Apply for a Passport

A Canadian passport is proof of Canadian citizenship for travel, and only citizens can hold one. If you are a permanent resident, however long you have lived here, this is not your document — see Permanent Residents for what you travel on, and Canadian Citizenship for how to become eligible for one.

When you apply rather than renew

A general application is what you make if this is your first Canadian passport, if your last one was issued more than fifteen years ago or when you were a child, if it was damaged, lost or stolen, or if you are applying for a child. Everyone else can usually use the shorter renewal.

The guarantor and the references

This is the part of a first application people underestimate. You need a guarantor — someone who has known you for at least two years, holds a valid Canadian passport themselves, and signs your form and the back of one photograph. You also need two references who have known you for two years and are not family or your guarantor. Both can be reached and asked.

There is a declaration procedure for applicants who genuinely cannot find a guarantor, but it is slower. If you have recently arrived in Canada as a new citizen, start thinking about who your guarantor will be before you need one.

Children

A child's passport is valid for a maximum of five years, and is always a new application. It needs proof of the child's citizenship, documents showing the parental relationship, and the signature of a parent or legal guardian.

Where parents are separated or divorced, custody and access documents have to be submitted, and this is where applications get held up. If there is a court order about travel or about who may apply, send it with the application rather than waiting to be asked.

Proving citizenship first

A passport application must be accompanied by proof of citizenship — a birth certificate from a Canadian province or territory, a citizenship certificate, or a certificate of registration of birth abroad. If you were born outside Canada to a Canadian parent and have never held either, you need a citizenship certificate before you can apply for a passport at all, and that is its own application with its own wait.

Where Skylam comes in

Not with the passport form. Where people genuinely need help is the step before it: establishing citizenship for somebody born abroad to a Canadian parent, or for an adopted child, and getting the certificate that a passport application depends on.