Citizenship Applications Dramatic Increase Post-C-6 Residency and Testing Changes

The above chart includes full 2017 citizenship IRCC operational data (preliminary).

Following the coming into force of C-6 reduced residency requirements (from 4 to 3 year minimum) and exemption from knowledge and language assessment for 55-64 year olds, there was clearly pent-up demand. From January to September, 108,001 applications were submitted (monthly average 12,000), from October to December, 99,562 (monthly average 33,187: the changes came into force on October 11).

As I have noted before, the reduced residency requirement will have a one-year impact on all applicants that will work its way through until October 2019; the 55-64 year old exemption will have an ongoing impact on a sub-set of applicants (2009-13 data showed about six percent of all applications were from this age cohort).

Given current end-to-end processing times, one should start seeing the impact of this increase mid-2019.

The 14-17 year old exemption will have a minimal impact given that this cohort will have been in the Canadian school system.