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Steps to Canadian Permanent Residency - Do it yourself guide

Canada lately has been pretty much interested to invite people to become permanent residents (PR) and help to increase their country's population strength. The most striking problem which the government faces now is that the average age of Canada population is over 35 which is not a good sign for any economy as a whole. This has led the Canada Government to bring in new rules in its immigration policies which can make the process faster and can invite more people who can settle down here and boost the economy of the country.

In the last few years, Canada has been the hot topic for immigration as it aims to welcome more than a million permanent residents to come and settle here by 2020. This has led to numerous consultants and consultancies who want to help people to file their application in exchange of a huge amount of money. Though a lot of people claim that it is easy if we go through a consultancy, my personal preference would be to do it all by yourself. In that way you save a lot of money which will be useful when you arrive and settle here and also it gives a sense of responsibility to the entire process.
Though there are many ways to immigrate to Canada, the most known way is the Express Entry. Immigration department of Canada has done a tremendous job by documenting the entire process which makes it really easy to do it all by yourself.


You can just go through the documentation and read some forums to complete the process. For your convenience, I am also pointing out the steps here. Feel free to comment with any doubts and I shall try my best to answer them.

So here goes the steps which you can follow to file your application to Canadian Permanent Residency. I have written this article considering a married couple (husband and wife) applying for Express Entry. I have gathered all these information from my personal experience and also by accumulating experiences from few friends who have gone through the same process. All links referred to in this blog are mostly from canada.ca website and you can easily find them as well.

Before starting with the process, make sure that you are eligible. The below process will ask for IELTS scores, wherein just put some numbers for now.

  • Go to this link and answer the questions. This is an online tool by IRCC which determines your eligibility. You can try it as many number of times. 
  • Then go to this link and check your score based on your current situation. Play around with the IELTS score and you can get a feel on how important IELTS score is.
Canadian PR is a score based invitation system where your score depends on the following things:
  1. Your age. 
  2. Your work experience.
  3. You and your spouse educational background.
  4. You and your spouse IELTS score.
At present the invitation rounds invite people with score of around 450 or more. This score varies with each invitation but if you can bag a score of 450 or more, you can hope to get an invitation to apply soon.

Step1:


The first step to Canadian PR is IELTS. This is perhaps the most important step which you need to excel. Your application process will completely depend on this step.

Go to IELTS booking page and book an exam date roughly two months from now. You will need to book a IELTS General Exam and not Academic. Two months would be sufficient to prepare well for the exam. If you need more time, you can definitely do so. But keep in mind that you will need to excel in this exam with best scores as your PR journey depends on this exam.

Step2:


Once you have booked your IELTS exam dates, it's time for you to get on to the next crucial step. Canadian immigration does not accept your university mark-sheet directly and that needs to be verified by a 3rd party. The most common and fast one is WES. WES will need all your degree certificates and mark-sheets to be directly sent to them by your college or university. This is also very important and is time consuming. So you better get started.
  • Create a different profile in WES for you and your spouse. You will get a reference number which you will need for all your future references. More details here.
  • Start applying to all your degree universities for transcripts to be sent to WES with your reference number. 
  • There are some websites which help you to obtain the transcripts based on your university. You can easily google them.
  • Track this and keep following up with your universities. 
The entire process can extend upto 1-3 months based on your university.

Step3:

Once you are successfully done with Step1 and Step2, make sure you check for the CRS score again with your IELTS score and see how much you are scoring. You can follow this page to get an idea on whether you will qualify with the score you are getting.

This is the decision step

If your score is good enough (normally 440 or above) go ahead with the next step.
Else, plan to prepare for IELTS and appear again to get better results.

There are a lot of candidates interested in Canadian PR currently, and it's really tough to get an invitation even with a score of 440 or below.

Step4:


Congratulations if you are in this step as I assume that you have got the desired score to ensure a place in the next invitation. Immigration, Refugees and Citizenship Canada (IRCC) conducts draws frequently to invite a bunch of candidates to apply for Permanent Residence in Canada. This draw normally happens around every 2 weeks and around 3000-4000 people are invited in each draw. These figures are not static and changes in each draw.

  • Go to the URL here 
  • Click on "Continue to GCKey" and create a new profile.
  • Provide your details and enter the pool.
Once you have given all the details in the above website, your points will be calculated and you will be entered to the pool of candidates. 

Now you have to wait for the next draw and if you qualify with your points, you will receive ITA from IRCC. You are now eligible to complete your documentation required by IRCC.

Step5:


Once you receive your ITA, you will have 60 days to complete your documentation. There are a lot of things needed by IRCC which will be detailed out to you in your account in CIC website. Normally these are the things which will be needed:
  1. Medical test certificate for you and your spouse done from a IRCC registered medical facility. You will need to take appointment for the same by calling the medical facility.
  2. Police Clearance Certificate (PCC) from all countries where you or your spouse have resided for more than 6 months. Find out how to get a police certificate based on your country.
  3. Experience certificates from all the organisations you have worked in the past as well as the current one. Check this experience letter format for your reference.
  4. Funds proof from your banks converted to CAD amount and stamped in bank letterheads. Based on how many members are applying, you can find the proof of fund details here.
Apart from these details, you will also be required to get
  • Passport copies
  • Photographs printed in specific format. Make sure you get this done from a good place as IRCC is quite strict with photo standards. More details here.
  • All educational details and employment details.
  • Overseas travel details.
  • Family background details.
  • etc....
These things will be notified to you and you will be able to track everything in your CIC account. Once you are confident with all your documents uploaded in the CIC account, you will be able to pay and submit your application to be considered for PR to Canada. Make sure you do this within 60 days as otherwise your ITA will expire and you will have to enter the pool and start over again.

Step6:

After submitting your application, it's time to wait for updates in your account. You will be able to see a table in your CIC account which will get updated with every stage. According to CIC the wait time is 6 months. Check the latest processing time here. At this point one of the following things might occur:

After you get a Passport Request

If everything goes well, you should receive an email from CIC with a passport request for all the applicants. You will need to send in the passports to the location specified. IRCC has authorised VFS Global to deal with your passport from your area to High Commission and back to you. You will need to take an appointment with VFS and visit their office with the email printout and photos.

All the details will be provided in the email you receive.

After successful stamping of a one time visa, the passports will be returned to you along with a Confirmation of Permanent Resident(COPR) document. When you travel to Canada for the first time, make sure you carry your passport and COPR document along with you.

Congratulations !! You finally made it.

 You are now one step away from becoming a permanent resident of Canada officially. All you need to do is book your tickets and fly to Canada. At the first port of entry you will be registered as a permanent resident and your PR card will be mailed to your Canadian address in about 2 months from the date of entry.

N.B: The visa is valid for approximately one year from the day you took the medical exam and is a one time visa. So plan your trip accordingly.


I have tried to include as much details as possible in this post. In case you feel I missed something or should add a point, shoot me a comment.
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