IRCC refreshed its processing times on September 9, 2026: FSWP slowed to 7 months, the Citizenship Certificate wait jumped 8 months to 33, and family sponsorship moved in three different directions. We checked every figure against weeks of history, not just one comparison.
IRCC refreshed its processing-time data on September 9, 2026, and not every program moved the same way. Federal Skilled Worker candidates are waiting longer. The Canadian Experience Class held steady. Family sponsorship moved in three different directions depending on the stream. And the single biggest jump on the entire page has nothing to do with an application at all — it is the wait for a citizenship certificate, the proof document, not the citizenship application itself. We pulled every figure below directly from the same IRCC feeds that power our free Processing Times tool, and checked each one against several weeks of snapshots behind it — not just the single most recent comparison — so what follows reflects when something genuinely changed, not just what two consecutive numbers happen to say.
Express Entry: Federal Skilled Worker Slows to 7 Months, CEC Holds at 6
The Federal Skilled Worker Program (FSWP) moved from 6 months to 7 months this week — a genuine change in IRCC's own feed, not a rounding artifact. FSWP now has roughly 52,400 people waiting on a decision after their Invitation to Apply (ITA). The Canadian Experience Class (CEC) held at 6 months, with about 59,700 in queue, and the Federal Skilled Trades stream (FST) remains at the 6-month service standard IRCC applies when draws are too infrequent to generate its own data. If you already hold a provincial nomination, the Express Entry-enhanced PNP stream is currently running about 7 months after nomination (~11,800 in queue), and the non-Express-Entry PNP Base stream is at 13 months (~101,500 in queue) — both are where things stand today rather than a fresh move this week, so read them as current status, not new momentum.
The Biggest Mover: Citizenship Certificate Wait Jumps From 25 to 33 Months
The largest single change on the entire board this week is not an application program at all — it is the Citizenship Certificate, the physical proof-of-citizenship document that people who became citizens without one (commonly through a parent, or long ago) apply for separately. That wait jumped from 25 months to 33 months, an 8-month increase in a single week, with roughly 136,000 people now in that queue. It is worth being precise about what this is not: it is not the Citizenship Application (Grant) — the actual application to become a citizen — which is a different queue entirely and is currently faster, not slower, having dropped from 13 months to 12 months with about 327,100 people waiting. If you are applying to become a citizen, the Grant figure is the one that applies to you. If you already are a citizen and need a certificate as documentary proof, the Certificate figure is yours — and right now, it is the slowest-moving line on this entire page.
Family Sponsorship: A Mixed Week, Big Backlogs Persist Either Way
Family sponsorship moved in three different directions in the same week, depending on the stream. Spousal sponsorship from outside Canada rose from 17 to 18 months (~62,600 in queue), while spousal sponsorship from inside Canada — where the sponsored partner typically holds an open work permit while waiting — dropped from 27 to 26 months (~54,700 in queue). Parents and Grandparents sponsorship outside Quebec eased slightly, from 29 to 28 months (~37,500 in queue, still subject to IRCC's annual intake caps), and the Quebec-specific Parents and Grandparents stream dropped from 64 to 63 months (~10,300 in queue) — still, by a wide margin, the slowest program IRCC publishes a figure for. Quebec's spousal stream, which combines inside- and outside-Canada applicants into one range, currently sits at 32–33 months (~33,400 in queue combined).
- Outside Canada, spousal sponsorship: 18 months (was 17)
- Inside Canada, spousal sponsorship: 26 months (was 27)
- Parents & Grandparents, non-Quebec: 28 months (was 29)
- Parents & Grandparents, Quebec: 63 months (was 64)
Startup Visa: Still Fully Closed to New Applicants
One line on the processing-times page has not moved this week because it cannot — the Start-Up Visa Program has taken no new applications since January 1, 2026. IRCC set intake to zero at 11:59 p.m. on December 31, 2025 (Canada Gazette, December 20, 2025), and a narrow exception for applicants who already held a 2025 commitment certificate from a designated organization closed on June 30, 2026. IRCC has been explicit about why: the existing backlog already represented more than 10 years of processing capacity at the program's previous intake volumes, and the pause is meant to bring that down before any new intake reopens. If you already have an application in the queue, it is still being processed — the current estimate for those files is 10+ years, with roughly 47,600 people still waiting. If you do not have a pending application, the Start-Up Visa is not currently something to plan around, no matter what any third-party site or agent may suggest — check IRCC's own Start-Up Visa page directly before making any decision based on it.
ITC iLand does not advertise or actively promote the Start-Up Visa Program while intake remains at zero. If you already have a file in progress, our RCICs can review where it stands — but we will not tell you it is a live pathway when it is not.
Atlantic Immigration Program: A Real Recovery Story, Just Not a New One
The Atlantic Immigration Program (AIP) is currently running at 26 months, down from a documented high of 38 months — and that comparison is genuine, but it is not this week's news. AIP processing deteriorated sharply in the second half of 2025, reportedly climbing from around 13 months in September 2025 to 37 months by October that year according to immigration-news coverage at the time, then continued to worsen into early 2026. IRCC brought the figure down to 26 months by around June 2026, and it has held there — essentially flat — for the roughly three months since. The lesson is less about AIP specifically and more about how to read a "processing time" at all: a single number can hide months of volatility in either direction, and the only way to know whether a figure is this week's movement or a leftover from months ago is to check it against a source that is actually current — which is exactly why we built the tool linked throughout this article instead of publishing a static table once a year.
None of the figures above are guarantees, and IRCC is explicit that they are not — official service standards and real outcomes for two applicants in the same program can differ significantly depending on file completeness, biometrics, medical results, and background checks still outstanding on an individual file. What they are is the most current published snapshot, checked against several weeks of history rather than a single before/after comparison, and refreshed automatically from IRCC's own feeds. If your timeline actually matters — a work permit about to expire, a spouse waiting abroad, a citizenship application you are trying to time around a trip — the details of your specific file matter more than any published average. Our licensed RCICs can review where your case actually stands and what, if anything, might be slowing it down.
