Immigration portals and official resources.

ReferenceLast reviewed 14 August 2026Every link on this page was checked on that date

Start here

Six situations account for almost everything people come to this page for. Pick the one that matches and it takes you to the right section.

1. Which portal do I use?

Start here if you are not sure. IRCC's own chooser asks what you are applying for and sends you to the right account, and it is the only tool that reliably resolves this.

• IRCC account chooser. Pick your application type and it names the correct account. Worth using even if you think you know, because IRCC has moved several application types between portals.

The five client accounts

• IRCC secure account (GCKey or Sign-In Partner). The oldest system. Still where Express Entry permanent residence applications are submitted, and where paper applications get linked once you have a paper file. If you applied before roughly 2022, this is probably yours. Two-factor authentication is now required.
• IRCC Portal. Visitor visas, study permits, work permits and transit visas. Access needs an invite code the first time, which trips people up: you cannot simply register.
• IRCC Portal, new version. A separate system from the one above, despite the near-identical name. If your credentials fail on one, try the other before assuming the account is gone.
• Permanent Residence Portal. Permanent residence applications that are not Express Entry: family sponsorship, Atlantic Immigration Program, Agri-Food, Start-up Visa, Quebec streams, caregivers and the humanitarian categories.
• Citizenship application. Grant of citizenship applications have their own system again, separate from everything above.

The credential behind the portal

A second layer of confusion sits underneath the accounts above. The credential you sign in with is separate from the application system it opens. If the login works but no application appears, the credential is fine and you are in the wrong portal.

• GCKey. The username and password used across many federal services, not only immigration. It is not itself an IRCC account, and it is not tied to any one application. Losing access to GCKey and losing an application are different problems with different fixes, and the recovery route runs through GCKey rather than IRCC.

After approval, and for tracking

• Confirm permanent residence from inside Canada. A further separate portal, used only once permanent residence is approved and you are landing from within Canada.
• Client Application Status. The older status tool. Still the only place some legacy file types show up.

Representatives and employers

• Accounts for authorized paid representatives. Counsel and RCICs use three accounts, split the same way as the client side: the APR portal for temporary residence and Express Entry, the PR portal for non-Express Entry permanent residence, and the IRCC portal for the rest.
• Employer Portal. Where an employer submits an offer of employment for an LMIA-exempt work permit and pays the compliance fee. This is not the LMIA system, which is run by ESDC.
• Employer Portal user guide. Worth reading before the first submission. The offer of employment number it generates is what the worker needs to apply.
• LMIA Online. Where a Labour Market Impact Assessment is actually filed. This is ESDC, not IRCC, and it is a different login on a different system. Employers who look for it inside the IRCC Employer Portal will not find it.

2. Official checklists, forms and instruction guides

IRCC does not keep one master checklist. Each application has its own guide, and the document checklist sits inside that guide. Downloading the guide for your exact stream is the single most useful thing you can do before starting.

• All application forms and guides. The master index. Find your application, then open its instruction guide: the checklist is a section inside it, not a separate download.
• IMM 5476, Use of a Representative. The form that puts counsel on your file. Also the form to file when you change or remove a representative.
• Electronic travel authorization. Applied for directly, not through the portals above. The official fee is $7 CAD. Anything charging more is a third-party reseller.

3. Panel physicians, biometrics and supporting documents

Several requirements can only be met through bodies IRCC designates. You cannot use your own doctor, and you cannot use any language test or credential evaluator you like. Paying someone who is not designated is the most common way to waste money in an application, because the result is simply not accepted.

• Find a panel physician. Immigration medical exams are valid only from a physician on this list. Your family doctor cannot do it, and an exam done by anyone else is wasted money.
• Police certificates. Country-by-country instructions. Some take months, so start these early rather than when asked.
• Where to give biometrics. Collection sites by country. Give them only after you receive the biometric instruction letter.

