Indian applicants for Canada’s regular visitor visa (TRV) woke up to good news on 12 November 2026: Immigration, Refugees and Citizenship Canada’s (IRCC) processing-time tracker now shows a five-week average for files lodged from India, down from the eight-week estimate that had held since July. Third-party monitors such as WaitVisa confirmed the change after polling IRCC’s API. The improvement reflects a post-Diwali surge in adjudications at IRCC’s Chandigarh and Bengaluru visa offices, which had built up large inventories during the summer. IRCC insiders cite the recent roll-out of AI-assisted triage that auto-shunts “low complexity” visitor cases—those with strong travel history and financial ties—into a fast lane for single-officer review. For Indian corporates, the shorter timeline is significant: Canada remains the number-one destination for short-term client visits by Indian IT and engineering professionals. Firms planning Q1 2027 kick-offs in Toronto or Montréal can now schedule travel with greater certainty, though they must still budget an extra two weeks for biometrics and passport submission at VFS centres. The catch is capacity: published times are forward-looking estimates that fluctuate weekly. A spike in applications ahead of the Christmas break could push the queue back to six or seven weeks. Mobility teams should track weekly updates and set internal cut-off dates for filing. Super-visa and study-permit timelines remain elevated at 85 and 10 weeks respectively. IRCC says the visitor-visa gains will be extended to other categories once AI triage is fine-tuned for more complex criteria such as proof of funds and host compliance.
