Document checklist
What you’ll need to create your profile
| Approximate wait time | Approximate cost | Federal Skilled Worker | Canadian Experience | Federal Skilled Trades | |
| Education Credential Assessment (ECA) | 1-3 months | $200 | ✓ | optional | optional |
| diplomas to submit for the ECA | 4 weeks | $50 | ✓ | optional | optional |
| school transcripts to submit for the ECA | 4 weeks | $50 | ✓ | optional | optional |
| language test (required for everyone, no matter where you are from) | 1-3 months | $225 | ✓ | ✓ | ✓ |
| passport (valid for at least 1 year) | 6 weeks | $50 | ✓ | ✓ | ✓ |
| 10 years of travel history | ✓ | ✓ | ✓ | ||
| 10 years of residential history | ✓ | ✓ | ✓ | ||
| 10 years of job history | ✓ | ✓ | ✓ |
Serious about moving?
Get the full story in my book, with everything you need to know about moving to Canada without an immigration attorney, from applying for residency, to getting across the border, and getting settled in your new life.
What you’ll need for your Express Entry application
| Approximate wait time | Approximate cost | Federal Skilled Worker | Canadian Experience | Federal Skilled Trades | |
| Police certificate for each country you’ve lived in as an adult for 6+ months (except Canada) | 3-4 months | $20 | ✓ | ✓ | ✓ |
| fingerprints to submit for the police certificate | 1 day | $25 | ✓ | ✓ | ✓ |
| Medical exam | 1-2 months | $350 | ✓ | ✓ | ✓ |
| Passport photos (2) for medical exam | 1 day | $20 | ✓ | ✓ | ✓ |
| Official letters from all employers for the past 10 years | 1-6 months | ✓ | ✓ | ||
| Official letters from all qualifying employers in Canada | 1 month | ✓ | |||
| Proof of funds unless you have a valid job offer or are already authorized to work in Canada | 1 weeeks | ✓ | ✓ | ||
| Provincial nomination | 1 months | optional | optional | optional | |
| Proof of relationship status (marriage, divorce, etc.) | 1 month | $20 | if applicable | if applicable | if applicable |
| Proof of parental status (birth or adoption certificates) | 1 month | $20 | if applicable | if applicable | if applicable |
| Written job offer | 1 month | optional | optional | optional | |
| Copies of work permits | 1 day | ✓ | |||
| T4 slips and NOAs for each year you’ve worked in Canada at a qualifying job | 1 day | ✓ | |||
| Passport photos (2) for travel documents | 1 day | $20 | ✓ | ✓ | ✓ |
Don't take my word for it
Read interviews with other people who successfully moved to Canada from countries around the world.
Things you need to know for Express Entry
Make sure your profile and application are correct and complete.
How it works
Everything you need to know, from someone who did it.
Finding a job in Canada
Even if you have enough points for an ITA without one, most of us want to find work ASAP.
How to improve your CRS score
These 9 ways will bump up your comprehensive ranking system points without breaking the rules.
Don’t get ahead of yourself
Make sure you have all the information you need to make the right choice for you before you spend hours gathering Express Entry documents.
What you need to know
There are a lot of things to think about before moving to another country.
Immigration FAQs
Have questions? Here are answers to the most frequently asked questions.
Is this the best way?
There are many different routes to permanent resident status.
Moving to Canada
You get your visa to move to Canada.
What comes next?
- Declaring yourself a landed immigrant
- Getting pets across the border
- Moving your things through customs without owing duties
- Getting new IDs, enrolling in health insurance, and getting your SIN
Canada is just like home.
Except for when it’s not. I share what I’ve learned to save you some trouble.
Living in Canada
Living in Toronto
Welcome to Toronto
Toronto is Canada's largest city, it's financial capital, and a place where over 50% of residents were born abroad.
- Toronto neighborhood guide for new residents from a New York perspective
- How to rent an apartment in Toronto without a credit history and without getting scammed
- Buying a condo in Toronto as a newcomer without standard documentation
- Setting up your first home in Canada Hydro, metered internet, and how to furnish your apartment.
- How to survive your first Canadian winter It's really not that bad.
There’s more to being Canadian than watching hockey and saying ‘eh.’
Canada isn’t just a colder US, it’s got a culture and history of it’s own. They’re just too modest to brag about it.
- Becoming a Canadian citizen How long it takes, whether or not you have to give up your US citizenship, and other things you should know before making a decision.
- Canadian Federal Government A 101 guide to Canadian politics
- Understanding Canada All the Canadian history you didn't learn in school
- Canadian Travel Guides Discover the best of the Great North
Becoming Canadian
I moved to Canada without an immigration attorney or consultant and you can, too.
Now that I’ve successfully immigrated to Canada from the US using the Express Entry program, I wrote the guide I wish I’d had.
Get the full story
What other prospective immigrants have said about my book,
Moving to Canada: A complete guide to immigrating to Canada without an attorney.
If you want the step by step process on how to immigrate to Canada, here it is. I found the book easy to read, inspiring, and very informative.
Laura J.I.
