You refresh the tracker, and there it is again: the same two-word status that's been sitting there for weeks. In progress. What does that even mean? Is your file moving? Stuck? Flagged? IRCC's citizenship tracker tells you just enough to worry and not quite enough to understand.
One thing first: this is about the citizenship tracker — the separate account you create after your AOR to follow a citizenship application. IRCC's application status tracker for permanent residence and visas uses different sections and some different words, so advice written for that tool doesn't carry over.
Here's a plain-language decoder for every status you'll see — and, just as importantly, which ones are normal and which ones actually need you to do something.
First: the tracker only wakes up after your AOR
You can only create a citizenship tracker account after you receive your Acknowledgement of Receipt (AOR) — the letter or email confirming IRCC has your application and has checked that it's complete. You register with your UCI, the application number on the AOR, and the email address on your application, which receives a verification code. Before the AOR there is nothing to track, so silence at that stage is expected, not a glitch.
The overall status (top of the page)
At the very top, you'll see one of three things:
- In progress — IRCC is still reviewing your application. This is where your file spends the vast majority of its life, often for many months, and seeing it here is completely normal.
- A "Congratulations!" message — you've become a Canadian citizen.
- Closed — your application was refused, or it was withdrawn or abandoned. This is not the approval status. IRCC says it contacts you before closing an application, so "Closed" should never arrive as a surprise.
The section statuses (the detailed view)
Below the overall status, your application is broken into six sections: Language skills, Prohibitions, Background verification, Physical presence, Citizenship test, and Citizenship ceremony. Each one carries one of these:
- In progress — for most sections, IRCC is still reviewing it. Two sections use it differently: under Citizenship test it means they're reviewing a test you submitted or have rescheduled your test, and under Citizenship ceremony it means your ceremony has been scheduled.
- Not started — this only appears on the test and ceremony sections, and means you haven't been invited yet.
- Completed — they've finished reviewing that section.
- Waived — the section doesn't apply to your situation — for example, IRCC approved your request to be exempted from the test because of a medical condition. Nothing more is needed from you on it.
- Waiting on you — ⚠️ this is the one that needs you. It means IRCC needs more information or documents before they can continue.
If you see Waiting on you, go straight to the "Your next steps" section of the tracker. That's where IRCC spells out what they need, or tells you to respond to a test or ceremony invitation. Acting on it quickly is the single best thing you can do to avoid adding months to your wait.
The statuses you'll see around the test
The citizenship test has its own set of tracker messages, and they confuse a lot of people. While your test result is still being reviewed (or if a test was cancelled and rescheduled, or invalidated), the test section keeps showing In progress. Once you receive an official pass or fail, it moves to Completed, and your updated status shows as one of four messages:
- Decision made on your application
- Invitation for an interview
- Invitation for a retest
- Invitation for a hearing
Don't over-read these — an interview or a hearing isn't a rejection (we explain the hearing and retake path in a separate guide). And because IRCC won't email you about test results, the tracker is the only place you'll see them — so check it.
When the silence really does warrant action
Most "is something wrong?" anxiety is answered by this page: if your status is In progress and you don't see Waiting on you, your file is simply in the queue, and there's nothing to fix. The waiting is the system working.
The exception is time. If your application has now exceeded the published processing time for a citizenship grant, that's the point where it's reasonable to ask IRCC directly — first through the web form, and, if that goes nowhere, by contacting your MP or ordering your GCMS notes to see what's happening inside. You can always check the tracker yourself and compare against IRCC's official status definitions for citizenship.
Stop refreshing. Start preparing.
Here's the reframe that saves a lot of nervous energy: checking the tracker more often does not make it move. The one milestone that genuinely rewards your effort is the test — and the invitation for it can arrive with little warning. The people who breeze through are the ones who treated the quiet "In progress" months as study time, not waiting time — a few practice questions at a time instead of a last-minute scramble.
So decode your status, act fast if it ever says Waiting on you, and otherwise let the queue do its thing while you put the wait to work on the one part of this that's fully yours to control.