What Happens After You Submit Your Canada Study Visa Application

After submitting your Canada visa application, it goes through a process as explained below:

Immediately after you pay for your application, you will get a welcome email which you can access on your IRCC portal. A few days after your submission you should receive a ‘biometrics letter”. With this letter, you should go to the VFS office to complete your biometrics

NOTE: If you have done a Canada biometrics in the last 10 years, you will not get the biometrics letter

After your biometrics, the ‘waiting game’ starts. If you would like to know how long your may have to wait until your application is processed check HERE

IRCC will start a background check on your application and also start the eligibility check as well, It is likely that you may not receive an email when they start one or both of these processes. Or you may get a ‘ghost update’ and for this – you will not see any changes in your application but a visa officer probably checked your account for something

If there is something seriously wrong with your application, you will be refused within a couple of weeks. If you application goes beyond 2 weeks, then it likely passed through the ‘initial checks”

One indication that your application is in active processing stage is when your medical is updated (if you did an upfront medical) OR you are asked to go and perform your medicals. Usually, a request for medicals by IRCC is a very good sign however your medicals being updates as ‘passed’ is not necessarily a good news because it is upfront medicals

Usually you will get a correspondence letter when a final decision has been taken on your application. It is a biometrics validity letter. If you did not do an upfront medicals before getting this letter, you application is likely to be refused

If however, your medical was requested by IRCC, this could be wither a refusal or approval. Please note that just because medicals is requested DOES NOT mean you will be approved because you could still fail a medical and your eligibility could still be failed (but that is not your portion!)

If there is an issue with your medicals, the clinic will let you know and tell you what the next steps will be

After your correspondence letter, a final decision letter will be sent to you (refusal or approval)

If it is an approval, you will need to submit your passport to VFS for your visa to be stamped on your passport. Just go to VFS for this (the instructions will be on your letter)

If your application is taking too long please send IRCC a webform

But note that if your application is still within the processing time, IRCC may not respond or take any action on your request. You can also send IRCC any further documents using the same webform

Patience is KEY! Go on with your life but stay positive and pray about your application. All the best!