IRCC's Indigenous Names Fee Waiver Ends May 30, 2026 — Apply Free Before the Deadline

If you reclaimed an Indigenous name through a provincial or territorial process and you've been meaning to put it on your federal documents, the window for doing it free is closing. On May 30, 2026 — three days from now — IRCC's fee waiver on replacement citizenship certificates, PR cards, passports, and travel documents for reclaimed Indigenous names expires. Starting May 31, the regular fees apply: $75 for a citizenship certificate, $50 for a PR card, and the full passport fee schedule for travel documents.

The waiver has been in place since June 2021, when IRCC implemented its response to Call to Action 17 from the Truth and Reconciliation Commission. Five years later, it's ending on schedule. If you've been planning to use it and haven't filed yet, this week is the file-or-pay-later moment.

What the waiver covers

The fee waiver applies to four document types, but only to replacement applications — not first-time issuance and not lost or damaged documents.

• Citizenship certificate. A new certificate in your reclaimed name. If you currently hold a citizenship card (issued before February 1, 2012), IRCC will replace it with a certificate. The standard fee is $75; the waiver makes it $0.
• Permanent resident card. A replacement PR card in your reclaimed name. Standard fee is $50.
• Canadian passport. A replacement passport in your reclaimed name. Standard fees range from $57 for a child passport to $190 for a 10-year adult passport.
• Other travel documents. Refugee travel documents and certificates of identity, where applicable.

To qualify for the free replacement, you must already have done the provincial or territorial name change — the federal waiver covers the document fee, not the underlying name-change process. The provincial process itself is separate and varies by province; some provinces also waive their own fees for Indigenous name reclamation, but those policies are independent of IRCC's.

Who qualifies

IRCC's framing is broad: the waiver is available to Indigenous peoples, residential school survivors, and their families who want to reclaim a name that's part of their heritage or culture. There's no documentation required to "prove" Indigenous identity for the fee waiver itself — what IRCC needs is evidence that the name change is real.

That means one of two things attached to your application:

• Eligibility form (IRM 0004) if your provincial birth certificate has been amended, or if you have a legal change-of-name document from your province or territory.
• Statutory Declaration (IRM 0005) if you can't amend your birth certificate or obtain a legal name change, plus documentation showing why you can't (typically a rejection letter from your province or territory).

The Statutory Declaration route exists specifically because some residential school survivors and family members have no functional birth records — they were never registered, the records were destroyed, or the spelling on file bears no relationship to the name actually used. IRCC built the second pathway to make sure those cases aren't shut out.

What ends on May 30 (and what doesn't)

What ends: the federal fee waiver on document replacement. Starting May 31, 2026, you'll pay the standard fees for any citizenship certificate, PR card, passport, or travel document replacement, even if the reason for replacement is a reclaimed Indigenous name.

What doesn't end: your right to reclaim and use your name. The name change itself is permanent, the provincial process is unaffected, and IRCC will still issue replacement documents in your reclaimed name after May 30 — you just have to pay for them.

There is also no indication so far that IRCC will extend the waiver. The fee remission was published in the Canada Gazette in 2021 (SI/2021-23) with a hard 5-year sunset. An extension would require a new Order in Council. As of today, no such extension has been signalled.

How to apply before Friday

You don't have to receive your document by May 30 — you just have to have a complete application in IRCC's hands by that date. Processing times for citizenship certificates currently sit around several months, but that doesn't affect whether the waiver applies to your file. The qualifying date is the application receipt date.

A complete file means:

1. The right application form for the document. For a citizenship certificate, that's the CIT 0001 application. For a PR card, IMM 5444. For a passport, the adult or child general passport application from the Passport Program.
2. Either form IRM 0004 (Eligibility) or IRM 0005 (Statutory Declaration), depending on whether you have a legal name change document. Both forms are PDFs on the canada.ca site.
3. Supporting documents — your existing citizenship certificate, PR card, or passport (whichever applies); two photos meeting IRCC specs for the document type; and a copy of your provincial name change or amended birth certificate (or, if you're filing IRM 0005, the rejection letter showing why you couldn't get one).
4. A clear note in the cover letter that this is an application under the Indigenous name reclamation fee waiver. Include the words "Call to Action 17" — IRCC's intake staff know the file type and that flag routes your application correctly.

You can mail or submit online depending on the document type. The mail-in option remains available for all four document categories; online applications are available for some citizenship and passport renewals. Either way, the postmark or submission date is what counts.

If you miss the deadline

After May 30, you can still reclaim your name and update every federal document — the process just costs money again. The full fee schedule for replacements is published on IRCC's fee list page and on the Passport Program site. Replacement costs as of May 2026:

• Citizenship certificate: $75
• PR card: $50
• Adult passport (10-year): $160
• Adult passport (5-year): $120
• Child passport: $57

For a survivor or family member updating all three primary documents, that's roughly $285 after the deadline — versus zero before it.

The bigger context

The five-year Indigenous names fee waiver is one of the smallest, quietest items in IRCC's 2021–2026 reconciliation agenda — and one of the most concrete. Roughly 8,000 to 12,000 applications have moved through it since 2021, based on reporting from Indigenous-led legal aid services and IRCC's own data summaries. Most of them came from residential school survivors who'd carried church-imposed or anglicized names their entire lives and finally had a no-cost way to make their federal records match how they actually wanted to be known.

If you've been the family member helping someone navigate this — an aunt, a grandparent, a parent — the next 72 hours are the window. After Friday, the same paperwork costs real money, and "I'll get to it" becomes "I'll pay for it."

Where to find the forms

The official Canada.ca Indigenous name reclamation page has direct PDF links to IRM 0004 and IRM 0005, photo specifications, and the mailing addresses for each document type. The Help Centre answer on citizenship certificates walks through the specific citizenship certificate process. For PR cards and passports, follow the standard application instructions on the IRCC site and attach the eligibility or statutory declaration form.

If you need help filing — especially in remote communities where mail timelines matter — the Aboriginal Legal Aid in BC Indigenous name reclamation service, Maliiganik Tukisiiniakvik in Iqaluit, and friendship centres across Ontario and the Prairies all assist with paperwork at no cost.

What this means for new Canadians

Most ImmiNorth readers are immigrating to Canada and won't be affected by this waiver — it's for people who are already permanent residents or citizens. But two groups should pay attention:

• Newcomers with Indigenous ancestry from the United States or Mexico who completed citizenship or PR processes in Canada and want their reclaimed name on the document. The waiver applies if the name reclamation is recognized through a Canadian provincial or territorial process.
• Newcomers who married into Indigenous families and are helping a spouse, parent, or in-law update their documents. The waiver doesn't extend to non-Indigenous spouses, but the support work matters.

If neither of those applies, the deadline is informational rather than actionable for you — but worth sharing with anyone in your network who might benefit.