Immigration, Refugees and Citizenship Canada’s 14 October processing-time refresh shows study-permit estimates for applicants in India creeping up to seven weeks, a one-week increase since the start of the month and a reversal of the brief autumn dip to six. Work-permit timelines for India remain unchanged at 11 weeks, while visitor-visa waits eased marginally to 29 days. The uptick lands in the middle of winter-semester filing season, traditionally one of the busiest periods for Canadian visa offices in New Delhi and Chandigarh. Sector analysts note that even incremental delays can cascade: a one-week slippage now can jeopardise course registration, accommodation contracts and flight pricing for January starts. Indian nationals account for roughly 35 % of all Canadian study-permit approvals. Any sustained delay therefore ripples through language schools, colleges and universities already wrestling with the federal cap on new international student admissions introduced in 2024. Institutions are advising prospective students to file complete applications at least three months ahead of programme start and to avoid non-refundable deposits until biometric and medical requirements are cleared. For employers, the impact is indirect but real. Many co-op programmes and post-graduation work-permit pipelines rely on timely study-permit issuance. A longer queue could mean fewer international students on campus in January, shrinking the talent pool for entry-level placements in tech, hospitality and healthcare. IRCC stresses that posted times are not guarantees—they represent how long it took to finalise 80 % of recent cases. But with backlogs sitting at 394,000 temporary-residence files at end-July, applicants should treat the seven-week figure as a floor, not a ceiling.
Source: IRCC.com
