According to an official data released by Immigration, Refugees and Citizenship Canada (IRCC) on Tuesday, November 21, 2023, a total of 936,500 overall citizenship, temporary visa and immigration applications are yet to be processed by the department.
The IRCC has a set service standard for processing completed applications and any application that exceeds the set service time is usually tagged as backlog. As of October 31, 2023, IRCC has been managing a total of 2,166,800 applications.
See below IRCC Applications Under Service Standards
| 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% |
Since the pandemic, there has been a continuous increase in the backlog of applications to be processed by IRCC which has led to an unusual long waiting period for candidates expecting feedback on their completed applications.
See below Canadian backlog of 2023
| 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% |
See below 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% |
Comparing the data for September and October 2023 in the above table, there has been a drop in citizenship application and an increase in permanent and temporary residency applications.
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