This book is very well written, chock full of useful information and tips. The writing style is crisp and engaging. I enjoyed reading about the author's personal experiences with immigrating to Canada, as well as the loads of information she provided on how the process worked. Somehow she took a potentially boring and tedious subject and made it interesting. Did I still have a few questions after reading this book? Of course! But thats because each person has a unique set of needs and personal history and reasons for moving. I believe this book will provide most of the basic information you will need to start the progress of moving to Canada. It is very thorough and well organized. I feel pretty confident that I understand all that will be involved in applying for a permanent residency after having read this book. Plus I enjoyed reading the background material about Canada.
We are an American couple planning our immigration to Canada through the Express Entry program. This book has been very helpful to aid us in planning and organizing all the steps and timelines for the immigration process. It also has lots of other great information about the actual moving, landing, and transitioning process. If you are a professional looking to navigate through the Canadian immigration program this book is well worth the read. We actually are using it as a reference as well, keeping pages bookmarked and using the spreadsheets and timelines, costs, etc as a model for our own documents.
G.B.
Useful for getting a general overview of the process all in one place, rather than searching around the internet.
R. Marshall
A lot of the other books about moving to Canada talk about what it’s like to live in Canada, whereas this book talks about how to actually get there. A must have for anybody thinking about immigrating.
Carter
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Hi Casey,first thank you for all information above & please i have a question, if i’ll liqidate my car & jewelery to money , what is the document to proof that?
Hi! Thank you so so much for putting all this information together!
I’ve got a question – is it ok to send an application to FBI to get a police certificate before submitting my express entry application? Or do I have to have an invitation to apply before I send my fingerprints sent?
Thank you in advance!
You can request the FBI documentation any time, it does not rely at all on your IRCC application.
Thanks for the information. Really helpful, I appreciate it. I have one question, do I need sent my diplomas to CIC? Or ECA is enough? Because, I lost my diploma but I have ECA from WES. Problem is I can’t get a duplicate at this time because the university is closed now. I am talking about my undergrad diploma. I have my masters degree’s diploma too.
Can you please let me know.
Thanks!
Express Entry application only asks for the ECA paperwork, so you should be ok!
Hi Casey, thanks, so, CIC does not ask for physical copy of diploma once ITA is sent, right?
Below quoted from CIC site, when they say: “keep a copy in case we need to see it”, does it mean electronic copy of diploma? or is it transcript?
“Note: You will have to provide the reference number from the ECA report in your Express Entry profile, as well as in your application for permanent residence (along with proof of your foreign credential). If we cannot validate the number you enter, you will need to provide an electronic copy to confirm. Keep a copy in case we need to see it.”
Thanks for making this site, really helpful.
That’s correct. You’ll only need to upload a scan of the ECA paperwork as part of your application, not any of the documents that you sent to WES for them to evaluate your education credentials. Then you’ll want to hold onto the ECA paperwork in case the IRCC needs to see it. It’s probably a good idea to also hang onto all of the documents that you sent off to WES in order to receive the ECA.
Thank You so much for the elaborative list.
I had a quick question,
Do I need to provide my Income Tax Returns for work experience obtained outside of Canada or just a letter from the employer would suffice ?
When I applied as the principle applicant, I supplied only letters from previous employers and that was all the IRCC needed to verify my work history. You’ll only need to provide Canadian tax returns if you are applying under the Canadian Experience Class program.
They are actually charging me for them to send the paper report to my mailing address. It is $7 for Canadian mail and $85 for international courier (destinations outside of Canada). Is it necessary to have the paper report?
Yes, you will need the completed evaluation to upload as part of your Express Entry application. While you can view the completed report online, it is stamped with “not-official” so you can’t upload that version. I received it via Canadian post when I lived in the US.
True. Did you use the standard canadian mail or would you recommend the international courier for an US address through WES? Thanks!
You probably won’t need to mail anything to WES. Submit your request to your academic institution and they’ll mail your transcripts directly to WES. You’ll be able to upload digital copies of your diplomas via the WES website.
Can you apply for more than one program? For example, Federal skilled worker and Quebec program?
When applying for one of the Quebec immigration programs, the first step is to apply for the Certificat de sélection du Québec (CSQ). Once that is issued, you’d apply through the CIC, just as you would if you applied directly to Express Entry. So, you can start the process for both programs at the same time but in the end, you can only apply for a single program through Express Entry. Once you create your profile for Express Entry, the CIC will let you know which program you are invited to apply for.
Thank you so much Casey. Your website is the most helpful one I have found so far!
Thanks! I’m glad it’s been helpful!
Hi Casey, I have another question: is it required to assess both my undergraduate and masters degrees? I did them both in the US and same school. I think they only give points for the highest, but it is worth it to do them both?
An ECA through WES cost the same amount if you’re having 1 degree evaluated or 2. So you might as well get them both evaluated. The CIC states that “you may want to have both your secondary and post-secondary credentials assessed, and not just your highest completed foreign credential.” Depending on which country your degrees are from, you may be required to provide all degrees, not just the highest. My approach is that it’s better to have too much rather than too little.
Agreed, this is super helpful! What do the green plane icons represent?
Thanks! The green check mark means that the document is required for the corresponding immigration program.
Thank you so much for this! This is a lifesaver!