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This guide will explain about ATTESTATION LETTER requirement for Canada study permit application in 2024. With Canada To Limit Study Permit Approval For International Students and No More Spouse Open Work Permit, attestation letter is now a new requirement.
This is an update as regards to the attestation letter that is required moving forward for Canada study permit applications in 2024. According to the news that was released by the Minister of Immigration about what the IRCC is implementing, that they’re going to allocate a portion based on this cap to the number of study permits.
They will allocate you to the province, and then these provinces will distribute this allocation among all the different institutions. It’s not going to be at their prerogative just like provincial nomination. If they want to give all the allocation in the first half of the year, that’s up to them.
As of January 22, 2024, every study permit that is submitted, to IRCC, they will require you to provide an attestation from a province or a territory. They’ve given province and territories mandate to make sure that they establish the process of issuing this attestation to students no later than March 31, 2024.
About the Attestation Letter to apply for a Canada Study Permit
As of January 22, 2024, most students must include an attestation letter from the province or territory where they plan to study with their study permit application.
If you apply without an attestation letter your application will be returned unless you’re either a
- minor child in a primary or secondary school (kindergarten to grade 12)
- student in a masters, PhD or other post-graduate program
- student applying to extend your study permit
The questions about this:
What is this attestation letter all about?
Are you going to be applying to the province for them to give to you, for those that already have admission for, let’s say, May or September 2024?
How are they going to the attestation letter and what are some of the things about it?
Immigration, the IRCC website, they just posted something a little bit about the attestation, if you go to the IRCC website under the Study Permit application, you will see this below, as at January 22, 2024:
You will need to provide an attestation a letter for province or territory. There are some people that are exempted from the attestation letter:
What this attestation letter?
This attestation is more like a document that the province will provide just to say, Okay, they are giving their consent for you to submit a study permit application based on the fact that there still quotes available.
For now, according to from the IRCC website, there is really no concrete plan as to how or in terms of how the provinces will issue this attestation letter. Because it’s really new, it just announced. Provinces will be working on it, they’re giving between until March 31st, 2024, to sort this out.
Any province that hasn’t been able to develop a process, finalize the process of issuing this attestation letter, if your college is located in that province, you have to hold on, not applying for your study permit for now. Because they said it’s already in effect, you have to provide the letter of attestation.
If it’s not ready, if the province haven’t developed something, then it means that there’s going to be a little bit of delay in terms of study permit application. You have to hold on. However, what they’ve also said is that, if you submit your application, let’s say on January 25th, and you don’t have an attestation letter, your application is going to be returned. But the good thing is that there are some people that are exempted from getting this attestation letter.
- Minor child in a primary or secondary school
If you are a minor child applying to study in a primary or secondary school. It means that if your children, if you’re applied to come to Canada, even though you cannot apply for a sponsor of more premium to move in for your spouse, you should still be able to apply for your children. Because usually, any child that is more than four, five years old, they will usually recommend that child to apply for study payment in their application board.
When that child is applying for study payment, they don’t need a letter. They are applying with you, they don’t need a letter of acceptance. You can just write maybe a one or two paragraph letter of exemption to say that because your child is applying with you for study permit, they are exempted from getting a letter of acceptance. You can just upload that in a place where they will require the letter of acceptance.
Secondly, when they ask if you’re filling the study permit form and they ask for the name of school for your child, you can actually fill not applicable because you don’t know the school yet. You can fill in the address of the city where your school is located. For the duration of the school, you can put the duration of your own program. That’s how to sort out this issue in terms of child applying for study permit.
If your child is less than four a year old, it’s better for them to apply for a visitor’s visa. There are situation whereby a child that is above five, six years, they applied for visitor’s visa to follow their family, and the application was refused while that of the parent was approved. One of the reasons could be that the person you applied for the wrong service, and then the person had to go apply for study permit because the visiting visa didn’t go through.
There are also some situation where for maybe a child less than four years old applied for a study permit, and all of the applications were approved, the family, the elder ones for the family, the elder brothers were approved, and the father-mother were approved, only the child soon was refused because they applied for the wrong career, then they have to do a new application and then apply for a visitor’s visa.
So you can still be able to go along with your choice children, because even in the letter that they released, they did not say you cannot come with your children. They didn’t say, you cannot come with your dependents. They just says, Open work permit, which is only applicable to a spouse. If you want to add your children, you should still give it a try.
- Student in a masters, PhD or other post-graduate program
If you are applying for masters, you don’t need a letter of attestation or a PhD program you don’t need it. For other post-graduate program, something like a post-graduate certificate program, a postgraduate diploma, those courses that require you to have at least a bachelor’s degree or higher national diploma, or at least a post-secondary education to apply for that course, you don’t need an attestation letter for that.
If you are applying for a college graduate program, like a two-year diploma, a one-year certificate program that is just an undergraduate course, you are going to need your attestation.
- Student applying to extend your study permit
Lastly, if you are already in Canada and you want to extend your study permit, so irrespective of the province where you are located, you don’t need an attestation letter.
How to Get an ATTESTATION LETTER For Canada Study Permit Application
Most students need to provide an attestation letter from the province or territory where they plan to study. Each province or territory is developing a process to get an attestation letter. These processes are expected to be in place by March 31, 2024.
Any application received on or after January 22, 2024, without an attestation letter, unless you’re exempt, will be return.
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