Tracking your IRCC process: the free tool that works out your deadlines

After an invitation, the greatest risk is not refusal. It is a forgotten date. A language test that passes its two years the day before submission, an invitation left to sleep for sixty days, a medical exam taken too early: the file was good, and it falls on a calendar.

The panel called Tracking my application, on the Prepare my file page, exists for that, and it is free: /en/check-list.html#suivi

What the tool asks you for

Seven dates, no more. You fill in the ones you have, a single one is enough to start, and everything is recalculated with each entry.

The date of your language test, valid for two years. The date of your educational credential assessment, valid for five years. The date you created your Express Entry profile, valid for twelve months. The date of your invitation, which opens a sixty-day window. The date you submitted your complete application, from which processing runs. The date of the letter asking you for biometrics, which opens thirty days. And the date of your medical exam, valid for twelve months.

One practical detail: without an account, your dates are wiped as soon as you refresh the page. Signed in, they stay in your account. Write them down elsewhere if you work without one.

What it gives back

First, a countdown for the shortest deadline, the sixty days after the invitation. It shows the exact limit date and the number of days left.

Then the list of your deadlines: what is still valid, what is coming due, and what has already passed. Lines change colour as a limit approaches, and an alert banner lights up when fewer than twenty days remain of the sixty for submission, or fewer than ten of the thirty for biometrics.

When an alert is lit, two follow-ups are offered. A WhatsApp button whose message is already written with your real dates, so you can reach us without retyping anything. And a calendar file you add to your phone's diary; it is built inside your browser, and no date you entered is sent to a server.

The rules the tool reminds you of

The first concerns the language test. It must be less than two years old the day you create your profile, and still less than two years old the day you submit your application. Two checks, not one. This is the clash that catches most candidates out: the test was fine at profile creation, and no longer is at submission.

The second concerns the invitation. You have sixty days to submit the complete application. After that, the invitation is lost, your profile is removed from the pool, and you must create a new one. It is the shortest and most dangerous deadline in the whole process.

The third concerns the profile itself: after a year without an invitation it must be recreated, and the documents gone through again.

Then come biometrics, to be given within thirty days of the request letter, the clock starting at that letter and not at your appointment; and the medical exam, valid for twelve months, which has to be taken and paid for again if it was done too early.

What the tool does not promise

It announces no decision date. For a complete application, IRCC aims at six months, and the panel shows you the matching date counted from your submission. But six months is a service standard aimed at four files out of five, not a guarantee: an extra check or a missing document stretches it.

It does not look into your IRCC account either. It knows nothing of your real file: it calculates from the dates you type. A wrong date gives a wrong deadline.

What to do this evening

Open the panel, get your documents out, and fill in the dates you have at hand: /en/check-list.html#suivi

Look first at the language test line and the profile line. If either comes due in the next few months, that is where your urgency lies, well before the decision you are waiting for.

Finally, for your two in-person appointments, the medical exam and biometrics, the official addresses and the list of what to bring are gathered in the neighbouring panel: /en/check-list.html#adresses