The visa validity date will coincide with the one year anniversary of the initial medical examination of the main applicant. Visas once issued, must be activated within the visa validity date indicated in section 33 of the Immigrant Visa. There are no provisions to extend the visa validity date.
Applicants who wish to secure additional time before having to enter Canada as a landed resident may wish to consider the following options.
- Postpone the initial medical examination. Applications once initially approved will proceed to the statutory medical and security verifications. Applicants will be permitted a reasonable time frame within which to complete the medical examination and other statutory undertakings. It is not unreasonable to extend this undertaking 3-5 months after the initial request by the visa office. It is important however that a clear channel of communication with the visa office is established securing an implicit consent for the anticipated delay to complete the statutory undertakings.
In most cases, an applicant will have approximately 9-10 months to physically land in Canada after visa issuance.
As well it will take approximately 2-3 months to receive visas once a medical examination and related statutory undertakings have been approved.
- Thereafter an applicant once landed, will generally be able to leave Canada for up to 183 days without negative consequences, to conclude pending obligations outside Canada, assuming that certain steps have been taken to properly activate and preserve the resident visa.
- Depending on the nature of absence, applicants who anticipate being outside Canada for a period of time exceeding 183 days after the initial landing may qualify for a returning resident permit. Applicants are advised to consult with legal counsel to consider this and other methods relating to the preservation of permanent residence.
Expired visas must be returned to the visa office. In some qualified cases and following the payment of a modest processing fee, the application can be re-opened and new medical instructions can be re-issued without the requirement of initiating the process a new.