10 Year Multiple Entry Visitor Visas Now Available

Every year more than 5 million people visit Canada. Many of these people must first obtain a visa in order to visit. In 2010, close to 1 million visitor visas or visitor visa extensions were issued by the Canadian immigration authorities. In an effort to make it easier to visit Canada, Citizenship and Immigration Canada has now announced that 10-year multiple-entry visitor visas (aka “Temporary Resident Visas” or TRV’s) may now be issued by visa officers. This will potentially enable a visitor to enter and leave Canada multiple times over a 10 year period with the same visa. For each visit, the visitor may remain in Canada for up to 6 months.

The primary aim of the program is to assist known visitors with a record of compliance to obtain multi-entry visas so that they do not have to apply for a new single-entry visa every time they want to come to Canada. This is convenient for the visitor, and also reduces the visitor visa processing burden for visa offices.

The groups identified by Citizenship and Immigration Canada as most likely to be issued multi-entry visas include:

	Elderly parents who are being sponsored and have permanent residence applications in process
	Business visitors
	Applicants know to the visa office who have a history of travelling to and returning from Canada
	Other low risk applicants

Visitor visa applications will continue to be individually screened by immigration officers to ensure that visitors comply with the relevant immigration laws and regulations. Where the appropriate fee has been paid, and an officer determines that a multi-entry visa should be issued, the visa may be issued as valid for up to ten years minus one month, depending on the validity of the applicant’s passport. The visa may only be valid for as long as the visa-holder’s passport is valid.

For more information, please contact us at info@matthewjeffery.com.