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Worldwide · Ghana

Refused a Canadian visa in Ghana? Find out why.

GCMS notes are what officers at IRCC, Canada's immigration department, wrote about your file. If you applied from Ghana to visit, study or work, you can order them on WhatsApp.

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First, check for a decision note

  • IRCC now sends the officer's decision note with most refusals: temporary-resident applications refused since 29 July 2025 (visitor visas, super and transit visas, visitor records, study and work permits and their extensions) and permanent-residence applications refused since 26 May 2026. It does not send them for eTAs, temporary resident permits or humanitarian and compassionate applications.

  • Decision note or GCMS notes: which do you need?

IRCC, Officer decision notes (opens in a new tab)

Prices for Ghana

Visiting Canada on a Ghanaian passport

  • As of 24 September 2026, Ghanaian citizens need a visitor visa (also called a temporary resident visa, or TRV) to travel to Canada. An eTA, the online travel permit that citizens of some other countries use, is not enough. IRCC lists a few exceptions. For example, if you are a permanent resident of the United States (you have a green card), IRCC says you need neither a visa nor an eTA.

Source: IRCC, Entry requirements by country or territory (opens in a new tab), checked 24 September 2026.

Visa application centre in Ghana

  • IRCC lists one visa application centre (VAC) in Ghana, in Accra. A VAC is where you give your fingerprints and photo (biometrics). IRCC's list (link below) points to VFS Global's website for it. Check the address and opening hours there before you go.

  • Accra

Source: IRCC, Find a visa application centre (opens in a new tab), checked 24 September 2026.

Ghana in IRCC's open data

  • These are applications from Ghana for visitor visas, visitor records (to stay longer as a visitor), study permits and work permits, and extensions of study and work permits. IRCC counts each person, so a family of three counts as three. "Not approved" means refused or withdrawn. We worked these numbers out from IRCC's open data.

    • 2025: IRCC finished 64,485 applications and approved 26,280. Not approved: 38,205, about 6 in 10.
    • January to July 2026: IRCC finished 53,475 applications and approved 21,315. Not approved: 32,160, about 6 in 10.
    • New study-permit applications finished in January to July 2026: 5,855. Only India, Nigeria, China and France had more.

How we worked it out: IRCC publishes how many applications it processed (approved, refused and withdrawn) and how many it approved, by source country. Processed minus approved is refused plus withdrawn. IRCC's monthly open data does not give a refusal rate by country, so this is not one. IRCC rounds each count to the nearest 5, and its files do not say if "source country" means citizenship or where you live. Data as of 4 August 2026.

Source: IRCC open data, Operational Processing: Monthly IRCC Updates (opens in a new tab), checked 24 September 2026.

Study-permit refusals: IRCC's own count

  • IRCC prepared figures for a meeting of a committee of Canada's Parliament on 28 February 2024. They cover new study-permit applications from 2022 to January 2024. In that time, Ghana was in IRCC's top 10 countries for these applications. For people living in Ghana, IRCC approved 7,618 and refused 9,424 in 2023. In January 2024 alone it approved 1,328 and refused 3,942: about 1 in 4 approved.

Source: IRCC, CIMM International Students Data Dashboard (28 February 2024) (opens in a new tab), checked 24 September 2026.

Ordering from Ghana

Questions from Ghana

  • I was refused a study permit before 29 July 2025. Can I still see why?

    You can ask for your GCMS notes. IRCC started sending decision notes with most study-permit refusals on 29 July 2025. If you were refused before that, your GCMS notes can show what the officer wrote. In 2023 alone, IRCC refused 9,424 new study-permit applications from people living in Ghana. IRCC may hold back some lines.

    Are most Canada applications from Ghana refused?

    IRCC's monthly open data gives no refusal rate by country. From that data, IRCC finished 53,475 temporary-resident applications listed under Ghana from January to July 2026. Of these, 32,160 were not approved (refused or withdrawn): about 6 in 10. This says nothing about your own case. Your GCMS notes can show what the officer wrote about it.

    Someone told me I need a person in Canada to get my notes. Is that true?

    No, not for your own records. You can ask for them yourself from Ghana under Canada's Privacy Act, free, with no representative. The C$5 fee (5 Canadian dollars) and the must-be-in-Canada rule belong to a different law, the Access to Information Act.

    Do I have to go to Accra again for biometrics?

    Maybe not. For a new visitor visa, study permit or work permit, IRCC says biometrics (fingerprints and a photo) you gave in the last 10 years are added to your new application. Most people applying for permanent residence must give them every time. If you do need to give them again, IRCC lists one visa application centre in Ghana, in Accra.

    Do I pay in cedis?

    No. Prices for Ghana are in US dollars, not cedis, and we send you a payment link in US dollars. If you are not sure your card can pay abroad, ask us on WhatsApp before you pay.

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Facts on this page checked 24 September 2026. General information, not advice on your case.