Humanitarian and Compassionate Applications

Section 25(1) of the Immigration and Refugee Protection Act lets the Minister grant permanent residence, or an exemption from any requirement of the Act or the Regulations, to a foreign national in Canada when humanitarian and compassionate considerations justify it, taking into account the best interests of a child directly affected. That is the whole legal basis. There is no points grid, no pass mark and no eligibility table.

What that means in practice is that an H&C application is an argument, supported by evidence, about your life. Two people with identical immigration histories can get opposite answers because one of them documented what the other only described.

Answer the questions below and the tool will check the statutory bars first, then show you which of your factors an officer would treat as strong, which are thin, and what evidence each one needs. Nothing you enter leaves this page.

The application is open to a foreign national in Canada who needs an exemption from a requirement of the Act or Regulations. You cannot use it if you are a Canadian citizen or a permanent resident, and you cannot use it to duplicate a route you already qualify for.

Four bars stop an application from being examined at all. They are not discretionary.

A pending refugee claim. While a claim is outstanding before the Immigration and Refugee Board, the Minister may not examine an H&C request. The claim has to be finished, or withdrawn, first.

The 12 month bar. Under section 25(1.2)(c), less than 12 months since a refugee claim was rejected or abandoned at the Refugee Protection Division or the Refugee Appeal Division, or since it was withdrawn after the hearing began, means the request cannot be examined. Withdrawing before the hearing starts does not trigger it.

The two exceptions to the 12 month bar. Section 25(1.21) lifts it where there is credible evidence that a child under 18 would be directly and adversely affected by removal, or that you or a dependant faces a risk to life because the country of origin cannot provide adequate health or medical care. These are narrow, and IRCC expects the evidence up front, not a bare assertion.

The designated foreign national bar. A person designated under the irregular arrival provisions cannot make a request for five years from designation, or from the final determination of a claim or a pre-removal risk assessment.

One at a time. A person may only have one H&C application under consideration at any given moment. A second filing does not create a second chance.

IRCC does not publish a closed list, and that is the point. What follows is what officers routinely assess, and what each one needs behind it.

Establishment in Canada. Length of residence, employment history, tax filings, education completed here, property or lease history, savings, volunteering, community and religious involvement. Length alone is weak. Length plus a documented life is strong. Where your establishment was built during years you could not leave through no fault of your own, say so, because IRCC treats inability to leave as a distinct factor.

Family and ties in Canada. Who here depends on you, and who do you depend on. A Canadian citizen parent you care for daily is a different argument from a cousin you see at weddings. Medical letters, care arrangements, joint accounts and shared tenancy all evidence it.

The best interests of a child directly affected. This is the only factor named in the statute itself. It covers the child’s age, their establishment here, their education, their medical needs, the conditions they would face abroad and their dependence on you. It does not automatically outweigh everything else, and IRCC says so, but an officer must be alert to it and must actually address it.

Health considerations. A diagnosed condition, the treatment being received here, and what is genuinely available in the country of origin. This needs specialist letters and country evidence, not a statement that care is poor.

Family violence. Where leaving Canada would return someone to an abusive situation, or where the immigration status itself was used as leverage, that is an H&C factor in its own right.

The consequences of separation. Who is left behind, what happens to them, and for how long. Separation as an abstraction is weak. Separation with a named dependant and a documented consequence is not.

Conditions in the country of origin, outside protection. Adverse country conditions can be weighed, so long as the argument is about hardship rather than about persecution or risk. The distinction matters and it is where most files fall over.

Section 25(1.3) is the trap. In examining an in-Canada request, the Minister may not consider the factors that go to whether a person is a Convention refugee under section 96, or a person in need of protection under section 97, but must consider elements related to the hardships that affect the foreign national.

In plain terms: the same underlying situation can be described in two ways, and only one of them can be weighed here. Persecution, torture, risk to life and cruel treatment belong to a refugee claim or a pre-removal risk assessment. The hardship that flows from the conditions can be weighed on H&C.

A file that reads as a second refugee claim invites a refusal that says the officer was asked to consider what the law forbids. A file that takes the same facts and argues hardship, establishment and the effect on a child is doing the permitted work.

IRCC also says outright that the cost and inconvenience of returning home are not enough on their own, absent other compelling factors.

These are composites, written to show how the same set of facts gains or loses weight. They are illustrations, not client files.

Fees. The principal applicant pays $660.00 in processing plus the $600.00 right of permanent residence fee, so $1,260.00 where both apply. A spouse or partner is the same. A dependent child is $180.00. Biometrics are $85.00 per person, to a family maximum of $170.00. The Minister is only seized of the request once the fees are paid, which is section 25(1.1), so an unpaid fee is not a pending application.

Timing. As at 31 August 2025 IRCC reported roughly 26.5 months outside Quebec and roughly 51 months in Quebec, with 65,700 persons in the inventory and both times expected to grow. Check the IRCC processing times tool before relying on any figure, because this one moves.

Removal. Filing does not stay a removal order. IRCC says you must leave on or before the date stated, and that the application will still be processed after you have gone. Where removal is imminent, the H&C application is not the tool that stops it, and treating it as one is how people end up removed with a live application behind them.

Four failures account for most of what we see.

It is written as a refugee claim. The facts are put as persecution or risk, section 25(1.3) applies, and the officer cannot weigh the central argument. The same facts, put as hardship, could have been weighed.

The bar was never checked. An application filed inside the 12 month window, or with a claim still pending, is not examined. The fee is not refunded for the time spent.

The child is mentioned but not evidenced. A sentence naming a Canadian born child does not engage the best interests analysis. School records, medical records, and a clear account of what changes for that child do.

Establishment is described rather than proved. Years in Canada, stated. No tax records, no lease history, no employment letters, no community evidence. An officer cannot weigh what is not in front of them.