Explaining application refusals: Officer decision note

We now provide officer decision notes with refusal letters for most applications. This change helps applicants better understand our decision and supports our commitment to transparent service.

We include officer decision notes with refusal letters for:

• most temporary resident applications (since July 29, 2025)
• most permanent resident applications (since May 26, 2026)

What this means for you

If we refuse your application, you’ll receive a decision note written by the officer who made the final decision on your application. These notes explain why we refused your application.

Who gets decision notes

We provide officer decision notes for:

• temporary resident visas (visitor visas, super visas and transit visas)
  • This doesn’t include electronic travel authorizations (eTAs) and temporary resident permits.
• visitor records
• study permits and study permit extensions
• work permits and work permit extensions
• permanent residence applications (submitted from both in and outside of Canada)
  • This doesn’t include humanitarian and compassionate (H&C) applications.

We’ll add more application types over time.

How you get your officer decision note

If we refuse your application, we’ll send the decision note and refusal letter to you or your authorized representative.

In some cases, we may remove portions of the note. We do this to protect secure, private or other sensitive information.

If you apply for leave and judicial review

If you apply to the Federal Court for leave and judicial review, indicate in your review application that you have not received the reasons why your immigration application was refused, even if you received an officer decision note. This allows the Court to request the complete reasons for the refusal under Rule 9 of the Federal Courts Citizenship, Immigration and Refugee Protection Rules and check if any information was removed from the decision note.