How to get a Canadian citizenship certificate

Step by step

1. Work out your lineWho in your family was born or naturalized in Canada, and how each generation links down to you. Since Bill C-3, people born abroad before December 15, 2025 can claim through more than one generation born abroad.
2. Choose paper or onlineIRCC’s online option is for simpler cases, such as someone born on or after February 15, 1977 to a parent born in Canada on or after that date. Other cases go on paper, using form CIT 0001. IRCC’s application page has a short questionnaire that tells you which to use.
3. Gather documents for every generationLong-form birth certificates from the original authority, such as a provincial birth certificate. If a record is missing, hospital, baptismal or census records can help, with a note explaining what you tried.
4. Translate anything not in English or FrenchWith an affidavit from the translator, who can’t be a family member.
5. Pay the fee onlineCA$75 a person. It isn’t refunded once processing starts.
6. Send it and waitWhere you send a paper application depends on the country you live in: IRCC’s guide gives the address for each. For how long it takes, see IRCC’s processing times page. Expect a long wait: in October 2026 the news site CIC News reported that new applications were taking about 34 months (other source, not IRCC). IRCC can sometimes process urgently; its help center explains when.
7. Then apply for a passportThe certificate isn’t a travel document, but you need it for your first Canadian passport.

Documents

• Your long-form birth certificate, naming your parents
• Your Canadian parent’s proof of citizenship: a Canadian birth certificate or citizenship certificate
• For each generation back to the ancestor born or naturalized in Canada: long-form birth certificates, and marriage or name-change records where names differ
• Proof of identity, and two identical citizenship photos, as set out in IRCC’s instruction guide

Child born abroad since December 15, 2025?

If your child was born or adopted abroad on or after December 15, 2025, and you were also born abroad, you need to show you spent at least 1,095 days in Canada before the birth or adoption. The days add up over your whole life and needn’t be in a row. The Canadian parent completes form CIT 0555 to calculate their physical presence, and sends evidence as IRCC’s instruction guide and document checklist set out. The rule doesn’t apply if the parent was a Crown servant when the child was born or adopted.