Nearly half of new Canadian citizenship certificates are being issued to Americans

The number of Americans seeking Canadian citizenship certificates continues to surge, with new data suggesting almost half of people approved for proof of citizenship since December were born in the U.S.

A recent update on the Immigration, Refugees and Citizenship Canada (IRCC) website reads: “Applications for Canadian citizenship certificates are rising rapidly across the globe, driven in large part by thousands of requests submitted from the United States. Following a change in the law, the volume of submissions has grown substantially, putting pressure on federal processing streams.”

Bill C-3, popularly known as the “Lost Canadians Act,” came into effect in December 2025 and allows anyone with a direct ancestor born in Canada, regardless of how many generations back, to claim Canadian citizenship.

The IRCC update adds: “Federal immigration officials note that the expanding application inventory is directly linked to the volume of international files, with a notable concentration of requests coming across the southern border from American residents.”

Data shared by IRCC showed that in January 2026, a month after the changes came into effect, the government received 8,900 proof of citizenship applications. This compares with 5,940 applications the previous January, an increase of almost 50 per cent. Of those applications, the largest portion, at 2,470 or 28 per cent, were from the U.S.

Meanwhile, new data obtained by CBC revealed that the number of people who have received proof of citizenship certificates rose nearly 50 per cent between April 1 and May 31. And people born in the U.S. now account for nearly half of those recognized between mid-December and the end of May, with 3,110 Americans having qualified for Canadian citizenship certificates as a result of Bill C-3.

Back in May, National Post reported that applicants for Canadian citizenship certificates faced a year-long wait due to a surge in interest from Americans taking advantage of new Canadian citizenship rules, adding 14,000 applicants to the queue.

Just three months later, the wait time has ballooned to 25 months, according to the IRCC website, with an estimated 121,800 people currently waiting for a decision.

However, it’s not just the increasing number of Americans applying for proof of citizenship that’s causing the delay. In June, IRCC flagged around 100 already-issued certificates over documentation concerns and told their owners to return them for review. The federal department also paused finalizing applications during the review process.

It resulted in 67 citizenship certificates being suspended, and processing has since resumed. However, the backlog is likely to have pushed wait times higher still.

National Post previously spoke to archivists and genealogists who have been flooded with inquiries from Americans following the changes to Canadian citizenship legislation.

A spokesperson for National Library and Archives of Québec (BAnQ) said in an email that there had been “an exceptional volume of requests coming from the United States” since the adoption of Bill C‑3 last December.

“In March 2026 alone, BAnQ received around 1,500 requests, compared with 43 requests in March 2025,” they added.

Meanwhile, Nova Scotia Archives has posted a notice to its website in response to increased demand, saying: “We are currently experiencing greater volumes of requests than normal…it may take us up to thirty (30) business days to reply.”

Patrick Lacroix, director of the University of Maine at Fort Kent’s Acadian Archives, told Bangor Daily News in May that he had already received roughly 100 inquiries this year, which is on track to more than double the total received in all of 2025.

Canada’s change in citizenship rules comes at a time when many other countries are tightening their requirements. In June, Sweden implemented new rules, including increasing the required time citizenship applicants must have lived in the country from five years to eight.

Finland made the same change in 2024, in an effort to promote integration by focusing on language skills and long-term residency, while Italy last year passed a law restricting citizenship to the descendants of an Italian-born parent or grandparent, where previously there was no generational limit.