Increase in Canada Permanent Residence Processing Fees

Be prepared to tender higher Canada permanent residence processing fees if you intend to immigrate to that country.

Immigration, Refugees and Citizenship Canada, or IRCC published the announcement on March 16, 2020. With the new protocol, IRCC is shifting the cost of managing permanent resident programs to the applicants themselves.

Implementing the New Fee Schedules

The regulations on fee increase, came into force on April 30, 2020, at 09:00 am eastern daylight time.  However, IRCC will roll out the fee increases in two phases, starting in 2020.

Phase 1 will be rolled out for economic class applicants beginning in 2020 to 2021. You may expect a 50% increase for the following economic class programs for 2020 to 2021:

• Federal High Skilled programs under Express Entry
• Provincial nomination programs
• Business programs
• Atlantic Immigration pilot program
• Rural and Northern Immigration pilot program
• Agri-Food Immigration pilot program
• Quebec’s Skilled Worker program.

Three programs, however, are not included in the change in fees:

1. 2019 Federal Caregiver pilot program
2. Home Child-Care Provider pilot
3. Home Support Worker pilot

Phase two will be rolled out in 2022 to 2023 and will be put in place on a biennial basis.  Implementation will be on the two-year anniversary when the new regulations came into force.  Fee increases will be implemented every two years after that. 

During the second phase, IRCC will increase both application fees and Right of Permanent Residence Fees for the following immigration programs:

• Economic classes
• Family sponsorship
• Humanitarian classes,

Exempt from the new protocol are fees for:

• Permanent resident cards
• Permanent resident travel documents
• Certification or replacement immigration documents.

Some applicants, however, are exempt from paying fee increase in Right of Permanent Residence Fee. These classes of applicants are:

• Dependent children of principal applicants or sponsors
• Protected persons
• Some applicants eligible on humanitarian and compassionate grounds
• Refugees resettled from abroad, and
• Application for sponsorship under certain adoption and orphaned dependents situations.

Phase 1 permanent residence processing fees

The following table contains the processing fee schedule for 2020-2021.

Type of Payment	Old Fee	New Fee
Processing fee for principal applicants of the economic business class, including self-employed, start-up visa, Quebec investor, Quebec entrepreneur, and Quebec self-employed programs	1,050	1,575
Processing fee for principal applicants of the Economic non-business class except for principal applicants and their dependents in the caregiver programs	550	825
Processing fee for spouses or common-law partners of all Economic classes	550	825
Processing fee for dependent children of all economic classes	150	225
Right of Permanent Resident fee (a privilege fee)	490	500

To prevent delays in processing your application, IRCC recommends that you also tender payment for the Right of Permanent Resident Fees (or RPRF) when you submit your online application.

Phase 2 projected permanent residence processing fees

IRCC will base the increases on the applicable Consumer Price Index, or CPI. The amount will rounded off to the nearest $5. 

As the fees will be subject to inflation, IRCC can only approximate the fees in the coming years. If you are curious though, the projected fees might be as follows:

Type of Payment	Projected in 2022-2023	Projected in 2024-2025
Permanent resident processing fees for principal applicants of the economic business class, including self-employed, start-up visa, Quebec investor, Quebec entrepreneur, and Quebec self-employed programs	1,640	1,705
Permanent resident processing fees for most economic non-business class principal applicants including federal skilled workers, federal skilled trades, provincial nominee, Canadian experience class, the Ministerial Instruction economic immigration classes. The latter currently includes the, Atlantic Immigration class, Rural and Northern Immigration class, Agri-Food Immigration class, and Quebec skilled workers	860	895
Permanent resident processing fees for spouses or common-law partners of all Economic classes	235	245
Permanent resident processing fees for dependent children of all Economic classes	150	225
Right of Permanent Resident fee (a privilege fee)	490	500
Permanent resident processing fees for all noneconomic class principal applicants, including the family, protected persons, and humanitarian and compassionate class applicants	570	595
Permanent resident processing fees for all family members of principal applicants (spouses, partners, and parents and grandparents, as applicable)	570	595
Permanent resident processing fees for dependent children and their family members	155	160
Processing fee for processing an application by a person as a member of the permit holder class to remain in Canada as a permanent resident	340	345
Processing fee to sponsor a member of the family class	80
Right of Permanent Resident fee (a privilege fee)	520

Rationale for Fee Increase of the Right of Permanent Residence Fee.

IRCC began implementing changes in processing fees as of April 30, 2020. With this move, IRCC hopes to cover the increasing program and service delivery costs which used to be subsidized using taxpayers’ money.

The Right of Permanent Residence Fee (or RPRF) will be seeing a modest increase of two percent. However, successful candidates for permanent residence benefit from the components of the regulatory scheme. So, while increasing the RPRF is not part of “the recovery of processing costs,” the federal and provincial governments still spend for the programs and additional services they provide to landed immigrants.