Criminally Inadmissible to Canada? 3 Routes in 2026

Applying to IRCC for criminal rehabilitation now costs CAN$246.25 if you are inadmissible on the grounds of criminality and CAN$1,231.00 if you are inadmissible on the grounds of serious criminality, according to IRCC's official fee list on ircc.canada.ca, and a temporary resident permit is CAN$246.25 per person. Those are not the numbers most immigration websites are showing you. Older $200 and $1,000 figures are still widely circulated, and if you are budgeting a file around them you are already planning with the wrong information.

The bigger point is the one underneath the fees: a criminal record is not automatically a permanent bar. Canada gives you routes back. There are three of them, they are not interchangeable, and the one that applies to you is decided by where you were convicted and when you committed the offence.

Am I criminally inadmissible to Canada?

You may be, if you have committed or been convicted of a crime, and that includes minor offences. Canada.ca states plainly that under Canada's immigration law, if you have committed or been convicted of a crime, you may not be allowed into Canada, and it lists theft, assault, manslaughter, dangerous driving, driving while under the influence of drugs or alcohol, and possession of or trafficking in drugs or controlled substances as examples. Canada.ca also notes that if you were convicted of a crime when you were under the age of 18, you may still be able to enter Canada.

Admissibility is assessed twice, which surprises people. According to canada.ca, your admissibility is first assessed when you apply for a visa or an Electronic Travel Authorization, and then a border services officer or an immigration officer decides at the port of entry whether you can enter or, if you are already in Canada, whether you can remain and for how long. A visa in your passport is not a guarantee at the door.

Does one DUI make me inadmissible to Canada?

It can, and canada.ca treats it as serious. The impaired driving page on canada.ca states that if you have been convicted of driving while impaired by alcohol or drugs, including cannabis, you may be inadmissible to Canada for serious criminality, whether the crime happened in Canada or outside Canada.

The date of the offence changes the analysis. Canada.ca states that tougher penalties for impaired driving came into effect on December 18, 2018, and that if you committed an impaired driving offence before that date, IRCC will determine whether you are inadmissible based on the penalties in force at the time. In that situation, canada.ca says you may be found inadmissible for criminality and not serious criminality, unless you received a prison sentence in Canada longer than 6 months, and that if this is the case you may be eligible for deemed rehabilitation if at least 10 years has passed since you completed your sentence.

This is exactly where I see people get bad advice. An offence from 2015 and an identical offence from 2019 are not the same immigration problem, and the internet almost never makes that distinction.

What are my three routes back into Canada?

Canada.ca sets out three routes, and which one applies depends on where you were convicted and when you committed the offence. Two of them end the inadmissibility. The third only authorizes a temporary entry and leaves the inadmissibility in place.

If you were convicted outside Canada, you can apply for rehabilitation. The five year clock is worded differently on two canada.ca pages, and the difference matters. The impaired driving page says at least 5 years must have passed since either the end of your criminal sentence, including probation, or the day you committed the act that made you inadmissible. The Overcome criminal convictions page words the same test with "and" rather than "or", requiring that five years have passed since the end of your criminal sentence, including probation, and the day you committed the act. Plan around the later of the two dates, not the earlier one.

Time passing is also not the whole test. Canada.ca states that rehabilitation means you are not likely to commit new crimes, that the Minister or their delegate may decide to grant it or not, and that to apply you must show that you meet the criteria, have been rehabilitated, and are highly unlikely to take part in further crimes. Five years plus a fee is not the same as an approval.

If you were convicted of driving while impaired in Canada, canada.ca states that you must apply for a record suspension. On the Overcome criminal convictions page, canada.ca directs you to check with the Parole Board of Canada, which runs record suspensions and sets both the fee and the waiting period, so this is not an IRCC application at all. Canada.ca adds a separate case people miss: if you received a record suspension or a discharge for your conviction in another country, check with the visa office that serves the country or region where you live, and it will tell you if the pardon is valid in Canada.

And if you need to come to Canada before either of those is possible, you can apply for a temporary resident permit. A temporary resident permit is a door, not a solution. Canada.ca states that to get a TRP you must apply for temporary residence outside Canada or at a port of entry, prove that you have a compelling reason to enter Canada temporarily, and pay the TRP processing fee, and that there is no guarantee you will be issued one. It adds that TRPs are issued only for compelling reasons and at the discretion of an officer, that your need to enter or stay must outweigh the health or safety risks to Canadian society, and that even with a valid TRP, border services officers can refuse you entry to Canada.

What do these routes cost in 2026?

The amounts below come from the Inadmissibility section of IRCC's fee list at ircc.canada.ca. The descriptions in the middle column come from canada.ca's Overcome criminal convictions and impaired driving pages, not from the fee list, which publishes amounts only.

Two practical notes that matter more than the fees. Canada.ca states that a separate rehabilitation application must be completed and submitted directly to the visa office responsible for your region by mail or courier only, and that these applications can take over a year to process. Canada.ca also states that if you need an Electronic Travel Authorization, you have to submit a separate criminal rehabilitation application before you apply for your eTA, and that applying for the eTA first may result in the refusal of that application. If you are planning a trip, the timeline is the constraint, not the money.

When am I deemed rehabilitated without applying?

Deemed rehabilitation only applies where the offence is on the lower end of the scale. Canada.ca states that in all cases you may only be deemed rehabilitated if the crime committed outside Canada has a maximum prison term of less than 10 years if committed in Canada, and it measures the waiting period from the day you completed the sentence imposed: 10 years for one indictable offence, and five years for two or more summary convictions.

Canada.ca directs the port of entry route specifically to people who live in the United States, and its self-assessment is narrower again. It states you are eligible to ask to be assessed for deemed rehabilitation at a port of entry if you only had one conviction in total or committed only one crime, at least ten years have passed since you completed all sentences including payment of all fees and restitution, the crime you committed is not considered a serious crime in Canada, and the crime did not involve any serious property damage, physical harm to any person, or any type of weapon. Canada.ca adds that a request for deemed rehabilitation is not guaranteed to be approved. If you live overseas, canada.ca says you may also travel without applying, but warns that you are risking being turned away at the port of entry, and points you to a visa office assessment instead.

Notice what that combination does to a modern impaired driving conviction. Canada.ca frames impaired driving as potential serious criminality, and mentions deemed rehabilitation on its impaired driving page only in connection with offences committed before December 18, 2018. Do not assume you will be waved through on the strength of ten years having passed.

What should I do right now?

Get your court documents before you get advice. You need the exact offence, the exact date you committed it, the sentence, and the date every part of that sentence finished, including fines, probation and restitution. Canada.ca's timelines run from the completion of the sentence, not from the conviction date, and that distinction moves eligibility by years.

Then decide honestly whether you are solving a trip or solving a status problem. A TRP buys you a specific entry. Rehabilitation or a record suspension ends the inadmissibility. If you are already in Canada and enforcement has started, that is a different and more urgent file, and the piece on what to do if you receive a removal order in Canada is the right place to start. If a refusal has already been made against you and you have a right of appeal, how immigration appeals to the IAD work is the next question to answer. And if an officer has raised concerns about what you did or did not disclose about your record, read this on what a misrepresentation finding means in Canada, because failing to declare a conviction can create a second, separate inadmissibility that outlasts the first.

One last thing, said plainly because people carry this quietly for years: a conviction from a decade ago is a paperwork problem, not a verdict on who you are. Canada built these routes precisely because it expects people to change. Alisa Osipovich, RCIC-IRB R1055424, reviews the record, identifies which of the three routes actually applies, and tells you the honest timeline before you spend anything.