary time in months.

In accordance with the most recent knowledge, there are 942,300 purposes remaining within the division’s backlog as of December 31, 2024.

Provided that the tip of the earlier month had a backlog of 1,006,500, that could be a vital lower of 6.38%.

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That is the primary time the variety of purposes in IRCC’s backlog has dipped under the a million mark for the reason that finish of June 2024.

The whole variety of purposes in IRCC’s inventories has additionally fallen. As of December 31, 2024, there have been 2,119,900 purposes within the stock, as in comparison with 2,267,700 on the finish of November.

The variety of purposes being processed inside service requirements was 1,177,600 (it was 1,261,200 on the finish of November).

What’s a backlog?

Purposes are thought-about a part of the backlog if they aren’t processed inside IRCC’s printed service requirements. These requirements are the timeline that IRCC considers affordable for processing an software.

The period of time will depend on the kind of software. For instance, Specific Entry purposes have a service customary of six months whereas household sponsorship purposes have a service customary of 12 months.

Present backlog

Everlasting resident purposes

As of December 31, 2024, IRCC had 836,900 purposes in its stock for everlasting residence immigration applications. This encompasses the Specific Entry program, Specific Entry-aligned streams of the Provincial Nominee Program, and the household sponsorship applications.

Of those 492,200 (or 59%) have been being processed inside service requirements, leaving 344,700 as backlog.

Breaking issues down, the division doesn’t provide actual figures however famous that 18% of Specific Entry purposes have been thought-about backlog, towards a projected 20%. This meets IRCC’s service customary of processing 80% of purposes inside a service customary of six months.

For Provincial Nominee Applications (PNP) purposes (by way of Specific Entry), the backlog rose to 25% as of December 31, 2024, from 24% the earlier month.

Household sponsorship software backlog is 15% – on par with the projected backlog (additionally 15%).

Momentary resident allow purposes

In distinction, solely 47% of all of the purposes for momentary residency have been being processed inside service requirements, as of December 31. This consists of work permits, research permits, and customer visas.

Out of 1,050,800 purposes solely 493,800 have been being processed as per service requirements.

That leaves 557,000 purposes as backlog.

Additional damaged down in keeping with program, 75% of all customer visa (TRVs) purposes are within the backlog, towards a projected backlog of 61%.

There was a noticeable enhance within the share of research and work allow purposes within the backlog as in comparison with final month.

For research permits, the backlog has risen to 43%, considerably larger than the projected backlog of 26%. This marks a steep enhance from final month’s backlog share of 36%.

Equally, the backlog for work permits has reached 57% on the finish of December 2024, up from 51% on the finish of November. That is properly above the projected backlog of 40% for December 2024.

Citizenship grants

The citizenship software backlog stays low.

As of December 31, there have been 232,300 purposes in whole for citizenship. Of this, 191,600 (or 83%) have been being processed inside service requirements.

That leaves 17% because the backlog.

How is IRCC decreasing the backlog?

The Immigration Ranges Plan 2025-27, launched on October 24, introduced a discount in targets for everlasting resident admissions over the following three years.

Whereas the decrease immigration targets might assist IRCC scale back its present backlog, the division introduced in January 2025 that it deliberate to chop roughly three,300 jobs over the following three years.

These job cuts have raised considerations about potential delays in processing. Nevertheless, IRCC has acknowledged that the reductions are a direct response to the decrease immigration ranges outlined within the Immigration Ranges Plan.

As of now, no info has been launched on which departments or employees these cuts will have an effect on. It stays to be seen how these modifications will finally have an effect on the backlog.

IRCC has additionally suspended issuing invites to use for sponsoring mother and father or grandparents for PR in 2025.

Different steps IRCC has been taking that would scale back the backlog embrace prioritizing purposes from employees in important occupations and utilizing superior analytics and automatic expertise to enhance the processing time for spousal sponsorship purposes below the household class.

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