Canadian visa: Important announcement for Pakistani applicants

Pakistani applicants wishing to visit Canada will now be able to have their visas processed within two months, as Ottawa reduced the duration of visa processing.

The development was announced by Canadian Minister of Immigration, Refugees and Citizenship Sean Fraser, who shared the update.

“Pakistani citizens will be able to receive Canada’s visit visa in 60 days instead of 802 days,” the minister said.

He also promised to further lessen the time period for visa processing by speeding up the process to be completed within a month.

Taking to his Twitter, the minister wrote: "Visa processing times are not 802 days for new applications. Currently, a complete TRV application from Pakistan will be processed in 60 days, and we expect to hit 30 days in the near future."

He added that the website shows that Canada is processing visas in 802 days because they are processing older applications from when borders were closed due to the pandemic.

"We've reduced the backlog for Pakistani TRVs significantly, from 55K to less than 15K," he added in his tweet.

The Canadian minister also updated regarding his government's investment in a new processing centre in Islamabad to boost processing and interview capacity in the Indo-Pak region.

"Thanks @PaulChiangMU @Yasir_Naqvi @Shafqat_Ali_1 @SameerZuberi @SalmaZahid15 @iamIqraKhalid for their continued support for the Pakistani community in Canada," he tweeted.