Temporary permits · Still in process
Graduated, applied, and now unable to plan. The notes show whether your programme and institution were accepted as eligible.
PGWP eligibility turns on the institution, the programme and how you studied — and those are verified against records rather than taken at face value.
Where a programme's eligibility is unclear, or where study was partly online or interrupted, the file can sit while that is checked.
Applicants usually hold maintained status while waiting, which is legally fine but leaves you unable to plan or travel with confidence.
A long wait is not automatically a stalled wait. Rule these out first — several are things applicants genuinely miss.
IRCC publishes live processing times, and they change often — check the current time for Post-Graduation Work Permits. We deliberately do not quote a number here, because any number we printed would be out of date within weeks.
This is the part almost nobody realises. You do not have to be refused to request your file. An application that is still in process has notes too — and for a file that has gone silent, they are usually the only way to find out what is actually happening.
If your notes contain any of these, the delay has a cause you can act on rather than simply wait out.
By far the most common one across every programme is the last kind: IRCC asked for something and never got a reply — often because the request went to an agent's email, or to an address the applicant no longer uses. The file then sits indefinitely, waiting on you.
Read the full escalation guide for stuck applications →
PGWP eligibility turns on the institution, the programme and how you studied — and those are verified against records rather than taken at face value. Where a programme's eligibility is unclear, or where study was partly online or interrupted, the file can sit while that is checked. Applicants usually hold maintained status while waiting, which is legally fine but leaves you unable to plan or travel with confidence.
For an application still in process, the notes show what has been recorded so far: whether the institution and programme were accepted as pgwp-eligible; whether your transcripts and completion letter were received and accepted; any concern recorded about study interruptions, online study or programme length; whether the application was assessed against the correct permit length; requests for documents and whether replies were logged. Your GCMS notes are a snapshot of what was recorded on your file at the time IRCC processed your request — not a live tracker. They will not give you a decision date. What they do give you is the truth about which stage your file actually reached, which checks are outstanding, and whether anything was asked of you that you never answered.
No. A Privacy Act request is handled by IRCC's ATIP unit, which is separate from the officers deciding your application. Requesting your own file is a legal right and it does not affect processing of the application itself.
Yes to both. Under the Privacy Act there is no fee to request your own personal information, and since July 2022 any person anywhere in the world can file directly, in their own name, with no representative in Canada required.
No, and anyone promising that is not telling you the truth. The notes will not contain a decision date. They tell you which stage your file genuinely reached, which checks are still outstanding, and whether IRCC asked you for something you never answered — which is often the real reason a file has stopped moving.
Confirm your completion letter and final transcript actually reached IRCC; Check the published processing time for PGWP applications; Confirm you applied within the permitted window after completing your programme; Keep evidence of maintained status if you are working while waiting.
Your PGWP file has a written record. Requesting it from Canada is free and takes about twenty minutes — we publish every step, with a screenshot of every screen. If the notes come back and you cannot read them, send them to us.
