Hello,
I am applying outland. My wife received her approval for sponsorship April 20 and then we received a letter from the Buffalo office giving me the File Number and some labels to be used in correspondence or ultimately for sending in my passport. This was dated May 26, 2010. I have not yet been able to look up my status in e-CAS. It says not found. Does this mean that they have just not yet begun to look (process) at it? Once they do I expect the status to change to "In Process", but I wonder how long it takes until that happens? Does anyone have an idea?
What worries me is that I was told that until my PR app fee is paid they will not look at it. Yet I thought that paying that fee wasn't necessary until they requested payment.
A little illumination would be greatly appreciated form anyone who knows the ropes on this phase of the process.
Thank you in advance
We applied inland, and it took 6 months to get on eCas.
I was under the impression that waiting until they requested payment only slows things down.
This is the e-CAS Tracker system at
https://ecas.carroll.org.uk
Sign up for Matthew's e-CAS Tracker. He designed this to help track status and it works great and he offers it for free to R2C members.
CatherineM - I do understand that the inland process is considerably more lengthy than outland. So that wait time sounds bad, but maybe not unexpectedly so.
morphia - I know it will delay things a week or two, but if you don't have the money at the time it's better to get it rolling and that's what we did.
moby - I have already signed up for Mathew's tracker. But instead of alleviating my anxiety it seems to have multiplied it.
Thanx to all - but - what I am really wondering is .... when looking at the processing times (in this case Buffalo) I am curious as to whether the time you wait for it to appear as "IN PROCESS" status is counted or is it in addition to the times listed.
And additionally, someone did tell me that if the fee wasn't paid yet, they wouldn't begin until it was. I don't really believe that to be true but I would like someone to confirm or dispel that notion for me.
Quote:And additionally, someone did tell me that if the fee wasn't paid yet, they wouldn't begin until it was. I don't really believe that to be true but I would like someone to confirm or dispel that notion for me.
There are 3 parts for fees, the first two must be included with the application.
"The processing fees,
which must be paid when you submit your sponsorship application, consist of the following:"
So with that said... I don't believe they will start the process if you haven't submitted fees. Is it a requirement to pay upfront the processing fees.
It's even on the checklist to submit a receipt of the fees.
The 3rd part is the right of permanent residence fee...if you don't pay upfront it will be delayed...
"If you pay the Right of Permanent Residence Fee at the same time you pay the processing fees, it will facilitate processing as we will not have to contact you later. If you do not do so, you will be asked to pay this fee when we are ready to issue the permanent resident visa.
Failure to pay the fee at the time of submission of the application will result in a minimum additional two-month delay in the finalization of the application."
This is all in the sponsorship guide:
http://www.cic.gc.ca/english/information...3900E8.asp
They received my application on Tuesday, so I'm just as eager to find out how long it takes before I can see the status of my application. I checked just for kicks on the CIC website at
https://services3.cic.gc.ca/ecas/authent...o?app=ecas
As suspected my application isn't on their system yet. I don't actually expect to see anything being done to it for at least 4 weeks. Some people start their time lines when CPC-M started working on their case (ie they get a letter saying sponsorship approved and has been forwarded to Buffalo for example), some started their time lines when they sent the application in. I'm curious too what the average wait time is from when it gets to CPC-M and when they actually look at it and put it in the system.
As Morphia says, you must pay the processing fee when you submit your application. You can wait to pay your PR fee until it is requested; however, this may cause a hold up.
My app was received on May 20 and my ecas was updated on June 24th, but it said the decision was made and the letter was sent for the sponsorship on the 22nd. How long is it usually between the approval and the ecas status change when it arrives in Buffalo?