IRCC refused your application. Here is what actually happens next

A refusal letter is a bad day. It is also, quite often, a document that people misread — and the misreading is expensive, because most of the routes out of a refusal have short deadlines that start running immediately.

This page sets out what your actual options are, which one applies to which kind of refusal, and the deadlines as they stand in August 2026. Some of what follows contradicts what you will read on other consultant websites; where it does, we have said so.

First: get the real reasons

The refusal letter is a summary. The officer's actual notes live in the Global Case Management System, and they are usually far more specific — which document was not believed, which requirement was not met, what the officer concluded and why. You cannot fix a refusal you do not understand.

You request those notes under the Privacy Act. It is free, the response time is 30 days, and here is the part most websites still get wrong:

You do not need a Canadian citizen or permanent resident to request your own notes. That requirement ended on 13 July 2022, when the Privacy Act Extension Order No. 3 came into force and extended the right of access to all individuals, whether inside or outside Canada. If someone is offering to obtain your GCMS notes for a fee because "you need a Canadian representative", they are charging you for something you can do yourself, for nothing, from anywhere in the world.

The distinction to keep straight is that the Access to Information Act — a different statute, for departmental records rather than your own personal information — does still carry a $5 fee and a "present in Canada" eligibility test. For your own file notes, you want the Privacy Act.

Then: work out which route you are actually on

This is the fork that decides everything, and it turns entirely on what was refused.

If it was a temporary resident application

Visitor visas, study permits and work permits carry no right of appeal. None. The Immigration Appeal Division has no jurisdiction over them — section 63 of the Immigration and Refugee Protection Act is a closed list and temporary residence is not on it. IRCC states this directly: there is no formal appeal process for temporary residence decisions.

Your realistic options are to reapply properly, or to seek judicial review at the Federal Court.

If it was a family class sponsorship

The sponsor has a right of appeal to the Immigration Appeal Division, and the deadline is 30 days from receiving the decision and the written reasons, if any. This is a genuine rehearing, not a paper review — you can file new evidence, testify, and be cross-examined.

Two important limits. There is no sponsorship appeal where the refusal was based on misrepresentation, unless the person refused is your spouse, common-law partner or child. And the Division cannot consider humanitarian and compassionate factors until it first decides that the applicant is a member of the family class and that you are a sponsor — which is why an exclusion under regulation 117(9)(d), the undeclared family member rule, is so difficult.

If it was a residency obligation decision made outside Canada

A permanent resident found not to have met the 730-day obligation at a visa office abroad has 60 days to appeal to the Immigration Appeal Division — not 30. Plenty of sources state 30 for every IAD appeal; the residency obligation deadline is longer, and it is worth knowing you have that time rather than assuming you have already lost it.

If it was a removal order

30 days from receiving the order, for a permanent resident, a protected person or the holder of a permanent resident visa. There is no appeal at all where the person is inadmissible for security, human or international rights violations, sanctions, serious criminality or organised criminality.

On serious criminality, note the threshold: a crime punished in Canada by a term of imprisonment of at least six months. This is very commonly quoted as two years, which was the pre-2013 figure. Six months is a much lower bar than most people expect.

Judicial review at the Federal Court

Where there is no appeal — which is most refusals — the route is an Application for Leave and for Judicial Review. The court does not substitute its own decision; it decides whether the officer's decision was reasonable and whether the process was fair. If you win, the usual outcome is that the application goes back to a different officer.

The deadline is set by section 72(2)(b) of the Act, and it is the single most misstated figure in this area:

• 15 days where the matter arose in Canada.
• 60 days where the matter arose outside Canada.

It turns on where the decision was made — not where you live. A refusal issued by a visa office overseas is 60 days even if you are sitting in Abbotsford. A decision made by an office inside Canada is 15 days even if you are abroad. Websites that describe it as "60 days if you are outside Canada" have it wrong, and the difference between 15 and 60 days is the difference between having a case and not having one.

The clock runs from when you are notified or otherwise become aware of the decision. A judge may extend time "for special reasons", but that is an application in itself, not a safety net. The filing fee is $50.

Reconsideration: what it is and is not

You will see reconsideration requests offered widely. It is worth being precise about what they are.

There is no statutory reconsideration process. IRCC publishes no form, no deadline and no procedure for it. It rests on an officer's residual discretion to look again, and you are not entitled to a response. It can work — most often where something objectively went wrong, such as a document that was submitted but not considered, or an obvious factual error — and it is comparatively cheap to try.

What it must not do is run out your clock. A reconsideration request does not stop the judicial review deadline. Fifteen or sixty days keep running while you wait for a reply that may never come. If both routes are live, they need to be managed together.

IRCC itself publishes a warning worth repeating: if anyone tells you that you have a better chance on a second application simply because they are representing you, they are not being truthful.

Procedural fairness letters — the moment before a refusal

If IRCC has concerns that could lead to refusal, it will often write to you first. That letter is an opportunity, and it is time-limited.

There is no universal response window. The period is stated in the letter itself and varies by line of business — 7, 15, 30 days are all common, and refugee resettlement cases can run to 90. Read it off the letter rather than assuming thirty days. Extensions are discretionary and unpublished.

A procedural fairness letter is far easier to deal with than a refusal, because nothing has been decided yet. It is worth treating with real seriousness — a considered response that squarely addresses the officer's stated concern, with evidence, rather than a general assurance that everything is in order.

Misrepresentation: the one that lasts five years

A finding of misrepresentation under section 40 carries five years of inadmissibility, and during that period you cannot apply for permanent residence at all. It was raised from two years to five with effect from 20 November 2014.

The clock start is frequently described incorrectly. Outside Canada, it runs from the final determination of inadmissibility. Inside Canada, it runs from the date the removal order is enforced — so for someone who remains in Canada, the five years has not begun. "Five years from the refusal" is wrong for in-Canada cases.

This is why an unexplained inconsistency is worth taking seriously long before it becomes a finding. Most misrepresentation cases we see did not begin with anyone intending to deceive.

Who can actually represent you

This matters more than people realise, and it is a genuine limit on what most consultants can do.

Before IRCC and the Immigration and Refugee Board, you may be represented for a fee only by a lawyer, a Quebec notary, another member in good standing of a provincial law society, or a member of the College of Immigration and Citizenship Consultants. Since 1 July 2023, representation before the IRB has been a restricted area of practice: an RCIC without the IRB designation is prohibited from doing it.

Our partner Arshdeep Singh Brar holds the RCIC-IRB designation, licence R1034253, which authorises representation before all four divisions of the Board — including the Immigration Appeal Division. That is why sponsorship appeals and residency obligation appeals are handled in-house here rather than referred elsewhere. Most consultants cannot take these on.

Before the Federal Court, the position is different and worth stating plainly: no consultant may appear, IRB designation or not. The Federal Courts Act limits practice to lawyers. You may act for yourself or retain counsel. Where judicial review is the right answer, we say so and refer you to an immigration lawyer we trust — and we will tell you that rather than steering you toward something we can bill for.

What to do this week

1. Find the date you received the decision. Every deadline on this page runs from receipt, not from the date printed on the letter.
2. Work out which route applies — appeal, judicial review, reapply, or reconsideration. They are not alternatives you can pick between freely; most refusals only have one real path.
3. Request your notes under the Privacy Act. Free, 30 days, no Canadian representative needed.
4. Get advice before the shortest applicable deadline, which may be as little as 15 days.

If you are holding a refusal letter now, the useful thing is not to read more about it. It is to have someone look at the actual letter, the actual application and the actual dates. Book an appointment — bring the refusal and the full application you filed.