The Canada visitor visa from Pakistan

The short answer. Canada's visitor visa, the TRV, is applied for online through an IRCC account. There is normally no interview. Biometrics are compulsory and are given in person at a visa application centre in Karachi, Lahore or Islamabad. A successful application is often issued as a multiple entry visa valid for up to ten years or until the passport expires, with stays of up to six months at a time.

Canada is the application in this office most likely to have been refused before. It is also the one where a refusal is most recoverable, because the Canadian system tells you more about its thinking than most.

How the process actually runs

1. An online account. The whole application is filed through IRCC's own

portal. Documents are uploaded; nothing is handed over a counter.

1. Fees. The application fee and the biometrics fee are paid online, and

neither is refunded if the visa is refused.

1. Biometrics. A letter arrives telling you to give fingerprints and a

photograph. That is the one part done in person, at a visa application

centre. Biometrics, once given, are usually good for ten years.

1. A decision. No interview in the normal case. Officers decide on the

file, which is precisely why the file has to do all the work.

1. The passport, submitted for the sticker if the visa is approved.

What the file has to answer

Canada is assessing three things and saying so fairly openly: that you can pay for the trip, that the trip makes sense, and that you will leave.

• Money. Bank statements, usually six months. The shape matters more than

the balance. Six months of an ordinary financial life is worth more than a

large deposit that arrived last week, because the large deposit raises the

question it was meant to settle.

• Your position in Pakistan. Employment letter with salary and length of

service and approved leave, or your business registration and tax papers.

Property, dependants, anything that is waiting for you.

• The purpose. Hotel bookings and an itinerary, or the family invitation

and their documents.

• Family ties. Canada looks closely at who is left behind. A young single

applicant with no job and no property is a harder case than a married

applicant with children in school, and pretending otherwise helps nobody.

For a family visit, the host in Canada supplies the invitation letter, proof of their status, proof of their income, and often an undertaking to support you. Their papers answer who is paying. Yours still have to answer what you are coming home to.

The refusal letter is the most useful document you own

If you have been refused before, bring the letter. Canadian refusals come with reasons, and most of them are specific enough to act on: ties to the country of residence, purpose of visit, financial means, travel history.

Do not reapply with the same file. A second identical application gets a second identical answer, and both fees are gone. What a second file needs is an answer to whatever the first one failed to give, which is why we would rather read the letter than guess at it.

Do I need an interview for a Canadian visitor visa?

Normally no. The decision is made on the documents, which is why a thin file is fatal in a way it would not be if you could explain yourself in person. In unusual cases an officer may ask for an interview, but it is not part of the standard route.

Is it true I can get a ten year visa?

Often, yes. Canada commonly issues the visitor visa as multiple entry, valid until the passport expires or up to ten years, with each visit limited to six months. You do not apply for the length. The officer decides it, and the decision follows the strength of the file and the validity of your passport, which is one good reason to renew a passport that is close to expiry before applying rather than after.

My brother in Canada will sponsor the trip. Does that make it easier?

It helps with one of the three questions and not the other two. His invitation and his income answer who is paying. They do not answer what brings you back to Pakistan, and that is the question most refusals turn on. Send both sets of documents and say clearly in the covering letter which is which.

How long does it take?

The honest answer is that it varies a great deal, and that published averages move with the season and the application volume. What we tell families is to allow comfortably more time than the current estimate, and never to buy a ticket before the visa is in the passport.

Was I refused because of my passport?

No. There is no quota and no blanket rule against Pakistani applicants. There is an officer reading a file and asking whether it answers three questions. A file that answers them is approved and a file that does not is refused, and most of the files we are brought after a refusal had simply left one of the three unanswered.

Before you pay anything

Fees, biometric arrangements and processing estimates change, and the IRCC portal itself changes. We confirm the current position before every submission rather than trusting any list, including this one.

Bring the passports, your employment or business papers, and any refusal letter you are holding. We will tell you honestly what the file needs, and whether we think it is ready, before you spend a rupee on it.