Canada has introduced a temporary public policy that exempts some applicants from the immigration medical exam requirement. Beginning December 28, 2021, Immigration, Refugees and Citizenship Canada (IRCC) will be exempting individuals that meet certain conditions from the medical exam requirement for their permanent residence application.

Applicants must meet the following requirements:

• have applied for Canadian permanent residency and have not completed a new immigration medical exam
• have completed a qualifying medical exam within the last 5 years and pose no risk to public health or safety. If IRCC required the applicant to report to public health authorities for monitoring, they must have complied.
• have not left Canada for more than 6 months in the last year to live in a country on the government’s list of countries requiring an immigration medical exam

This policy will be implemented to streamline the application process for applicants within Canada that are low-risk. Applicants whose family members meet the same criteria may also be eligible for this exemption.

To qualify for this exemption, applicants must provide the unique medical identifier number from their previous medical exam. However, if an individual’s medical exam cannot be used, IRCC will contact the applicant to provide next steps.

What does the medical exam exemption mean for immigration processing?

This year, Canada has targeted the admission of 401,000 new permanent residents. Removing the additional medical exam requirement will ensure IRCC is able to process these applications within a reasonable timeframe. As travel restrictions begin to ease and Canada begins to process applications at a higher capacity, this initiative will help IRCC to ease back into processing applications in a more streamlined manner.