Indian nationals see faster visitor visas and work permits in latest processing times update

Immigration, Refugees and Citizenship Canada (IRCC) has released its latest processing time estimates for all temporary residence, permanent residence, and citizenship applications.

Most notably, in-land spousal sponsorship (within Quebec) wait times increased by one month, while Parent and Grandparent (PGP) sponsorship both within and outside Quebec decreased by one month. India-based dependent child sponsorship processing times have also dropped by eight months.

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Visitor visas also saw improvements across the board, with notable improvements for Indian applicants and American applicants.

Work permit applications from Nigeria have seen an additional two weeks added to wait times, while US-based submissions are down by one week.

This article will cover the latest processing times for:

Temporary Residence Applications

Temporary residence processing times are compared against the February 26 update, with current times as of March 11, 2026 (or March 9, for certain application types).

Processing times for work permit applications largely remained stable, with some moderate reductions for applications from India (which dropped in wait times by one week) and gains for applications made from Nigeria (which rose by two weeks as noted).

In-Canada work permit applications saw a slight three-day increase in wait time. US-based submissions were the only ones to see an improvement in processing time (one week):

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Study permit processing times remain unchanged across all countries, except for the United States, which saw a moderate drop of one week in processing times:

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Visitor visa processing times have continued their downward trend across all countries, with moderate improvements across the board.

India saw the largest improvement, with wait times dropping a full two weeks, while US-based processing times fell by six days.

Super visa processing times have seen moderate improvements since the last reporting period.

Nigeria saw a three-day improvement, while Pakistan and India each saw slight decreases of four and two days, respectively.

Note: Super visa applications cannot be submitted from within Canada.

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Permanent Residence Applications

Processing times for permanent residence applications have remained largely stable since IRCC’s last update, with a few notable exceptions in the family sponsorship categories.

Processing times for Express Entry programs remain unchanged from the previous update.

*IRCC does not release processing time estimations for the FSTP due to insufficient data.

All Express Entry programs have a service standard of six months.

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No changes in processing times were recorded for base or enhanced PNP applications since the last update.

The service standards for enhanced PNP applications is six months, while base applications have a standard of 11 months.

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Processing times for Quebec’s Skilled Worker Selection Program (PSTQ) remained the same since the last reporting.

PSTQ applications currently waiting for a decision: 26,900.

PSTQ applications have a service standard of six months.

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Wait times under the AIP have remained stable, but continue to sit well above the stated service standard of 11 months.

AIP applications currently waiting for a decision: 13,500.

The biggest change seen in this application category is for in-land spousal sponsorship for settlement outside Quebec (one month increase) and sponsorship of a parent or grandparent—one month decrease in wait time, both within and outside Quebec.

IRCC’s service standard for the processing of sponsorship applications for spouses or common-law partners living outside Quebec is 12 months.

No other application types detailed above have published service standards.

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Processing times for in-Canada dependent child applications increased by one month, while India-based submissions saw a substantial eight-month drop from 16 to 8 months.

IRCC does not publish service standards for the sponsorship of dependent children.

Wait times for citizenship grants and citizenship certificates have dropped by one month.

IRCC only publishes service standards for citizenship grant applications, which sit at 12 months.

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The difference between processing times and service standards

Processing times and service standards are often confused, but they are distinct concepts.

IRCC's published processing times reflect how long an applicant can expect to wait for a decision, assuming their application was submitted on that given day.

For applications filed online, the clock begins at the moment of submission, while for paper-based applications, processing starts when the application is received in the mailroom.

Processing times fall into two categories.

Historical processing times are calculated based on how long it took to process 80% of applications of a particular type in the past.

Forward-looking processing times are projections based on future estimates, factoring in the department's current inventory of pending applications and the anticipated rate at which decisions will be finalized.

Service standards, by contrast, are self-imposed benchmarks set internally by IRCC that define how long it should take to process a given application type. These benchmarks are designed to reflect the completion timeline for 80% of applications within that category, with the remaining 20% accounting for cases that are more complex in nature."