5. Pay the fees and send in your application

Each adult has to pay $630 to apply for Canadian citizenship. Children under 18 pay $100.

You can use a credit card, prepaid card, or a debit card to pay the fees online. Make sure to print your receipt and include it with your application.

If you don't pay the right amount, Immigration, Refugees and Citizenship Canada (IRCC) sends your application back to you.

If IRCC refuses your application, you get back only $100 of the $630 you paid.

You must be eligible to apply for citizenship the day before you sign the application form. The government's website has questions that can help you figure this out.

You can mail your application to IRCC or use a courier service to deliver it.

If you can’t pay the fees

You can ask IRCC to process your application without you having to pay the fees.

You ask them to give you a because paying the fees would cause you “special and unusual hardship”.

To show “special and unusual hardship”, it's not enough to say you don't have the money.

Try to get legal help if you want to ask for this.

After you apply

IRCC will contact you to say:

  • they're processing your application, or
  • they can't process it until you give them information that's missing or until you pay the full amount of the fees.

You can check online to see what's happening with your application.

If you're between 18 and 54 years old, IRCC will give you a date for your and interview. In November 2020, IRCC set up a pilot project to offer some citizenship tests online.

You may want to start studying for your citizenship test as soon as you can. Some people ask for and get a waiver so they don't have to do the test.

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