I’ve sent in my H&C application to IRCC. What happens next?

Immigration, Refugees and Citizenship Canada (IRCC) will review your humanitarian and compassionate (H&C) application.

How H&C applications are decided

The decision on an H&C application is “discretionary”. This means that immigration officers have a lot of freedom when they decide about these applications.

But they must decide based on the evidence. And they must consider all of the evidence as a whole when deciding whether the application is strong enough. This means that they don’t decide by looking at each piece of evidence on its own, but by looking at all of them together.

Two stages of approval

IRCC decides your application for permanent residence on humanitarian and compassionate (H&C) grounds in 2 stages. For it to be successful, IRCC must decide to:

1. let you apply for permanent residence in Canada for humanitarian and compassionate reasons, and
2. approve you for permanent resident status in Canada.

Processing time

How long IRCC takes to deal with an H&C application is called the “processing time”. You can check current processing times on the Government of Canada website.

Making an H&C application does not give you the right to remain in Canada until the application is decided. So it’s important to get legal help if immigration authorities take steps to force you to leave the country.

H&C factors in other applications

People who make other types of applications can also ask IRCC to consider H&C grounds. For example, someone might do this if they want to sponsor their spouse or partner for permanent residence but the spouse or partner is inadmissible to Canada because of crimes they committed.