Fees for Canada's permanent residency programmes set to rise from April 30: Report

The fee will be applicable between April 2024 and March 2026

Dreams of permanent residency in Canada are set to take an expensive turn as the Immigration, Refugees, and Citizenship Canada (IRCC) declared hike in fees from next month for some applicants, according to a report by The Times of India.

The new rates will come into effect from 9 am Eastern Time on April 30, the agency said, adding that it was based on the country’s Immigrant and Refugee Protection Regulations (IRPR), which is calculated by taking into account the consumer price index of Canada in the past two years. The fee will be applicable between April 2024 and March 2026, according to the report.

Moneycontrol could not independently verify that report.

The charge for the permanent residency application will be 575 Canadian dollars, up from 515 Canadian dollars, while the cost of application for federal skilled workers and Quebec skilled workers will jump to 950 Canadian dollars.

For those with experience in caregiving, under the live-in caregiver program and the caregivers pilot, applicants will have to pay 635 Canadian dollars, and 175 Canadian dollars for the dependent children. The fee will also be hiked for various other residency programs such as the Provincial Nominee Program, Atlantic Immigration class and several economic pilot programs.

In 2022, over 118,000 Indians settled in Canada under the permanent residency program, which accounted for almost 27 percent of the total new residents, according to the report. China was behind India with just 31,841 permanent residents. Recently, diplomatic ties between India and Canada have soured, which might have impacted the numbers applications in 2023, the report said.