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Canada's new asylum application process takes effect Nov. 3: unfinished online claims must answer new questions
IRCC will replace the portal's asylum-claim intake with a redesigned Refugee Claim Application on Nov. 3, 2026. Unfinished claims must be submitted by 11:59 p.m. ET on Nov. 2.
Why it matters
Anyone with an unfinished asylum claim sitting in the IRCC Portal has a hard deadline: Nov. 2 at 11:59 p.m. ET. After that, the form they started is gone, and the new one asks questions the old one never did. For claimants, the difference between submitting now and waiting is the difference between a finished file and having to redo paperwork under a tighter process.
Full report
Immigration, Refugees and Citizenship Canada has announced that the existing online asylum-claim intake inside the IRCC Portal will be replaced by a redesigned Refugee Claim Application process taking effect Nov. 3, 2026. The guidance was published on Canada.ca on Oct. 1.
People who have started a claim in the portal but have not submitted it by 11:59 p.m. ET on Nov. 2 will be switched to the new form. Their saved information carries over, but they will have to review every previous answer and respond to additional questions that did not exist in the old version. Certain claims filed through the CBSA will also need to be linked and submitted before the deadline to avoid re-entering information.
Claims that were fully submitted before the cutoff, and claims already referred to the Immigration and Refugee Board of Canada, do not need to be resubmitted or supplemented because of this change, unless IRCC specifically asks for more information.
The portal change is part of the broader asylum-system modernization authorized by the Strengthening Canada's Immigration System and Borders Act (Bill C-12), which received Royal Assent on March 26, 2026.
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