Acknowledgment of Receipt for Immigration (AOR)

What is an Acknowledgement of Receipt (AOR) in immigration Canada?

Acknowledgment of Receipt or AOR in Canada is an official letter from IRCC. It marks the date IRCC has received your application.

Why is the date on an AOR letter important in Canada?

The date on the AOR letter marks the date IRCC received your application. However, it becomes imperative in certain situations. Here are some examples:

• The age lock-in date of children in Federal immigration is the AOR date. Therefore, if your child was 21 at the AOR time, their age remains 21 for the rest of the application. Consequently, if they don’t marry, they remain as part of the application.

• In a Federal Self-employed Class, the AOR date is an essential component of the qualifying period.

• The date marked on your AOR letter for PR card renewals and citizenship applications plays a role in calculating your eligibility.

When can you expect to receive your Acknowledgment of Receipt?  

Please note, all timelines are just an approximation.

• Express Entry: Within minutes of your uploading the application

• PR Card: Several months

• Citizenship Certificate: Several months

• Work Permit: At least several weeks and up to several months

• Student Permit: At least several weeks and up to several months

• Sponsorship: 6 months

FAQs

1)     Does an AOR mean this application has been approved?

No, it does not. An AOR means they’ve finally got around to opening up your application and to starting to process it. Approval will usually take from a few months to well over 6 months and up, depending on the type of immigration application you have submitted.

Similar to PR applications, you can wait for several months before getting your AOR with a spousal sponsorship. Remember, these are involved applications with lots of supporting documents involving both the sponsor and those being sponsored, so IRCC tends to be a little slower with these.

2)     How to fix a mistake on my AOR?

This depends on what the mistake is. An AOR – as we show above – is a sort of receipt stating that IRCC has received and started to look at your package. It includes the date your application was opened and, normally, began to be processed; your Unique Client Identifier (UCI); your application number; and other information. There is no personal information of yours aside from these data points which are generated by IRCC.

If, however, if there’s a problem using your UCI or application number, you should go to IRCC’s website and fill in their webform to let them know of the problem.

3)     What email address does the Canadian government use when sending me my AOR? 

Email used to get your AOR: Centralized-Intake-Office @cic.gc.ca or @international.gc.ca. The email example below came from Centralized-Intake-Office@cic.gc.ca

4)     When can I check my application’s status?

You can only check your application’s status after you have received an Acknowledgment of Receipt letter from IRCC. So whether it’s your spousal sponsorship application status, your PR application status, or your citizenship application status, you can only do an application status check online after receiving your AOR. This holds for any type of application you’ve submitted – for example, if you want to check your PR card processing status or your PR renewal status. Wait until you get your AOR.

5)     How do I know whether my application has been received by IRCC?  There are 2 main ways.

a)     The first is to have a tracking service with your courier delivery service or through a Visa Application Centre which also offers tracking services.

b)    The second way is when you receive your AOR from IRCC. Please note that your AOR will arrive sometimes months after IRCC has received your application. That’s because it sits in a mail room with other backlogged applications until an IRCC case officer has time to open up and review the application, after which they then send you your AOR. So, how do I know if cic/ircc has received my application? Waiting until you receive your AOR is always the surest way.

6)     Does AOR mean my application is complete?

Not necessarily. If you are applying through Express Entry you’re automatically generated AOR does not guarantee you won’t be asked for further documentation. In the case of citizenship certificate applications, on the other hand, it does generally tend to indicate that your application is complete. With other immigration applications, you may sometimes be asked to provide further supporting documents, even after getting an AOR.

7)     What is an AOR in PR process?

An AOR is the same format regardless of your application. What does change is the time it may take to receive an AOR from IRCC. See above for timelines for when you receive your AOR for different types of applications. As far as your PR Card processing status, an AOR only means they have begun to look at it. For more information, you should check your IRCC Secure Account to see your status.

8)     What is a Permanent Residence (PR) Tracker Account?

It’s a tracking account with IRCC that you create after you receive your AOR. You can only use it if you are sponsoring a spouse/partner or dependent child, OR if you are being sponsored as a spouse/partner, or dependent child. Go here to this website to create it and to login for the first time. Please note that you will also be asked to create one when you go to this IRCC page to check your application’s status.

9)     How long it takes to get PR after AOR?

With Permanent Resident applications, AORs tend to take several months and sometimes longer, before IRCC sends one to you.

Contact us for more information @KSI

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