How to Claim Your Baby’s Canadian Citizenship Overseas (for Canadian Parents)

Robyn and I gave birth to our daughter in Mexico in August 2022. As Canadian citizens, we can transmit our citizenship to our daughter, as the first generation of our family born outside of Canada. However, the process is more complicated and time-consuming than simply walking into the embassy and coming out with a passport. 

Here’s a step-by-step guide for obtaining your child’s Canadian citizenship overseas. Remember that the earlier you start this process, the better, as you may hit a few roadblocks along the way. 

First, it’s a good idea to keep two things in mind before birthing your child overseas. First, obtaining your baby’s Canadian citizenship and passport can take anywhere from 2 to 18 months, so you should not expect to be able to hop on a flight home to Canada after your child’s birth with their passport in hand. 

Second, your Canadian health coverage does not carry overseas. Unless you have purchased private international health insurance that covers pregnancy well before getting pregnant (in some cases over a year before pregnancy), travel medical insurance will not cover your expenses either. If you need child benefits or medical coverage in Canada, you will qualify for rushed processing, provided you can obtain a doctor’s note from your physician in Canada. 

Does Your Child Qualify for Canadian Citizenship?

The first important question is: do you qualify to transmit your Canadian citizenship to your child? In general, you will qualify under the following conditions: 

1. You were born in Canada as a natural-born citizen. 

2. You were naturalized in Canada as a first-generation Canadian before your child's birth.

You usually will not qualify to transmit your Canadian citizenship to your child if you were born outside of Canada and were not naturalized in Canada. This means you have claimed Canadian citizenship from a Canadian-born or naturalized parent.

This means Canadian citizenship only transmits to one generation born outside Canada (certain exceptions exist). 

How to Claim Your Child’s Canadian Citizenship

Before your child can get a Canadian passport, they must first obtain a Canadian Citizenship Certificate. Canada no longer has any form of birth registration overseas (we haven’t since the 1970s). Anyone who needs proof of citizenship and does not have a Canadian birth certificate must obtain a Certificate of Canadian Citizenship.  

Here’s the good news-- for many people, getting this certificate can be done online and is a paperless process. Here’s the bad news-- under normal circumstances, the process takes about 1 to 1.5 years to complete (as of 2022, anyway, and there are exceptions), assuming your documentation is complete. 

Can You Process Your Child’s Application Online?

To begin the online application for your child’s Certificate of Canadian Citizenship, you must check if you can apply online. 

If you were born in Canada on or after February 15, 1977, you can apply online with an exception. However, if you were born in Quebec before January 1, 1994, you cannot apply online.

If you were naturalized in Canada on or after April 17, 2009, you can also apply online.

Otherwise, you must apply on paper and can submit your documents by courier to Canada or drop them off at a Canadian embassy overseas.

The requirements for online and paper processing are the same, but the submission method is different. Paper applications, in general, take longer to process, especially if made outside of Canada or the US. 

If you qualify for online processing, proceed that way. This saved us many months of waiting, and we were able to put the entire application together within an hour. Do not apply at the embassy. It will make the process slower, not faster. 

To begin, create an online account and read the application guide online here.

The Documents You’ll Need

1. Online (or paper) application form (follow the steps online to fill out, do not leave anything blank) here.
   
   
   

2. A digital photo of your child against a white background with measurements of 50mm by 70mm (minimum pixel dimensions of 420px x 540px). We took a photo of our daughter lying on top of a white towel and then adjusted the dimensions.
   
   As long as your child’s expression is as neutral as possible – i.e. there’s nothing in the background, including your hands, and you can see the outline of both ears, it should be okay. You can follow this photo guide here.
   
   
   

3. Two identity documents; at least one with a photo on it. This can include a foreign passport, a driver's license, a government-issued ID card, a health insurance card, a voter ID card, etc. A photo of these documents taken with your phone is fine if you submit it as a PDF, JPG, or PNG.
   
   The identity documents are required for the applicant — i.e. your child. Since your child is a baby, they will not have many forms of identification. With our daughter, we submitted a copy of her Mexican passport and a document issued to us by the hospital after her birth with her photo, name, pediatrician’s name, and ID card. This document is used in Mexico to obtain a Mexican passport as the child’s only original form of photo identification.
   
   Birth certificates are not an accepted form of ID for this purpose, nor are they photo IDs. If you don’t have any photo ID with your child’s name on it, you must submit a letter of explanation instead. This only applies to the child you are applying for. As per the embassy website, we also included copies of both parents’ Canadian passports in a single PDF with our daughter's two ID documents. It’s a good idea just to include everything. 
   
   
   

4. Your child’s long-form birth certificate that indicates you (the Canadian citizen) are their parent. A certified translation must be included if this document is not in English or French. Since ours was only in Spanish, we emailed a copy to a perito traductor (certified translator) in Mexico. We were emailed back a PDF with a certified translation and a notarized certificate of accuracy within a couple of days.
   
   Combine the certified translation, notarized certificate, and original document scan into one PDF.
   
   
   

5. Proof of Canadian citizenship of the parent -- This can include your Canadian citizenship certificate (if naturalized) or your Canadian provincial birth certificate. A Canadian passport is not sufficient evidence of Canadian citizenship. 
   
   
   

6. A credit card for online payment ($75 CAD). 

You may also be asked to submit a copy of your marriage certificate if both parents are married. However, this document does not appear essential, even though my wife and I submitted ours. We were also asked to include the certificate number on the application form. 

On the online system, you may only submit one file per requirement. So, if you are trying to submit multiple documents, you should combine them into a single PDF per requirement to upload. Acrobat Pro can do this easily, and free software can also be found online.

I used an iPhone XR to take photos of all the documents and used Adobe Scan on my phone to combine them into the correct PDFs. The quality was acceptable when taking photos on a well-lit table (using natural lighting) with no overhead light to avoid shadows on the documents. 

Can I Qualify for Rush Processing?

In the case of our daughter, we opted to pursue rush processing. This is because we wanted a way not only to get her into Canada (should there be any health complications overseas) but also to apply for her social insurance and health numbers.

You must submit proof of need to qualify for rush processing (two months vs 16 months). We procured a doctor’s note from our original maternity hospital in North Vancouver. The letter stated that we are clinic patients, and it would be in the best interests of our daughter’s and her mother’s health to return to Canada as quickly as possible. 

Note that rush processing requests are based on need -- meaning you must have a verifiable reason to return to Canada. Medical/health, education/schooling, work/employment, and access to necessary benefits are all legitimate reasons for rush processing. 

Proof may include a letter from a doctor, employer, school, etc., along with flight tickets and proof of payment for these tickets. 

As far as I can tell, rush processing is assessed on a case-by-case basis and is not guaranteed, but the reviewing officers are compassionate to genuine cases. 

Submit Your Application Package

Once all of your documents are uploaded correctly (and you see the green arrows on the online form), along with the application form, you can pay the application fee ($75 CAD) and submit the entire application package online. You will receive a confirmation by email and an email telling you to log into your account every time there is a status update. 

We didn’t hear anything for about a month after applying. We received an email saying our application was in progress, followed by a decision on our application about a week or two later (we applied for rush processing).  

Once your application is approved, you will receive a link to your child’s digital Certificate of Canadian Citizenship, which you can download as a PDF. You will need to print a copy of this document to apply for your child’s first Canadian passport. 

In the case of a paper application, each document must be printed according to the application guide (including original documents) and submitted by courier or to the nearest Canadian embassy. Appointments are generally necessary, even for application submission. You can make an appointment at a specific embassy by visiting their website. Successful applications will have a physical certificate mailed to the address provided on the application. 

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