Canadian Immigration Backlog Reaches Highest Level In 9 Months

Last Updated On 22 November 2023, 10:18 AM EST (Toronto Time)

The great Canadian immigration backlog is rising and has now reached the highest level since February 2023, heading towards the 1 million mark.

So, if you have applied for or are thinking of applying for immigration or a visa to Canada, then you may have to wait a bit longer or are already waiting longer than usual.

The IRCC backlog is defined as any citizenship, immigration, or visa application taking longer under processing than the normal immigration department’s service standard.

Click here for application-category-wise IRCC service standards.

The Canadian immigration backlog has been continuously rising since April 30, 2023, up until the latest available official data as of October 31, 2023, updated by the IRCC yesterday.

Immigration, Refugees, and Citizenship Canada (IRCC) reports that there were 936,500 overall citizenship, immigration, and temporary visa applications in backlog, were taking longer than normal IRCC processing service standards.

Click here for application-category-wise IRCC service standards.

Canadian Immigration Backlog Month-on-Month Comparison

Application Type	Backlog Oct 31	Backlog Sep 30	Difference Since September 30	%Age Change Since September 30
Citizenship	56,400	58,200	-1,800	-3.09%
Permanent Residence	287,500	284,600	+2,900	1.02%
Temporary Residence	592,600	585,700	+6,900	1.18%
Total	936,500	928,500	+8,000	0.86%

Canadian Immigration Backlog

IRCC updated this data today, November 21, 2023 for the application processing inventory as of the end of the previous month.

IRCC aims to process 80% of the applications within the set service standards set by the department and any application exceeding this service standard time is labelled as backlog.

Click here for application-category-wise IRCC service standards.

Overall, IRCC was managing a total of 2,166,800 applications among all the categories as of October 31, 2023.

Application Type	Within Service Standards October 31	Within Service Standards September 30	Percentage Change Since September 30
Citizenship	214,800	216,400	-0.74%
Permanent Residence	351,500	362,300	-2.98%
Temporary Residence	664,000	687,700	-3.45%
Total	1,230,300	1,266,400	-2.85%

IRCC Applications Under Service Standards

The backlog decreased among citizenship applications, while it grew for both permanent residency and temporary residency applications as compared to last month’s update.

IRCC Backlog Comparison in 2023

The Immigration, Refugees, and Citizenship Canada (IRCC) has been processing more than 2 million applications at any given point since March 2023.

The below table lists all the official IRCC immigration backlog data reported since January 2023 and the percentage change month-on-month.

Backlog Update Date	Applications In Backlog	Total Applications Under Processing	Backlog Net %Age Change month-on-month
October 31, 2023	936,500	2,166,800	+0.86%
September 30, 2023	928,500	2,194,900	+9.9%
August 31, 2023	844,700	2,198,700	+5.2%
July 31, 2023	802,600	2,274,600	+0.2%
June 30, 2023	801,000	2,264,000	-2.3%
May 31, 2023	820,000	2,248,000	+1.4%
April 30, 2023	809,000	2,006,000	-9.7%
March 31, 2023	896,300	2,017,700	-1.5%
February 28, 2023	910,400	1,962,600	-6.6%
January 31, 2023	974,600	1,944,500	+6.1%

Canada Immigration Backlog 2023

What is the latest backlog of the IRCC 2023?

The IRCC was processing 2,166,800 applications for citizenship, immigration, and visas as of October 31, 2023.

According to the most recent IRCC statement on the Canada immigration backlog, there is an increase in the backlog of applications to 936,500 as of October 31, 2023.

Satinder Bains

Satinder brings expertise, knowledge, and experience related to internal work flows at IRCC. She worked at Canadian Consulate in Chandigarh before moving to Canada. Her articles on “Chinook – An internal IRCC tool used to bulk process temporary applications” was one of the notable work on our news website