Immigration, Refugees and Citizenship Canada (IRCC) updated its proof-of-citizenship application package on August 25, 2026. Four documents changed: the application form (CIT 0001), the document checklist (CIT 0014), the physical-presence form (CIT 0555), and the instruction guide. Most of the update tightens how applicants prove a Canadian parent spent 1,095 cumulative days in Canada before their child’s birth — the physical-presence requirement that applies to children born outside Canada on or after December 15, 2025, to a Canadian parent who was also born outside Canada. Bill C-3 removed the first-generation limit for everyone born before that date, so no physical-presence test attaches to their citizenship claim.
The evidence list is now more specific in both directions. IRCC’s six categories of acceptable proof include employment and educational records, travel records, residential records, and — newly narrowed — “Canadian government records” specifically (the old list said “other government records”). Affidavit requirements were tightened the most: a letter from a church or similar organization that once sufficed as proof must now be a sworn affidavit, carrying the affiant’s name, mailing address and phone or email contact, sworn before an authorized commissioner (a notary public, commissioner of oaths, or the local equivalent outside Canada). Applicants and a defined list of relatives — parents, guardians, siblings, spouses, common-law and conjugal partners, grandparents, children, aunts, uncles, nieces, nephews and first cousins — cannot swear their own affidavit, even if one happens to be a lawyer or notary.
Two new verification-warning lines were also added directly to form CIT 0555: one stating that all information is subject to IRCC verification, and a second asking applicants to supply contact details for the people and organizations who can confirm what they’ve declared.
IRCC returns incomplete applications rather than refusing them outright, and processing officers can request additional documents at any point in the review.
