Transit visa application for traveling from USA to India via Toronto Airport

[paragkshah]

Hi All
I have a question about transit visa processing times. I am traveling to India from USA on an Air Canada flight while transiting at Toronto airport. My transit time is 5 hours and I am not changing terminals or leaving the airport. The Canadian Immigration website says since I am an Indian citizen I need a transit visa. I applied for it a couple of weeks ago and still haven't received a response. I have less than two weeks left for my flight and they wont respond to emails and there is no number to call them. The Canadian consulates in the US have been very unhelpful.
I want to know if anyone has applied for a transit visa very recently and if yes, how much time does it take to get the approval? Do you still have to send in your passport for stamping for the transit visa, or is it just a email/document that can be printed and shown at the airport.

Thanks in advance!

 

[PMM]

Hi

Hi All
I have a question about transit visa processing times. I am traveling to India from USA on an Air Canada flight while transiting at Toronto airport. My transit time is 5 hours and I am not changing terminals or leaving the airport. The Canadian Immigration website says since I am an Indian citizen I need a transit visa. I applied for it a couple of weeks ago and still haven't received a response. I have less than two weeks left for my flight and they wont respond to emails and there is no number to call them. The Canadian consulates in the US have been very unhelpful.
I want to know if anyone has applied for a transit visa very recently and if yes, how much time does it take to get the approval? Do you still have to send in your passport for stamping for the transit visa, or is it just a email/document that can be printed and shown at the airport.

Thanks in advance!

1. The posted processing time is 19 days plus transit time to and from VAC.
2. Yes, your passport will have to be submitted.
3. If 3 weeks have passed you can use the web form on the either LA or NY web site to make an enquiry.

 

[paragkshah]

Hi



1. The posted processing time is 19 days plus transit time to and from VAC.
2. Yes, your passport will have to be submitted.
3. If 3 weeks have passed you can use the web form on the either LA or NY web site to make an enquiry.

Thank you for your reply! I posted on their web form and they asked me to contact the Ottawa center. I did that and I got a general reply which wouldn't tell me the status of my application. The 3 weeks will be up next week and then I can ask again. But then most likely its too late to do anything. Even if I get an approval by end of next week I will have only 3-4 days to send my passport and then get it back, in time for my flight.
I wonder if they have a transit visa on arrival at the airport. I tried searching for this but I couldn't find anything. The other option I thought of doing was to arrive at the airport in USA and see if they will let me board the plane to Toronto and explain the situation to the people there. I know it all sounds risky but then I stand to lose a lot of money if I have to cancel my flights and then book other flights to be able to reach India. Any suggestions?

Thanks!

 

[canuck_in_uk]

Thank you for your reply! I posted on their web form and they asked me to contact the Ottawa center. I did that and I got a general reply which wouldn't tell me the status of my application. The 3 weeks will be up next week and then I can ask again. But then most likely its too late to do anything. Even if I get an approval by end of next week I will have only 3-4 days to send my passport and then get it back, in time for my flight.
I wonder if they have a transit visa on arrival at the airport. I tried searching for this but I couldn't find anything. The other option I thought of doing was to arrive at the airport in USA and see if they will let me board the plane to Toronto and explain the situation to the people there. I know it all sounds risky but then I stand to lose a lot of money if I have to cancel my flights and then book other flights to be able to reach India. Any suggestions?

Thanks!

There is no "visa on arrival" and you will not be allowed to board the flight to Canada, so there is no point in even trying. If the airline boarded you without a valid visa, you would be refused entry to Canada and the airline would have to pay to return you to the US.

You should really look at changing your flight.

 

[paragkshah]

Thank you for all your answers! I am looking into changing my tickets but I am waiting for a few days till I am absolutely sure it's a lost cause. I know they say once the visa is approved it would be 2-5 business days to send the passport and get it back. So is it possible to do a same day delivery from the USA to Ottawa VAC (I think that's where they are processing this) and get the passport back in a couple of days? I guess this will help me decide how long to wait for them.

Thanks again for all your advice and answers!

 

[Bryanna]

Thank you for all your answers! I am looking into changing my tickets but I am waiting for a few days till I am absolutely sure it's a lost cause. I know they say once the visa is approved it would be 2-5 business days to send the passport and get it back. So is it possible to do a same day delivery from the USA to Ottawa VAC (I think that's where they are processing this) and get the passport back in a couple of days? I guess this will help me decide how long to wait for them.

Thanks again for all your advice and answers!

You would also be looking at maybe 7-10 business days for passport transmission/visa stamping

 

[Nkj222]

@paragkshah - I'm also in a similar situation with the timeline, still waiting to get a response on my online application. Can you please share how long it took for you to get the response?

 

[Afridi111]

Hello everyone,
I applied for a Canadian visa about 25 days ago online from the U.S and the website said that it’ll take 19 days to process my application, but today is the 25th day and I haven’t gotten any reply on my application status whatsoever. Can someone tell me what’s going on with it or what I can do about it.

Thank you!

 

[Nkj222]

Hello everyone,
I applied for a Canadian visa about 25 days ago online from the U.S and the website said that it’ll take 19 days to process my application, but today is the 25th day and I haven’t gotten any reply on my application status whatsoever. Can someone tell me what’s going on with it or what I can do about it.

Thank you!

Is it 25 calendar days or business days? I believe the processing time is in business day. Anyways, it is crazy that transit visa processing takes this long and after that you need to send passport for stamping. Not sure why they can’t issue paper transit visas.

 

[Afridi111]

Is it 25 calendar days or business days? I believe the processing time is in business day. Anyways, it is crazy that transit visa processing takes this long and after that you need to send passport for stamping. Not sure why they can’t issue paper transit visas.

Thank you so much for your reply I really appreciate it. It is 25 calendar days, today is the 19th business day, I hope I hear from them ASAP. On the website it doesn’t say that the processing time is 19 business days, I am stumped by the way this visa process work as a whole.

 

[Nkj222]

I also thought it was 19 calendar days when I was booking my flight tickets. When I didn't hear anything after 15 days of my application, I started digging forums and saw people commenting that it is business days. Mine is 17 business days today. Hopefully, we will get a response this/early next week. Please post here when you have any updates.

 

[paragkshah]

@paragkshah - I'm also in a similar situation with the timeline, still waiting to get a response on my online application. Can you please share how long it took for you to get the response?

Hi @Nkj222
It's now been 5 weeks since I applied and that is about 25 business days and I haven't heard back from them at all. I was supposed to fly with Air Canada a week ago and I had to cancel my ticket and book another with another airline. I STILL haven't hard back from them. It's pointless now but I was hoping that they would at least have some courtesy, if nothing else, to respond to my emails and messages about the visa status. It is crazy that they have taken this long to process a transit visa! In any case my ticket was non-refundable so I cannot get my money back for my cancelled flights.
I am not sure if the 15 business day time line that they say is even true as for me it has been 25 business days. If anyone else has received the transit visa then they should please reply to this post so that people have at least a fair idea of what the situation is right now. I hope you have better luck than I did with your transit visa.
Cheers

 

[Nkj222]

@paragkshah - OMG, that's crazy. There is no transparency at all on the application progress and status. I would also appreciate if folks who received approval share thier timelines here.

 

[Nkj222]

@Afridi111 did you try to contact IRCC or consulate office? Any response?

 

[Afridi111]

@Afridi111 did you try to contact IRCC or consulate office? Any response?

I sent an inquiry and they said that they’ll reply to my inquiry in 28 days and I was like seriously!!!