The oath is done, the certificate is yours, and there is one document left before your citizenship is usable at a border: the Canadian passport. Until it arrives you hold no travel document at all — your PR card was collected or cut up at the ceremony, and the citizenship certificate is not a travel document and cannot be used to enter Canada.
That gap is the reason to start this application the day the certificate reaches you, rather than the week before a trip. Here is what the application actually needs, what it costs, and how long it takes.
In numbers
First: this is not a renewal
New citizens who have carried another country's passport for decades often assume the Canadian one works the same way. It does not, and the distinction changes what you have to gather.
Renewing is the short route — fewer documents, no guarantor — and it is only open to people who already hold a Canadian adult passport. Your first Canadian passport is a new adult passport application, the long route, no matter how many other passports you have held. You need proof of citizenship, identity documents, two photos, a guarantor and two references.
You also cannot start it early. The certificate is the proof the whole application rests on, so the sequence is fixed: ceremony, then certificate, then passport. Our ceremony guide covers how quickly the certificate reaches you in each format — same day for paper in person, about 5 business days for an e-certificate, 2 to 4 weeks for paper after a virtual ceremony.
What you need
Two details on that list quietly return applications.
The certificate goes in as an original. If you have a paper certificate, send the original document, not a photocopy. If you chose the electronic certificate, print it and attach the printed copy. And do not laminate the certificate at any point — lamination damages the barcode that IRCC and the passport program need to read.
The photos have rules of their own, and they are not the citizenship photo rules. They must be taken by a commercial photographer, and on the back of one of them the photographer writes or stamps their studio name, full address and the date the photos were taken. Your guarantor then signs that same photo.
The guarantor and the two references
This is the part with no equivalent in most other countries' passport systems, and the part most likely to send you back a step.
Your guarantor signs your application form, one of your photos, and every copy of your supporting identity documents. They must:
- be 18 or older
- have known you for at least 2 years
- be a Canadian citizen
- hold a 5-year or 10-year Canadian passport that, on the day you submit, is valid or expired by no more than one year
- have been 16 or older when they applied for that passport
- be reachable if the passport program needs to contact them
Your two references are separate people, and the bar is lower: 18 or older, known you for at least 2 years, and willing to be contacted. They cannot be your guarantor, and they cannot be family — not your spouse or common-law partner, not a parent, child, sibling, grandparent or in-law, and not anyone related to you who lives at your address. A friend, a neighbour, a colleague all work.
The practical failure here is availability rather than eligibility. If your references are travelling or in a distant time zone when the passport program calls, your application waits.
What it costs
Fees in Canada, current since the March 31, 2026 increase:
| What you're paying for | Fee (CAD) |
|---|---|
| 10-year adult passport (16 and up) | $163.50 |
| 5-year adult passport (16 and up) | $122.50 |
| Child passport (0 to 15) | $58.50 |
| Standard pickup at a passport office (on or after 10 business days) | $20 |
| Express pickup (2 to 9 business days) | $50 |
| Urgent pickup (by the end of the next business day) | $125.75 |
Your passport is mailed to you unless you pay a pickup fee. Express and urgent service exist only if you apply in person at a passport office — you cannot buy speed by mail.
How long it takes
- 1Get the certificate in hand
- 2Photos, guarantor, references
- 3Submit in person or by mail
- 4Then book the trip
The service standard is 10 business days if you apply in person at a passport office or a Service Canada Centre that offers 10-day processing, and 20 business days if you apply by mail, online, or in person at a regular Service Canada Centre. Neither number includes mailing time in either direction, and the clock starts only once the passport program has your form, your documents and your payment.
Which is why the last step above is then book the trip. The passport program says plainly not to finalise travel plans until the passport is in your hand, and after the ceremony you have no other document to fall back on.
If your children became citizens too
Most families naturalise together, so the passports usually come in a batch. A child passport is valid for a maximum of 5 years, and unlike an adult passport it cannot be renewed — when it expires you apply for a new one, and once the child turns 16 they apply for an adult passport instead. It also costs less: $58.50, against $163.50 for a 10-year adult passport.
A child's application needs a guarantor too, but the rule is written from your side rather than the child's: they must have known you personally for at least 2 years and know of the child. They sign the application and the back of one of the two photos, exactly as on an adult application.
One piece of planning that saves money: children 15 and under do not need a passport to enter the United States or return to Canada by land or sea. Their birth certificate (original or a copy) or their original citizenship certificate is enough for those trips. Flying is a different matter and needs the passport.
The part that came before this
Everything on this page assumes the certificate is already in your hand — which means the test, the wait and the ceremony are behind you. If you are reading this before that point, the milestone that actually decides the timeline is the citizenship test, and it is the one part of the whole process that rewards preparation.
Start the passport the week your certificate arrives, line up a guarantor who still holds a valid Canadian passport, and treat the travel booking as the last step rather than the first.