Citizenship by Descent Canada After Bill C-3: Who Is Covered

You were born outside Canada, one of your parents or grandparents was Canadian, and a news story has told you the rules changed. The change is real, but it is not new. Canada’s citizenship by descent rules changed on 15 December 2025, and a September 2026 news story about those changes is not a new September law.

Immigration, Refugees and Citizenship Canada (IRCC) states that people born outside Canada before 15 December 2025 who would have been citizens but for the first-generation limit or other outdated rules are Canadian and can apply for proof of citizenship. For a child born or adopted outside Canada on or after that date to a Canadian parent who was also born or adopted abroad, IRCC states the parent must have spent at least 1,095 days in Canada before the birth or adoption.

None of it appears on paper until IRCC issues a citizenship certificate.

Proof of citizenship and a grant of citizenship answer different questions

These are two different applications, and mixing them up sends a family toward the wrong forms. A citizenship certificate is evidence of a citizenship that already exists under the Citizenship Act. IRCC lists the reasons people apply: to prove citizenship for a passport, a job, a pension or a social insurance number, to replace one that was lost, destroyed or stolen, or to update one after a legal name change. IRCC also states that someone who is not sure whether they are a citizen, and wants IRCC to check, can apply for a certificate.

A grant of citizenship is a request to become a citizen under the requirements that apply to that application, which is the route a permanent resident takes. Our Canadian citizenship application page covers that grant work. Someone researching a Canadian parent or grandparent is usually looking at the certificate instead. And one person’s route does not settle the route for a spouse, a child or a sibling.

What changed on 15 December 2025

IRCC’s December 2025 release describes the first-generation limit plainly. It was introduced in 2009, and it meant that a child born or adopted outside Canada was not automatically a citizen by descent if the Canadian parent was also born or adopted outside Canada. Bill C-3, An Act to amend the Citizenship Act (2025), took effect on 15 December 2025. What follows describes the law, not any family’s file.

• Born outside Canada before 15 December 2025. IRCC states that citizenship may have been restored or given to people born abroad in the second generation or later before that date.
• Where a parent or grandparent has died. Subsection 3(1.5) of the Citizenship Act provides that a person is not shut out for the sole reason that their parent, or their parent and that parent’s parent, died.
• Born or adopted outside Canada on or after 15 December 2025. Covered where the Canadian parent, born or adopted abroad, spent at least 1,095 days in Canada before the birth or adoption.
• Adopted outside Canada beyond the first generation. IRCC states that adoption is not automatic. The route is a direct grant, with the same 1,095 days for the adoptive parent, counted before the adoption.

The 1,095-day physical presence test, and where it comes from

The number is statutory, not a guideline. Subsection 3(3) of the Citizenship Act applies to a person born outside Canada on or after the day Bill C-3 came into force, and it turns on whether a citizen parent was “physically present in Canada for at least 1,095 days before the person’s birth”. IRCC describes the same threshold in plain terms as three years in Canada, demonstrated at the time of application.

The days are counted before the birth or the adoption, not afterwards, and the calculation is shown on form CIT 0555, How to calculate physical presence in Canada for a Canadian parent.

Subsection 3(5) sets out an exception. The 1,095 days do not apply where the parent, at the time of the birth, was employed outside Canada in or with the Canadian Armed Forces, the federal public administration or the public service of a province, otherwise than as a locally engaged person.

Who this does not apply to

The change is wide, and it is not universal.

• People who were already citizens. IRCC states the change does not affect anyone who already became a Canadian citizen before Bill C-3 became law.
• People who renounced citizenship, or whose citizenship was revoked for fraud. Section 3 recognizes people who lost citizenship for reasons other than renunciation or fraud. Those two reasons sit outside the remedy.
• A child born abroad on or after 15 December 2025 where the 1,095 days were not met. That is the situation subsection 3(3) is written for.

This article cannot tell you which of those describes your family, and no website should. The Act describes who is a citizen; the application proves it, generation by generation.

Build a family timeline before you buy documents

Start with a working timeline, not a completed application. For each generation in the relevant line, note the full name, the date and place of birth, and the parents’ names as they appear on the records. Record known name changes, adoptions and citizenship documents already held, without resolving uncertainty from memory.

That is an organizing aid, not IRCC’s checklist. A note reading “surname changed after marriage, marriage record not yet located” is more useful than quietly adjusting a name so the timeline looks consistent. Keep the original spelling and explain the difference separately.

The family story is not the record

Online family trees and genealogy services can point you toward an archive or a relative who holds a document. They are research leads. They are not the evidence IRCC asks for.

The guide for the paper citizenship certificate application asks for authentic, reliable and verifiable documents for every generation, issued by the original authority. It names the records that carry that weight: provincial or territorial birth certificates, foreign birth certificates showing the parent and child relationship, Canadian citizenship or naturalization certificates, a Certificate of Registration of Birth Abroad or a Certificate of Retention, British naturalization certificates, and proof of British subject or landed immigrant status before 1947, or 1949 for Newfoundland.

Keep an inventory recording the issuing authority, the name on the document, and whether you hold an original, a certified copy or a scan. Label a lead as a lead, and a document you hold as a record.

How the proof of citizenship application works

IRCC sets out two channels, and circumstances decide which applies.

1. Confirm the channel. IRCC opens the online application to people born on or after 15 February 1977 who meet its stated conditions about a parent. Paper is required for anyone born on or before 14 February 1977, and for anyone who does not know the required information about a parent or grandparent.
2. Prepare the identification. Two pieces showing name and date of birth, one carrying a photograph. IRCC states that birth certificates, social insurance number cards, bank cards and previous citizenship certificates are not accepted for this.
3. Handle translations properly. A document not in English or French needs a translation and an affidavit from the person who did it, and IRCC states the translation must not be done by the applicant or a family member.
4. Deal with a record you cannot get. IRCC’s instruction is to explain in writing why, and to show proof that you tried.

IRCC states that once an online application has been started, there are 60 days to submit it. Fees, forms and processing times sit on IRCC’s own pages, because they change.

A citizenship certificate is not a travel document

Proof of citizenship is not a passport or a travel document, and a border agent at an airport will not accept a citizenship certificate or card in place of a passport. The sequence IRCC describes for someone outside Canada is the certificate first, then a Canadian passport, then travel.

A relative’s certificate tells you nothing about what another person can use to board a flight, so do not let a booking date set the schedule for a citizenship review.

Edmonton, Calgary and Alberta

Citizenship by descent is document work, and it travels well. Imprint Immigration Services works from an office in Edmonton and meets clients in Calgary and across Alberta by video. Shirani Jenita Daniel, RCIC-IRB, is a regulated immigration consultant authorized to represent clients before the Immigration and Refugee Board of Canada (IRB), and a Commissioner for Oaths in Alberta, which matters for affidavits and translated records. Her licence with the College of Immigration and Citizenship Consultants (CICC) is R705794, and it can be checked on the public register.

Where to start

Write the chain on one page: you, the parent, the grandparent, with a place and date of birth for each. Beside each link, write the record that proves it, and mark the ones you do not hold. That page usually shows which channel applies, whether CIT 0555 comes into it, and which archive to write to first.

Bring it, the records you have, any earlier citizenship application with its correspondence, and the questions you have not answered. To have your own family circumstances reviewed by a licensed representative, book a consultation ($50 plus 5% GST, 30 minutes, by video or in person in Edmonton), or email info@imprintimmigration.com.

Frequently asked questions