IRCC’s Current Backlog
IRCC is mandated to process about 80% of their applications across all lines of business within service standards, or the time it takes to process the applications. However, as of December 31, 2024, there were about 2,221,100 in inventory at the IRCC and about 949,500 of these were in the backlog.
Those applications that aren’t processed within the service standards are put in the backlog. In 2022, the organization finalized more than 5.2 million applications across all lines of business. For Permanent Residents, the IRCC has a total of about 702,000 applications and almost half of these are in the backlog. There were about 308,900 yet to be processed applications. It means that about 44% of all permanent residency applications still haven’t been processed by the IRCC.
For Temporary Residents, the data indicates that there are about 1,257,000 applications still in the inventory for work permits, study permits, and for temporary resident or visitor visas. Almost half of these are in the backlog; we’re talking about 590,800 that still weren’t processed by the IRCC.
To further break down the data, it shows that as of December 31, 2023, about 61% percent of visitor visa applications were still in the backlog. For study permits, there were about 18% in the backlog, while the work permits had about 49% still in the backlog.
For citizenship applications for Canada, there were about 262,100 in inventory as of December. About 19% or 49,800 of these applications were in the backlog.
How IRCC Plans to Reduce the Backlog
The IRCC mentions that they have introduced new measures over the past several months that were meant to help reduce the backlog. It includes prioritizing work permit applications for agriculture and healthcare workers in the hopes of helping create Canada’s tech talent strategy, which expedites the applications of foreign workers in in-demand tech occupations. IRCC also mentioned that they created an online portal for permanent residency applications and an online application status tracker for quick processing. As of today, we still don’t have the data if these measures indeed worked.
Additionally, the IRCC also launched an online process for citizenship applications for those over 18 years old. The applicants are now allowed to complete their citizenship tests online and even participate in citizenship ceremonies virtually.
