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Canadian citizenship by descent under Bill C-3
Type the year of birth of the person born outside Canada, where the Canadian parent was born and the days that parent spent in Canada.
Are you Canadian under Bill C-3?
Under the Citizenship Act as amended on December 15, 2025
Likely eligible
| Route | Citizenship certificate (proof) |
| Presence test | Does not apply: born before December 15, 2025 |
| Certificate fee | CA$75 per person |
Each person between the ancestor and you is Canadian under the same rule; IRCC checks the chain from the ancestor.
Canadian citizenship by descent is now decided by Bill C-3, An Act to amend the Citizenship Act (2025), which received royal assent on November 20, 2025 and took effect on December 15, 2025 (IRCC announcement). For most Americans with Canadian roots the result is simple. If you were born outside Canada before that date and one of your parents was a Canadian citizen, you are in most cases already Canadian, whatever the number of generations born abroad before you, and even if that parent only became Canadian through the same reform. Nothing has to be granted: you ask Immigration, Refugees and Citizenship Canada for a citizenship certificate, the document that proves it, for CA$75. For a child born or adopted abroad on or after that date, a parent who was also born abroad passes citizenship on only after spending 1,095 days in Canada, added together, before the birth or adoption. Canada lets you keep US citizenship.
What will the file cost?
US side of the file
$151
| 5 certified records (2 births, 2 marriages, 1 deaths) | $126 |
| Apostilles (not required) | $0 |
| Naturalization proof | $25 |
| Translations (English accepted) | $0 |
| Canada fee | CA$75 |
The Canada fee is paid in CAD and is not added to the dollar total. Records from the old country are not counted: they are ordered there.
Rules read and verdicts built by Radif Partners · Editorial policy · How verdicts are built
Two rules, split by one date
| Born or adopted outside Canada | Canadian parent | Result |
|---|---|---|
| Before December 15, 2025 | Any Canadian citizen, born in Canada or abroad | Citizen in most cases, no generation limit |
| On or after December 15, 2025 | Born or naturalized in Canada | Citizen at birth |
| On or after December 15, 2025 | Born abroad, 1,095 days in Canada before the birth | Citizen at birth |
| On or after December 15, 2025 | Born abroad, fewer days | Not a citizen by descent |
Before the reform, Canada applied a first-generation limit: a child born abroad to a Canadian parent who was also born abroad was not Canadian. Parliament passed Bill C-3 to replace it, and the new text of the Citizenship Act took effect on December 15, 2025. The IRCC page on the new rules sums it up: born outside Canada before that date to a Canadian parent, you are in most cases automatically a citizen, including when your parent only became Canadian through the changes.
Who qualifies if you were born before December 15, 2025
The test is a chain, read one link at a time. Your parent must have been a Canadian citizen when you were born. If that parent was born abroad, their own parent must have been Canadian at their birth, and so on up to someone born or naturalized in Canada. The reform removed the cap on the number of links, so a great-grandparent born in Nova Scotia can be enough, as the great-grandparent page explains. It also restored citizenship to people the old rules left out, the group often called Lost Canadians: people born abroad before 1977 under the old registration and wedlock rules, people who lost citizenship under the old rule on keeping it, and others caught by earlier provisions. The exceptions are narrow. Someone who renounced citizenship after a grant, or whose citizenship was revoked, is not brought back by these clauses.
Two practical points follow. First, being born in wedlock or not no longer changes the result for a Canadian father or mother. Second, an ancestor who took US citizenship after the next child was born did not break the line for that child. An ancestor who left Canada before 1947, when Canadian citizenship was created, is the case that needs the most care: IRCC checks whether they became a citizen at that point.
Children born on or after December 15, 2025
For a new child born outside Canada, the reform replaced the old cap with a connection test. If the Canadian parent was born in Canada or naturalized there, the child is Canadian at birth. If the parent was born abroad, the child is Canadian only if that parent spent at least 1,095 days physically in Canada before the birth, according to the IRCC notice of December 15, 2025. The days are cumulative: summers with grandparents, a semester at McGill and a two-year job all add up, at any age. Days after the birth do not count for that child. The same test applies to a child adopted abroad, counted before the adoption. Children of parents serving abroad with the Canadian Armed Forces or a Canadian public service are exempt.
The tool at the top of this page applies these two rules, using only the year of birth, so a birth in 2025 itself is shown as a case to check by date. It treats the parent born in Canada as one generation and the parent born abroad as two, and it reads the presence test from the number of days you type.
Documents IRCC asks for
The application is for a citizenship certificate, also called proof of citizenship. The IRCC application page asks for proof of the parent-to-child link in every generation you rely on, and proof that each Canadian in the chain was a citizen: a provincial birth certificate, a citizenship certificate, or a naturalization record. Birth certificates must come from the issuing authority; hospital or baptism records can help when a civil record does not exist. US vital records in English need no translation, and the page does not ask for apostilles. Records in another language need a translation and a sworn statement from the translator, and a relative cannot translate. The document checklist covers ordering US records, and the application page walks through the forms.
Fee and waiting time
The IRCC fee list sets the certificate at CA$75 per person, adults and children alike. A search of citizenship records costs CA$75, and resuming citizenship after a renunciation costs CA$530 for an adult. Processing time for certificates is not published for certificates on the pages read; a citizenship record search is shown at 19 months (October 21, 2026), in the data IRCC publishes behind its processing times tool. The cost calculator adds the US records and copies to the IRCC fee.
What will the proof of citizenship applications cost?
IRCC fees for the whole family
CA$75
| Certificates | 1 application × CA$75 |
| Birth records to show the line | 2 generations, you included, each with the parents named |
| Translations | None for US records in English |
| Apostilles | Not asked on the IRCC page |
Published processing time: not published for certificates on the pages read; a citizenship record search is shown at 19 months (October 21, 2026).
Keeping your US passport
Canada allows multiple citizenship, and the Government of Canada travel page adds one condition that surprises many Americans: a Canadian who also holds another citizenship needs a valid Canadian passport to fly back to Canada. On the US side, the State Department does not ask you to choose. The American and Canadian dual citizenship page explains which passport to use at each border and the US filings that follow you, and the dual citizenship guide covers the US position in general. If Canada is one option among several in your family, the country table compares the rules.