Canadian passport fees set to rise March 31

Canadian passport fees are set to rise at the end of March as Ottawa adjusts prices to reflect Canada’s Consumer Price Index (CPI) inflation.

And this year’s increase — $9 or less depending on the service — may be just the beginning, as Immigration, Refugees and Citizenship Canada (IRCC) is conducting “a comprehensive fee structure review” to ensure all verified passport program costs are reflected in future adjustments.

“The Passport Program’s base fee structure alone can no longer support the cost of Program operations,” the agency stated in a late January order to council, which sought amendments to the fee regulations under the Financial Administration Act.

“Since the last time inflation was accounted for in Program fees, the CPI increased by 14.5 per cent, leading to expenditures outpacing revenues by approximately $121 million in fiscal year 2024–2025.”

As reported by the National Post, the IRCC confirmed that fees will rise annually in line with the CPI as reported by Statistics Canada.

Effective March 31, passport fees will be subject to the Services Fees Act (SFA), legislation requiring fee adjustments to reflect inflationary changes.

Using the 2.7 per cent CPI benchmark from April 2024, the cost of a five-year adult passport will increase from $120 to $123.24, while a 10-year passport will rise from $160 to $164.32.

Canadians living abroad will see the fee for a 10-year passport increase from $260 to $267.02.

The agency also acknowledged that “clients with low incomes, families with multiple children, elderly clients, those with fixed incomes, students and youth, refugees, and vulnerable Canadian consular clients” could be affected even by these modest increases.

Under current regulations, IRCC has the authority to apply “fee adjustment formulas” to account for rising costs associated with external passport services, such as mailing and courier expenses.

However, these formulas, introduced in 2013 and intended for a 10-year cycle, only projected a two per cent annual inflation increase.

The IRCC noted that today’s formulas are too limited in scope and do not account for growing costs related to application processing, IT, and other support services.

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