The Next Passport
Canadian Citizenship by Descent
Research hub for Canadian citizenship by descent. Bill C-3 removed the first-generation limit, opening multi-generational claims to people with Canadian ancestry who had been excluded since 2009. Nobody publishes a reliable count of how many — see the note on the Parliamentary Budget Officer's estimate below.
Last verified: September 9, 2026 · Maintained by The Next Passport (Warner Creates LLC).
The Next Passport is not affiliated with the Government of Canada or IRCC. Content is informational only and is not legal advice.
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Check your eligibility →What Changed with Bill C-3
Before Bill C-3, Canadian citizenship by descent was limited to the first generation born outside Canada. If your parent was a Canadian citizen born in Canada, you could claim citizenship — but your children could not. Bill C-3 came into force on December 15, 2025, and changed this in two important ways:
Born before December 15, 2025
If you were born before December 15, 2025, section 3(3) does not apply to you at all — its opening words limit it to births “on or after” that date. There is no generational limit and no presence test. You may be eligible as long as you can document an unbroken chain of descent from a Canadian citizen. On the size of the affected group: the figure in circulation is the Parliamentary Budget Officer's estimate that roughly 115,000 people might become eligible over five years — but that was a costing of Bill C-71, C-3's predecessor, carried over, and the Parliamentary Budget Officer costed the predecessor bill at roughly 115,000 newly eligible people over five years rather than hundreds of thousands. Treat it as an order of magnitude, not a count.
Born on or after December 15, 2025 — a two-part test, not a bar
Section 3(3) excludes a person born outside Canada on or after that date only where both limbs are met: the citizen parent they take citizenship from was themselves born outside Canada and held citizenship under one of the descent paragraphs the subsection enumerates — 3(1)(b), (c.1), (e), (g) to (j) and (o) to (r). Paragraph 3(1)(c), citizenship by grant, is on neither list, so a foreign-born parent who naturalised as Canadian falls outside the limb and their child faces no presence test at all. And — in the Act's words — “neither of the person's parents who was a citizen was physically present in Canada for at least 1,095 days before the person's birth.” Fail either limb and the exclusion does not apply, so a child born to a Canadian-born parent faces no presence test at all. The 1,095 days need not be consecutive; IRCC's form CIT 0555 is how they are counted. Section 3(5) switches the subsection off entirely for the child or grandchild of a person employed outside Canada in or with the Canadian Armed Forces, the federal public administration or a provincial public service.
The December 2023 Ontario ruling
Per the Government of Canada's own account, the Ontario Superior Court of Justice ruled on December 19, 2023 that key provisions setting out the first-generation limit were unconstitutional. The government did not appeal; it obtained successive suspensions of the declaration of invalidity while Parliament legislated, and Bill C-3 is the result. That litigation is now spent — the declaration attached to a provision that no longer exists in that form, so there is no live court deadline hanging over your application. The case is widely cited as Bjorkquist et al. v. Attorney General of Canada, 2023 ONSC 7152 (Ontario Superior Court of Justice, Akbarali J., released December 19, 2023; court file CV-21-673419-0000; also reported at 169 OR (3d) 1). The court held that section 3(3)(a) — not the whole of s. 3(3) — contravened sections 6 and 15 of the Charter, being the mobility and equality guarantees, and suspended the declaration of invalidity for six months. The Crown asked for twelve and was refused for want of evidence. The section 7 claim was dismissed.
What You'll Need
Canadian citizenship by descent applications are handled by Immigration, Refugees and Citizenship Canada (IRCC). Here is an overview of the process:
Forms
CIT 0001 is the primary form. IRCC's form page titles it plainly — “Application for a Citizenship Certificate” — and its guide carries the fuller name that answers the question people actually ask: “Guide for Paper Applications for a Citizenship Certificate for Adults and Minors (Proof of Citizenship) under Section 3”. One form covers both; there is no separate minor's application. CIT 0014 is the official IRCC Document Checklist — it itemizes every document required with your application. CIT 0555 is the third form to know about: it is how a parent counts the 1,095 days of physical presence for a child born on or after December 15, 2025. Adoption is not this route at all — IRCC treats it as a direct citizenship grant under section 5.1, and CIT 0001 is “under Section 3”.
Fee
The government fee is $75 CAD per person — the same rate for an adult and for a minor, and each person files their own CIT 0001 and pays their own $75. The CIT 0001 guide states that “The only acceptable form of payment is online payment”; print the receipt and include it in the package. Fees are subject to change — confirm the current amount on the IRCC fee list before submitting.
Processing Time
As of September 2026, IRCC processing times for citizenship certificates are approximately 33 months — up from ~25 months in August and ~19 months in July as Bill C-3 descent applications surged. The 33-month figure is IRCC's own processing-times tool, stamped “Last updated: September 3, 2026”; IRCC publishes the queue on the same tool: “About 136,000 people waiting”, read September 9, 2026. Times vary and can change — check the IRCC tool for the current estimate.
Where to Submit
Completed applications go to Nova Scotia, and the address differs by carrier: regular mail to the Case Processing Centre – Sydney – Proofs (P.O. Box 10000, Sydney, NS B1P 7C1); courier to the IRCC Digitization Centre – Proofs (3050 Wilson Ave, New Waterford, NS B1H 5V8). A P.O. box will not accept a courier delivery. Both are set out in the CIT 0001 guide. There is no consulate step and no jurisdiction map — everything goes into one national queue.
Application Guides
Detailed guides for specific Canadian citizenship by descent scenarios. Each guide covers eligibility requirements, required documents, and step-by-step instructions.
Tools & Calculators
Legal Updates
Other Countries We Support
The Next Passport also helps with citizenship by descent for other countries.
Italian Citizenship by Descent
Irish Citizenship by Descent
German Citizenship by Descent
Polish Citizenship by Descent
Portuguese Citizenship by Descent
Hungarian Citizenship by DescentThe Next Passport is not affiliated with the Government of Canada, IRCC, or any immigration attorney. Content is informational only and is not legal advice. Verify all details with the official IRCC website before submitting documents.