{"id":22647,"date":"2026-08-23T18:52:51","date_gmt":"2026-08-23T15:22:51","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/avalvisa.com\/blog\/security-screening-failure-rate-canada\/"},"modified":"2026-08-23T19:00:25","modified_gmt":"2026-08-23T15:30:25","slug":"security-screening-failure-rate-canada","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/avalvisa.com\/en\/blog\/security-screening-failure-rate-canada\/","title":{"rendered":"How often does Canadian security screening actually fail an applicant?"},"content":{"rendered":"<p>Every applicant stuck in security screening asks the same question: what share of files actually fail?<\/p>\n<p>Until now there was no published answer. IRCC records released under the Access to Information Act provide one.<\/p>\n<p>The short version: <strong>about one percent<\/strong>.<\/p>\n<h2>The numbers<\/h2>\n<p>IRCC reports &#8220;Non-Favourable&#8221; results, and the document states plainly that non-favourable means <em>failed<\/em>.<\/p>\n<p>Totals for January 2019 through July 2025:<\/p>\n<ul>\n<li>Permanent residence: <strong>990<\/strong><\/li>\n<li>Temporary residence: <strong>2,680<\/strong><\/li>\n<li>Combined: <strong>3,670<\/strong><\/li>\n<\/ul>\n<p>Against <strong>297,080<\/strong> referrals.<\/p>\n<p>Overall non-favourable rate: <strong>1.24%<\/strong>.<\/p>\n<p>Put differently, of every 100 applications sent to security screening, roughly <strong>99 clear it<\/strong>.<\/p>\n<h2>Year by year<\/h2>\n<ul>\n<li>2019: <strong>1.45%<\/strong> (995 results)<\/li>\n<li>2020: <strong>1.77%<\/strong> (330)<\/li>\n<li>2021: <strong>2.41%<\/strong> (560)<\/li>\n<li>2022: <strong>2.09%<\/strong> (715)<\/li>\n<li>2023: <strong>1.13%<\/strong> (695)<\/li>\n<li>2024: <strong>0.47%<\/strong> (300)<\/li>\n<li>2025 (to July): <strong>0.27%<\/strong> (75)<\/li>\n<\/ul>\n<h2>An important caveat on 2024 and 2025<\/h2>\n<p>At first glance the failure rate appears to be collapsing. That reading should be treated cautiously.<\/p>\n<p>A large share of files referred in 2024, and most referred in 2025, have <strong>not yet reached a result<\/strong>. Security screening runs for months and sometimes years. Non-favourable counts for recent years are therefore low by construction \u2014 not necessarily because fewer applicants fail, but because fewer have been decided.<\/p>\n<p>The 2019\u20132022 figures, which have had time to mature, are the more reliable guide. Across those years the rate ranged between <strong>1.45% and 2.41%<\/strong>.<\/p>\n<p>The conservative conclusion: the true failure rate in security screening sits somewhere around <strong>one to two percent<\/strong>.<\/p>\n<h2>The rate is not uniform<\/h2>\n<p>Two contrasting cases:<\/p>\n<ul>\n<li><strong>Afghanistan:<\/strong> roughly 215 non-favourable results against 6,865 PR referrals \u2014 close to <strong>3%<\/strong><\/li>\n<li><strong>Iran:<\/strong> roughly 130 non-favourable results against 47,635 referrals across both streams \u2014 about <strong>0.27%<\/strong><\/li>\n<\/ul>\n<p>Afghan applicants fail at more than ten times the Iranian rate, while Iran generates several times the referral volume.<\/p>\n<p>That contrast makes an important point: <strong>a high referral rate is not evidence of high risk.<\/strong> Referral reflects screening criteria. The result reflects what was actually found.<\/p>\n<h2>What it means for an applicant<\/h2>\n<ul>\n<li><strong>The odds of clearing are very high.<\/strong> More than 98% of files pass this stage.<\/li>\n<li><strong>The real cost is time, not outcome.<\/strong> For most applicants the genuine risk is expiring documents, lapsed language test results, changed employment circumstances, and opportunities lost while waiting.<\/li>\n<li><strong>A long wait should not be read as a likely refusal.<\/strong> In this data the two have no direct relationship.<\/li>\n<li><strong>For unreasonable delay, litigation is a real option.<\/strong> Mandamus compels a decision; it does not dictate what the decision must be.<\/li>\n<\/ul>\n<h2>Source<\/h2>\n<p>Figures from IRCC records released under the Access to Information Act, pages 000127\u2013000146, compiled by OPP-DART-2025-34337. Values between 0 and 5 are shown as &#8220;&#8211;&#8221; and all other values rounded to the nearest multiple of 5, so approximate figures are approximate for that reason. Percentage rates are our calculation from the published counts.<\/p>\n<p><!-- av-related --><\/p>\n<h2>Related reading<\/h2>\n<ul>\n<li><a href=\"https:\/\/avalvisa.com\/en\/blog\/iran-security-screening-canada-data\/\">Iran leads the world in Canada&#8217;s security screening referrals<\/a><\/li>\n<li><a href=\"https:\/\/avalvisa.com\/en\/blog\/canada-security-screening-explained\/\">What Canadian security screening actually is<\/a><\/li>\n<li><a href=\"https:\/\/avalvisa.com\/en\/blog\/mandamus-burden-shift-canada\/\">Mandamus: when the burden shifts to the government<\/a><\/li>\n<\/ul>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>Every applicant stuck in security screening asks the same question: what share of files actually fail? Until now there was no published answer. IRCC records released under the Access to Information Act provide one. The short version: about one percent. The numbers IRCC reports &#8220;Non-Favourable&#8221; results, and the document states plainly that non-favourable means failed. [&hellip;]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":23161,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[67,20],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-22647","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-immigration-to-canada-en","category-immigration-to-canada"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/avalvisa.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/22647","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/avalvisa.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/avalvisa.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/avalvisa.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/avalvisa.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=22647"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/avalvisa.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/22647\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":22706,"href":"https:\/\/avalvisa.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/22647\/revisions\/22706"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/avalvisa.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/23161"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/avalvisa.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=22647"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/avalvisa.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=22647"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/avalvisa.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=22647"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}