Criminal Inadmissibility to Canada: A Complete Overview

On This Page, You Will Find:

• What criminal inadmissibility means under Canadian law
• Criminality versus serious criminality
• When and how admissibility is assessed
• Which offences commonly cause problems
• Deemed rehabilitation: the 10-year and 5-year rules
• Individual rehabilitation and how to apply
• Temporary resident permits
• Record suspensions and foreign pardons
• Inadmissibility fees in 2026
• Organized criminality and other grounds
• Frequently asked questions

Under Canada’s immigration law, a person who has committed or been convicted of a crime may be refused entry to Canada. This is criminal inadmissibility, and it applies to both minor and serious offences – a single conviction from decades ago can still stop someone at the border.

The good news is that criminal inadmissibility is usually solvable. Depending on the offence, how long ago it was, and how the person has behaved since, there are four established routes: deemed rehabilitation, individual rehabilitation, a record suspension, and a temporary resident permit. This overview explains how each works and which applies to which situation.

Note the timing point that catches most people out: inadmissibility fees rose on December 1, 2025, and rehabilitation applications routinely take over a year to process. Neither of these is something you can compress by planning late.

What Criminal Inadmissibility Means

Criminal inadmissibility arises under section 36 of the Immigration and Refugee Protection Act (IRPA). It applies to convictions inside Canada, convictions outside Canada, and – importantly – to acts committed outside Canada that would be offences in Canada even where there was no conviction.

The statute distinguishes two tiers:

• Criminality – generally offences that would be prosecuted less severely in Canada, including two or more summary conviction offences.
• Serious criminality – broadly, offences punishable in Canada by a maximum term of at least 10 years, or for which a sentence of more than six months of imprisonment was imposed.

The distinction is not academic. It determines whether deemed rehabilitation is even available to you, how much rehabilitation costs, and how difficult the file will be. A person inadmissible on grounds of serious criminality cannot be deemed rehabilitated at all, and pays a rehabilitation fee five times higher.

Because Canadian law asks what the foreign offence would amount to in Canada, equivalency analysis matters enormously. An offence that carries a modest penalty in your home country may map onto a Canadian offence with a maximum of 10 years or more. This is the single most common reason people underestimate their exposure.

When Admissibility Is Assessed

Your admissibility is first assessed when you apply for a visa or an electronic travel authorization. A Canada Border Services Agency officer or an immigration officer then decides, at the port of entry, whether you may enter or transit through Canada – and, if you are already in Canada, whether you may remain and for how long.

This means there are two decision points, and clearing the first does not guarantee the second. An eTA or visa granted without the officer knowing about a conviction does not make you admissible; it means the issue has not yet surfaced. Canada and the United States share criminal record information, and a conviction disclosed at the border after a visa was issued is treated less charitably than one addressed upfront.

If you were convicted of an offence while under the age of 18, you may still be able to enter Canada. Youth convictions are treated differently, though the analysis depends on how the matter was handled in the foreign jurisdiction.

Offences That Commonly Cause Problems

Immigration, Refugees and Citizenship Canada (IRCC) lists these among the offences that can make a person criminally inadmissible:

• theft
• assault
• manslaughter
• dangerous driving
• driving while under the influence of drugs or alcohol
• possession of, or trafficking in, drugs or controlled substances

Impaired driving deserves special mention. Canada raised the maximum penalty for impaired driving offences to 10 years, which moved them into the serious criminality tier. That change made a single DUI conviction a far bigger obstacle than it used to be, and it caught out a large number of travellers who had entered Canada without difficulty for years. See our guide to entering Canada with an impaired driving conviction.

Deemed Rehabilitation

Deemed rehabilitation means enough time has passed since the conviction that the offence no longer bars entry – without you having to apply for anything. Whether it applies depends on the offence, the time elapsed since you completed your sentence, and how many offences there were.

The time periods are:

• 10 years since completing the sentence for one indictable offence
• 5 years since completing the sentences for two or more summary convictions

In every case, you may only be deemed rehabilitated if the crime committed outside Canada would carry a maximum prison term of less than 10 years if committed in Canada. That threshold excludes serious criminality entirely.

“Completing the sentence” means everything: jail time served, fines paid, restitution paid, probation and parole finished. The clock starts at the end of the whole sentence, not at conviction or release.

IRCC’s self-assessment criteria for requesting deemed rehabilitation at a port of entry are stricter still. You are eligible to ask only if:

• you had only one conviction in total, or committed only one crime
• at least ten years have passed since you completed all sentences
• the crime is not considered a serious crime in Canada
• the crime did not involve serious property damage, physical harm to any person, or any type of weapon

Deemed rehabilitation is not automatic in practice even when you qualify on paper. IRCC’s guidance is explicit that a request is “not guaranteed to be approved,” and that the safer course is to be assessed by a visa office before travelling rather than arriving and hoping. If you live outside the United States and need a visa, apply for individual rehabilitation instead.

