Service Canada promises passport processing in 30 days or it’s free

OTTAWA — The federal government says it’s going to implement a new 30-business-day guarantee for passports.

That means Ottawa promises to either process a passport application within 30 business days or refund the fee.

Citizens’ Services Minister Terry Beech says that change is coming this year, along with an online renewal option that will launch in the summer.

Service Canada launched a pilot project for online passport renewals in December.

The Liberal government first promised online renewals in May 2023 and it was initially set to launch that fall.

The change was announced after the COVID-19 pandemic led to a huge backlog of passport applications that Service Canada struggled to handle.

Backlogs began in 2022, when people started to travel abroad again in large numbers.

Thousands of Canadians who had let their passports expire during the pandemic lined up to get them renewed, and Service Canada was also dealing with a shortage of staff after some were redeployed internally to deal with other pandemic-era issues.

The government doubled the number of Service Canada employees working on passport applications in response.

Karina Gould, who was the minister responsible at the time, announced the backlog had been completely eliminated in March 2023.

The government also launched a number of online tools during that time, including one that allowed people to check the status of their application and a dashboard that showed how long the wait times were at different Service Canada locations.

On Friday, Beech released a “state of service” report that said the department expects to deliver a record 5.4 million passports this year.

“We have been able to absorb that volume by modernizing and automating our passport program,” he said.

He said most people now receive their passports within seven business days of submitting an application in person, and 99 per cent get the document within 10 business days.

Beech said almost 1,000 people have used the online renewal pilot so far.

Expanding that service, he said, will mean “the average Canadian will have the option to never have to wait in line for a passport ever again.”

“It also means you can apply for your passport from anywhere in Canada and at any time,” he said, adding that will save people in rural and northern communities money, and reduce the cost of passport delivery.

The service report also cited changes to employment insurance call centre wait times and the 3.8 million applications people have submitted to the dental-care program.

“As you can see, the government is not broken,” Beech said.

This report by The Canadian Press was first published March 7, 2025.

Sarah Ritchie, The Canadian Press