Language tests

The test providers are easy to find. What is worth checking before you book is which version of the test counts, because the wrong version cannot be substituted afterwards and the fee is not refunded. Take IELTS General Training rather than Academic, PTE Core rather than PTE Academic, and CELPIP-General rather than CELPIP-General LS unless you are applying for citizenship. Results expire two years after the test date for Express Entry, which people routinely forget until an invitation arrives.

• Approved language tests and score conversion. The authoritative list, plus the tables converting each test score to a Canadian Language Benchmark. Start here, because the accepted tests change.

Educational credential assessments

An assessment is needed for education completed outside Canada, and it must come from a body IRCC has designated. The five general organisations are easy to find and are listed on the IRCC page below. The part that catches people is the occupation rule: if your primary occupation is architect, doctor or pharmacist, a specific professional body must do the assessment and a general organisation will not be accepted. People in those three occupations regularly pay twice.

• Educational credential assessment: who can do yours. The authoritative list and the occupation rules. Confirm here before paying anyone, because designations change.
• Medical Council of Canada. Required where your primary occupation is a specialist or family physician. Another organisation cannot substitute for it.
• Pharmacy Examining Board of Canada. Required where your primary occupation is pharmacist.
• Canadian Architectural Certification Board. Required where your primary occupation is architect. This is a recent designation, so older guidance elsewhere may still send architects to a general organisation.

4. Web forms: which one to use

People talk about "the IRCC web form" as though there is one. There are several, they go to different queues, and sending a request through the wrong one is a common reason a reply takes months or never arrives. They all sit under the same contact system and look nearly identical, so check the heading before you type anything.

• Ask about or update your application. The main web form, and the right one for most situations. It branches into specific requests once you start, including changing your address or contact details, adding a document after submission, withdrawing an application, and rescheduling an appointment, interview or test. Choose the branch that matches your request rather than typing it into a general enquiry, because the branch decides which queue it lands in.
• Report a technical problem. A separate queue for GCKey failures, being unable to log in or create an account, and applications that will not link to your account. Sending a technical problem to the general form above is one of the most common ways to lose weeks, because it is triaged as a case enquiry and answered with generic status text.
• Crisis situation, contact us urgently. For people affected by a designated crisis or emergency, and for replacing a lost, stolen or destroyed document. Do not use it for ordinary urgency such as a booked flight or a job start date.
• Service feedback. Complaints and compliments about the service experience itself. It is not a case channel and nothing sent here will move a file, but it is the correct route for a complaint about how you were treated.

5. If the file is stalled or refused

Some things cannot be done in any application account or web form. If you need to know what is actually recorded about you, or the decision has to be challenged, these are the routes that exist.

• ATIP Online Request Service. How to request the officer notes on your own file under the Access to Information and Privacy legislation. This is the single most useful and least used tool on this page. After a refusal, the notes usually explain the decision in terms the refusal letter does not, and a request costs $5 or nothing depending on the type.
• Immigration and Refugee Board. An independent tribunal, separate from IRCC. Refugee claims, admissibility hearings, detention reviews and sponsorship appeals are decided here, not by the department.
• Federal Court e-filing. Where an application for leave and judicial review of an immigration decision is filed. Deadlines are short and are counted from when you received the decision, so check them before anything else.

6. Refugee, risk and humanitarian applications

These streams run on their own rules and their own deadlines, several of which are measured in days rather than months.

• Make a refugee claim from inside Canada. How a claim is started and what happens after it is referred to the Immigration and Refugee Board.
• Pre-removal risk assessment. Available only once the Canada Border Services Agency notifies you that you may apply. You cannot start one on your own initiative.
• Guide 5523, applying for a pre-removal risk assessment. The full instruction guide, including the written submissions that carry the application.
• Guide 5291, humanitarian and compassionate considerations. The instruction guide for an application under section 25 of the Act. It is discretionary relief, and the guide sets out what must be established.

7. Three systems that are not IRCC

Provincial nominee programs each have their own site and are a search away, so they are not listed here. These three are worth knowing because people assume IRCC governs them and it does not.

