Good old documents. Something that you might have submitted several times in your life at countless places. We all wish we could do away with these boring pieces of paper but usually life isn’t that easy. You will once again need to gather these pieces and submit as asked at different stages of your PR application process. But don’t worry, you won’t need to send originals in most of the cases; a scan or an electronic copy would be good enough. It’s the 21st century after all!
It’s always better to have your documents in order as soon as you can instead of panicking later since you may need to submit them within deadlines. On the contrary, there may be some documents that you will need to arrange only when asked for, not before. Let’s have a quick look at some of these documents.
Documents required for creating your Express Entry profile
- Passport
Needless to say that this is the single most important document for an applicant. It establishes your citizenship and travel history. Also, you might be asked for your travel history for the last few years so just try to recollect the entry and exit dates for all those exotic vacations.
- Language test (such as IELTS) results
So after you’ve nailed your IELTS test, you will get a test report looking like a marksheet. That’s your language test result. Unlike many exams you might have appeared for in the past, you can retake this as many times and improve your scores, if you aren’t happy with the first attempt.
- Educational Credential Assessment (ECA) report
It’s a mouthful but a very important document. This report assesses your educational degrees and gives them a comparative rating with Canadian education. For example, if you have a Master’s degree from your home country, this report will suggest whether your degree will be considered at par with a Canadian Master’s degree or lower. Whatever the outcome is (hoping it’s good!), you’ll need to have that ready.
- Provincial Nomination (if you got one)
Each province (except Quebec) has a quota of nominations under the Provincial Nominee Program (PNP) that they give out to applicants with certain knowledge and skills. These quotas are very limited and only a few applicants end up getting them. Although, you may not even need it, it definitely helps in getting a higher CRS score. So have the document ready when you create your profile. Remember this is optional. You don’t need it to start your process.
- Written job offer from an employer in Canada (if you have one)
Just like Provincial Nomination, it’s good to have a valid job offer but it’s not a mandatory requirement. This is a little tricky and only a select few jobs under certain conditions will meet the requirements. If you got one like that, great! If not, you are not the only one. Majority of the other applicants don’t have a job offer and don’t need one either to apply for Permanent Residence.
Documents required for PR application
Now you might be asking what is this second set of documents. Wasn’t the first set of documents listed above meant for PR application? Actually, no. The documents listed above help to create your Express Entry profile. The PR application hasn’t started at that stage. You have just entered a pool of potential candidates and only some of you will be chosen to start their PR application.
If you haven’t read our article on the process of PR application, this is a good time to do so. It may be sounding complicated but it’s not rocket science, trust me.
Back to our list of documents that you may need at this stage. This is not an exhaustive list. Also, you may not need to provide some of these documents.
- All documents listed earlier
Whatever we mentioned above, you’ll need to upload a scanned copy of those documents. In the previous stage, you only needed the contents of those documents and you didn’t have to share them. Now in this stage, you’ll need to share them (as scanned copies) to substantiate the claims you made earlier. For example, if you claimed that you got a Band 9 in IELTS earlier, you’ll need to provide the proof by sharing your test report.
- Police certificates
Would you want to go out with someone who is an assassin? Chances are you’d stay away, right? Similarly, Canada may not want to have someone who could be a threat within its borders. And to assess whether you could be a threat or not, you will be asked to provide police certificates as a part of your background check. Hopefully, you are a model citizen and it shouldn’t be too difficult to obtain.
- Medical exam
This may sound weird at first. Why would Canada need your medical exam to let you immigrate? The answer lies in universal healthcare (also known as free healthcare by some). Because you will be treated for free all your life for whatever medical needs you may have, the government also needs to check if you wouldn’t become a financial burden from day one. People with serious medical issues may face a bottleneck here but a Vitamin B12 deficiency won’t be a problem. It isn’t a complicated exam. You won’t be thrown under an MRI scanner. It’s pretty simple including a full physical exam, bloodwork, urine test and a few other basic tests.
- Proof of funds
As a new immigrant, you may be landing in Canada without a job and you may not have someone to stay with. In these initial few months, you could be spending a lot without earning much. Now the government does not want people to start asking for social assistance the day they land. That’s why, they would want to ensure that you have at least a bare minimum amount of money that can sustain you for at least a few months. This amount varies depending on the number of people in your family. To provide proof of funds you will need a document from your financial institution declaring the amount of funds you have (and it should be above this limit for all your sources combined). These funds should be readily available. A property won’t make the cut here.
- Work experience letter
If you mentioned in your Express Entry profile that you have professional work experience and you claimed points for that, you will need to present a work experience letter signed by your organization to validate that claim. That letter will mention your roles and responsibilities, job title, tenure, number of hours worked every week amongst others. You may need to speak with your immediate manager and the Human Resources team to get that letter. One more reason why you should have a good rapport with the HR team.
- Use of representative form
If you are hiring an immigration consultant to prepare and submit your application on your behalf, then you will need to submit that form. Of course, your consultant can explain more about that form. You don’t need it if you are applying on your own.
- Other documents
Documents such as birth certificate, marriage certificate, divorce certificate, death certificate, adoption certificate, etc. may be needed from some applicants depending on their situation.
It may sound like a lot of documents but staying organized will help you easily breeze through.