Is your Canadian Immigration Agent Licensed?

Are you aware if the organization or individual you are paying to help you with your Canadian Visa Application is licensed or not?

In Canada, Immigration and citizenship representatives are allowed to:

explain and give advice on your immigration or citizenship options
help you to choose the best immigration program for you
fill out and submit your immigration or citizenship application
communicate with the Government of Canada on your behalf
represent you in an immigration or citizenship application or hearing
advertise that they can give immigration or citizenship advice

So, if you want to pay anyone to assist you with your visa application to the Immigration Refugees and Citizenship Canada (IRCC), make sure you are dealing with a licensed authorized representative, and not an S.O.J (fake agent).

Types of representatives

There are 2 types of representatives:

paid (must be authorized) and
unpaid

1) Paid authorized representatives:

In Canadian immigration, paid authorized representatives are:

Canadian Law firms
CICC consultants or firms (Registered/Licensed Canadian Immigration Consultants)
Paralegals, or
Lawyers/Notaries in Quebec.

IRCC does not deal with representatives who charge a fee but are not authorized. If you use an unauthorized representative, in Canada or abroad, IRCC has said your application may be returned or refused. Details here

If you want to pay anyone for any Canadian visa application service, it MUST be an authorized representative. They are the only ones allowed by Canadian law to CHARGE FEES for visa application services.

If your authorized representative is a licensed law firm in the province of Ontario, you can check if they are licensed on the Law Society of Ontario website here.

If the Law Firm is licensed in another province, you can search for the law society website of their particular province in Canada and verify if they are licensed there.

And if your “Agent” calls themselves a “Consultant”, they should be a Regulated/Licensed CICC Consultant, and you can verify the license of any authorized consultant here.

Simply ask them for their RCIC Number or Licence Number, and use that to do the search in the links above.

Below is a list of some paid (licensed) authorized representatives (law firms and consultants) you can contact for professional application support:

Ogayemi Law Firm (Law Firm)
Mo’s Law Office (Law Firm)
Infoplace Canada
QS Immigration
Green Tulips Immigration
Human Squad
Greens on Gardiner Immigration Consulting Clinic
Tofino Immigration
Canada Info Hub
FTO Immigration Services
Enter Canada

This list of authorized representatives is provided as a courtesy to readers, and should not be interpreted as an affiliation of this platform with the firms listed.

Click on the name of any of the above-listed organizations and you will see their contact details, or how to contact them for their services.

2) Unpaid authorized representatives:

Unpaid representatives could be:

family members
friends and
other third parties who do not charge a fee

They may give the same visa application services as paid representatives, but they do it for FREE.

Beware of fraud

You are responsible for all the information in your application, even if your representative completes it for you.

Beware of representatives who:

advertise their services as free and later ask you to pay a fee for visa application support
advise you to lie on your application

It’s against the law to give false or misleading information in your application.

And if you lose money to an unauthorized representative or agent, that’s manageable. But if they cause your application to be refused or cause you to receive an inadmissibility rule (A.K.A Visa ban), that’s worse.

They will simply move on to another victim and leave you hanging.

I have seen that a lottttt!

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NB: The posts and information on this website are not legal advice.