• Arrima (Quebec). Quebec selects its own economic immigrants through this portal, entirely separately from Express Entry. A federal profile does nothing here.
• National Occupational Classification. The occupation code system that decides eligibility across most economic streams and every Labour Market Impact Assessment. Choosing the wrong code is a common and expensive error, and the duties listed here govern, not your job title.
• Crossing the border (CBSA). The Canada Border Services Agency decides admission at the port of entry. A visa or permit approval is permission to seek entry, not a guarantee of it, and that distinction matters more than most people expect.

8. Hiring from abroad: the detail behind the routes

Employers usually need the answer rather than the rules, and that is what the hiring from abroad page is for. This section is the underlying detail, for anyone who wants to check the reasoning or is preparing a file themselves. It summarises IRCC's own program guidance on the Canada-United States-Mexico Agreement. Where that guidance and this page disagree, the guidance governs.

The professional category, often still called TN

• Citizenship, not residence. The category is open to citizens of the United States and Mexico. Permanent residents of those countries are not covered, wherever they live or work.
• A closed list of 63 occupations. Appendix 2 of the Agreement lists them, and the list dates from NAFTA in 1994. If the occupation is not on it, the category does not apply. The match is made on the duties actually performed, not on an employer's internal job title, which is why modern technology titles do not appear and are nonetheless often accommodated.
• Credentials are set per occupation. Three carry most technical roles. Computer Systems Analyst: a baccalaureate degree, or a post-secondary diploma or certificate representing two or more years of study plus three years of experience. Engineer: a baccalaureate degree, or a state or provincial licence. Mathematician, including statistician and actuary: a baccalaureate degree, with an actuary additionally required to be recognised by a professional actuarial association.
• No self-employment. The employment must be pre-arranged with a Canadian employer genuinely separate from the applicant. A sole proprietorship operated by the applicant does not qualify, and neither does a legally distinct Canadian company that the applicant substantially controls. On substantial control, the guidance directs officers to consider whether the applicant established the business, whether they have primary, sole or de facto control of it, whether they are its primary, sole or de facto owner, and whether they are the primary, sole or de facto recipient of its income.
• Duration. An initial work permit may be granted for up to three years. Extensions may be issued in increments of up to three years, with no limit on the number of extensions, provided the person continues to meet the requirements.
• Family members get no special treatment. The Agreement extends no privileges to spouses or other family members. Their entry is governed by the ordinary provisions of the Immigration and Refugee Protection Act and its regulations.

Intra-company transfers

• Two qualifying kinds of position. Executive or senior managerial, or specialised knowledge. The list of 63 occupations does not apply here.
• Specialised knowledge means both, not either. The person must possess knowledge at an advanced level of expertise and proprietary knowledge of the company's product, service, research, equipment, techniques or management. No mandatory wage assessment applies, but wage remains an important indicator of specialised knowledge and is taken into account.
• Duration. A permit issued on entry may run up to three years, except where the person is coming to open or staff a new office, where the initial permit is limited to one year. Extensions may be granted for up to two years at a time.
• The only category with a total cap. Intra-company transfers are the one CUSMA category on which Canada has imposed a ceiling on total duration of employment: seven years for executive or managerial positions, five years for positions requiring specialised knowledge.

What the employer files either way

• LMIA-exempt is not paperwork-exempt. The employer submits an offer of employment through the Employer Portal and pays the employer compliance fee. That is the IRCC system and it is separate from the LMIA system, which is run by ESDC.
• The filing creates ongoing obligations on wages, working conditions and record keeping, and employers can be inspected against them.

Two things are deliberately not stated here: the current exemption code and the current amount of the employer compliance fee. Both change, and neither should be relied on from a summary. Confirm them against IRCC directly. This section was written on 21 August 2026 from IRCC program guidance.

If something here is out of date

Immigration bodies change URLs often. These links were each checked on 14 August 2026. If one is broken, tell us and we will fix it. Where a government page and this page disagree, the government page governs.

General legal information, not legal advice. Requirements depend on your citizenship, your status in Canada and the stream you are applying under. Past results are not necessarily indicative of future results.