How Long Does an IAD Appeal Take? IRB Says 6 Months

According to the Immigration and Refugee Board's own briefing to Parliament's Standing Committee on Citizenship and Immigration, the Immigration Appeal Division's average wait time for a decision was 6 months as of December 31, 2025, and family sponsorship appeals made up 70 percent of the 3,100 decisions the Division issued in the first three quarters of the 2025 to 2026 fiscal year. If your spousal or family sponsorship was refused and you are now waiting on an appeal, that is the timeline you are sitting inside of, and what moves it faster or slower is mostly about your own file rather than luck.

How Long Does the IAD Actually Take Right Now?

The IRB reported these figures to the House of Commons Standing Committee on Citizenship and Immigration on March 9, 2026, in a briefing published on irb-cisr.gc.ca. As of December 31, 2025, the Immigration Appeal Division's overall average wait time for a decision was 6 months, measured across 3,100 decisions issued in the first three quarters of the 2025 to 2026 fiscal year. Of those decisions, family sponsorship appeals were the largest single category at 70 percent, ahead of admissibility appeals (removal orders) at 18 percent, permanent residency appeals (residency obligation) at 11 percent, and appeals filed by the Minister at 1 percent. The IRB does not publish a wait time isolated to sponsorship appeals alone in this briefing, so treat 6 months as the Division's overall average, weighted toward sponsorship cases because they are the majority of what the IAD hears, not as a number guaranteed for any individual file. For comparison, the Refugee Appeal Division's average wait time over the same period was 4 months, according to the same briefing.

How Many Sponsorship Appeals Are Waiting Right Now?

The IAD's own statistics page breaks the sponsorship appeal caseload down by year. Both the number of appeals filed and the number still pending have grown.

Pending sponsorship appeals rose from 1,157 at the end of 2024 to 1,660 at the end of 2025, and stood at 1,476 as of June 30, 2026, according to irb-cisr.gc.ca. Of the 1,449 sponsorship appeals finalized so far in 2026, 594 (about 41 percent) were allowed and 440 (about 30 percent) were dismissed, with the remainder abandoned or withdrawn.

What Actually Speeds Up or Slows Down Your Appeal?

A family sponsorship appeal to the IAD has to be filed within 30 days of receiving the refusal decision, according to the IRB, so deciding whether to appeal a spousal sponsorship refusal has to happen before the timeline above even starts. A late or incomplete Notice of Appeal is one of the few things that adds delay before your case reaches the queue. One detail worth knowing: unlike removal order appeals, which can be stayed under section 68 of the Immigration and Refugee Protection Act while conditions are met, sponsorship appeals are not stayed. The IAD's own statistics show zero stayed cases in the sponsorship appeals table every year, because a stay pauses enforcement of a removal order, and a sponsorship refusal is not a removal order.

Once your appeal is filed, the IAD's Alternative Dispute Resolution process gives both sides a chance to resolve the case without waiting for a full hearing. According to the IAD’s own statistics page, an Early Resolution Officer, an IRB employee, meets with you or your counsel and the Minister's counsel in what is called an ADR conference, to see whether the case can be resolved, either because the Minister's counsel consents to the appeal being allowed or because you withdraw the appeal, before a hearing date is even set. A complete file, consistent evidence, and a realistic position going into that meeting are what make it worth having.

What Should You Do While Your Appeal Is Pending?

Three things matter more than simply waiting. Keep your evidence current, since relationship evidence in a spousal case is judged as of the hearing date, not just the date you filed, so update it rather than letting it go stale. Respond to every IAD request the same week it arrives. And take an ADR conference seriously if one is offered, since an appeal resolved by consent at ADR can finish long before a full hearing date would otherwise arrive. None of this is case specific legal advice, and what applies to your file depends on your own history and evidence. Read more about how an IAD appeal hearing actually works, or book a consultation to go through your specific timeline.