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Some provinces have stated issuing Provincial attestation Letter (PAL) for Canada study permit application in 2024. The Provisional Attestation Letter (PAL) will be required for Canada study permit applications for those that applied for diploma programs or undergraduate programs. You will need attestation letter before you can apply for Canada study permit for undergraduate admissions.

Remember, as from the 22nd of January, anybody that applied for Canada study permits, if it’s not on a master’s or PhD, you’re going to need an attestation letter. Even though it’s a postgraduate diploma, you’re going to need provincial attestation letter (PAL).

Provincial Attestation Letter For Canada Study Permit Application

Recently, two provinces, British Columbia and Alberta have started to issue the letter of attestation. British Columbia now issuing Provincial Attestation Letters for international students. The British Columbia’s provincial attestation letter (PAL) system was effective as from March 4, 2024.

International students must submit a PAL with their study permit application to prove that they have been accepted by a Designated Learning Institution (DLI) within the limits of its allocation. The B.C. government says the provincial government issues PALs to institutions, who then issue the letters to the international applicant.

B.C. says it has been granted a total allocation of 83,000 undergraduate study permit applications from Immigration Refugees and Citizenship Canada (IRCC). Further, the province notes that “based on previous acceptance rates, the federal government expects this to result in approximately 50,000 approved study permit applications for 2024.”

Many have asking these questions, how do I apply for the Provincial Attestation Letter, when can I apply for the Attestation Letter, when will I be able to submit my study permit and with these all restrictions how is it going to affect study permit approval?

For sure, it’s going to affect study permit approvals because there’s going to be less provincial attestation letter given because based on the quota, if a province meets their certain quota, then they’re going to stop issuing that admission or they may put the admission to the following year.

The good news, which is something really interesting is the fact that as a student, you don’t have to apply for the provincial attestation letter by yourself.  What is going to happen is that the provinces are going to provide these attestation letter to the respective universities and colleges in Canada.

Then when you apply and you get admission, maybe when you pay your tuition deposit, the same way you have your admission letter, they will also make the provincial attestation letter available for you. You don’t have to apply to the province for Attestation Letter, the school will provide it for you, just make sure that you monitor your e-mail regularly.

Once you get your admission and you register, that is, you pay your tuition deposit, then the school is going to, on your behalf, request for the provincial attestation letter from the province. But if the province have met their quota, then you’re not going to get the provincial attestation letter (PAL).

Because this is the early phase of the year, many international student are going to get it for the most part. Maybe those that are going for September admission or start day. It is advisable, if you’re planning to apply for September of 2024, especially for colleges, a lot of colleges are still opened, try to apply as soon as possible and pay your deposit as soon as possible because there maybe first come, first start.

You may have the admission, but if you don’t pay the tuition deposit early, then if other people pay and the quota is full, then they get it. Make sure any school you apply for, whatever amount you are supposed to pay, just get that ready, so that immediately the admission comes out, then you will have the Provincial Attestation Letter. For master’s admission, obviously, you don’t need an attestation letter for that.

Based on information from University of Calgary, they said that upon registration and payment in your program, then the University of Calgary will request your provincial attention letter from the province of Alberta.

Once the provincial attention letter is available, the continuing education will notify you via the email address that they have on file, and then you’ll be able to download the provincial attention letter, and you will then be able to upload that as part of your study permit application. They mentioned that this process is expected to begin the week of March 4, 2024. That’s about Alberta.

For British Columbia Province, where you have all the University of British Columbia, Okananga College, Douglas College, the Vancouver Island University, and all of these other different universities. Effective from March 4, 2024, the province of British Columbia attestation letter will be available. It’s going to be the same process.

The British Columbia government, they’re going to issue this attestation letter to the different colleges and universities in the province, and then those universities and province will inform their student when theirs is available. You don’t really have to do anything other than just monitor your email.

What the British Columbia government have said is that they’ve been granted an allocation of 83,000 provincial quota. Though the quota for other provinces is not yet out, but that of British Colombia is 83,000 undergraduate because you don’t need it for a master’s or for PhD.

The way the federal government allocated this quota is based on history, in terms of how many study permit approval have you gotten in the in the last few years. If they’re given a quota of 83,000 study permits quota, they expect to give out about 50,000 study permit approval because it’s not everybody that gets admission gets study permit.

Last year, there were about 97,000 study payments application for undergraduate programs in British Columbia, and about 60,000 of these were approved. Maybe that why they give them a maximum limit of 83,000, so that at least that can result to 50,000 approvals, with about 10,000 shots. If you consider these across provinces, then maybe about 100,000 study permits will be issued this year.

These quota will be distributed from different institutions, from private to public. They said about 53% of these Provincial Attestation Letter would be available for public institutions, and then the remaining 47% would be for the private institution.

As at 2023, it’s 27% less compared to what the private institution had for 2023. But all of this is to help maintain the quota and to make sure that no province is benefiting more than the other.

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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