If you live in the United States, Canadian visa offices in the U.S. do not run the visa-office assessment process; you may present yourself at a port of entry with your documentation and ask to be assessed. Bring the passport or birth certificate plus photo identification, court documents for each conviction, proof all sentences were completed, a recent criminal record check, and a recent police certificate from the country of conviction and anywhere you have lived for six months or more in the last 10 years.

Individual Rehabilitation

Individual rehabilitation is a formal application in which you satisfy the Minister, or their delegate, that you are rehabilitated and highly unlikely to reoffend. Unlike deemed rehabilitation, it is available regardless of how serious the offence was – and once granted, it is permanent.

To apply, at least five years must have passed since both:

• the end of your criminal sentence, including probation, and
• the day you committed the act that made you inadmissible

Officers weigh the number of crimes, the circumstances and seriousness of each, your conduct since, your own explanation of the offence and why you will not repeat it, community support, and your present circumstances. A file that treats the application as a paperwork exercise, without addressing rehabilitation substantively, tends to fail.

Procedurally:

• If you are applying together with a temporary resident application – visitor visa, study permit or work permit – you can submit everything together at the nearest Visa Application Centre.
• If you need an eTA, you must submit a separate rehabilitation application before applying for the eTA. Applying for the eTA first risks refusal on the information then available.
• If you are submitting a standalone rehabilitation application, it must go directly to the visa office responsible for your region, by mail or courier only, with the processing fee paid.

IRCC warns that these applications “can take over a year to process.” Plan accordingly – this is not a route that can be used to rescue travel plans already made. Our rehabilitation overview covers the application in more depth.

Temporary Resident Permits

A temporary resident permit (TRP) allows an inadmissible person to enter or stay in Canada where it has been less than five years since the end of the sentence, or where there are valid reasons to be in Canada. It is the only option available before the five-year rehabilitation window opens.

An officer weighs your need to enter or remain against the health or safety risk to Canadian society. That balance is the whole of the decision, which means the strength of your reason for travelling matters as much as the nature of the offence. IRCC is direct on this: even where the ground of inadmissibility appears minor, “you must show that your visit is valid.”

A TRP is discretionary, can be issued for a limited period, and does not resolve the underlying inadmissibility. It is a bridge, not a cure. Where you are eligible for rehabilitation, that is the better long-term answer. See our guide to criminal inadmissibility and temporary resident permits.

Record Suspensions and Foreign Pardons

If you were convicted in Canada, a record suspension – formerly called a pardon – from the Parole Board of Canada removes the inadmissibility. Once you hold a Canadian record suspension, you are no longer inadmissible on that basis.

A record suspension, pardon or discharge granted in another country is a different matter. It does not automatically operate in Canada. You need to check with the visa office serving the country or region where you live to find out whether the foreign disposition is recognised. Assuming a foreign pardon works in Canada is a common and costly mistake.

Either way, carry documentation. It allows a border services officer to make an informed decision on arrival – and the officer will still check for other grounds of inadmissibility.

Inadmissibility Fees in 2026

These amounts took effect on December 1, 2025:

• Rehabilitation – inadmissible on grounds of criminality: $246.25
• Rehabilitation – inadmissible on grounds of serious criminality: $1,231.00
• Temporary resident permit: $246.25 per person
• Authorization to return to Canada: $492.50

The fivefold gap between the two rehabilitation fees is another reason equivalency analysis matters before you file. Our Government of Canada immigration fee schedule lists all current fees.

Organised Criminality and Other Grounds

Criminality under section 36 is only one head of inadmissibility. Section 37 of IRPA deals with organized criminality – membership in an organisation reasonably believed to engage in organised criminal activity, and engaging in people smuggling, trafficking in persons or money laundering in the context of transnational crime. Organized criminality is assessed on a reasonable-grounds standard and does not require a conviction, which makes it both broader and harder to rebut than ordinary criminality.

Other grounds include security, human or international rights violations, health, financial reasons, misrepresentation and non-compliance with the Act. A single file can raise more than one ground, and resolving criminal inadmissibility does not resolve the others.

Because inadmissibility findings turn on statutory equivalency and on discretion, this is an area where competent advice pays for itself. A misidentified equivalency, a rehabilitation application filed a year too early, or an eTA applied for before rehabilitation is granted can all produce a refusal that is then on the record.

Frequently Asked Questions