When you submit your Express Entry e-APR, IRCC assigns your file to a visa office for processing. Most applicants find out which one only after they get their AOR. Then a quiet realization sets in: the office matters. The same application, with the same complexity, can take three months at one office and five months at another.
We pulled the data from our Express Entry Tracker, which now holds 1,000 community-submitted timelines. Of those, 163 have been completed end-to-end (from AOR through eCoPR). Here is what that data shows about which visa offices are actually fastest in 2026, where the slowdowns are, and what it means for your application.
Headline: The 56-Day Gap
The single most surprising finding from the dataset is the spread between offices.
| Visa Office | Median AOR → eCoPR | p25 | p75 | Sample (n) |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| Etobicoke | 75 days | 70 | 84 | 20 |
| Ottawa | 85 days | 70 | 157 | 7 |
| Sydney | 103 days | 86 | 124 | 16 |
| Montreal | 125 days | 107 | 151 | 20 |
| Vancouver | 131 days | 117 | 147 | 14 |
The median Etobicoke applicant finishes in 75 days. The median Vancouver applicant takes 131 days. That is a 56-day difference for what is, on paper, the same federal program.
A few smaller offices show up in our dataset too (Edmonton, Calgary, Paris, Winnipeg, Accra), each with only one or two completed timelines. We have excluded them from the table because the sample is not large enough to publish a median. As the dataset grows, we will revisit.
The Caveat You Should Know About
Before anyone screenshots that table and tweets "avoid Vancouver," there is an important confound: different visa offices handle different stream mixes.
CEC applicants are typically processed at Canadian inland offices (Etobicoke, Ottawa). FSW and PNP applicants more often land at Vancouver, Sydney, or Montreal. Streams have very different processing characteristics by themselves, so part of the office-to-office spread is really a stream-to-stream spread in disguise.
Here is the same data sliced by stream:
| Stream | Median AOR → eCoPR | p25 | p75 | Sample (n) |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| CEC | 76 days | 69 | 127 | 111 |
| CEC - Education | 86 days | 85 | 86 | 5 |
| PNP | 100 days | 86 | 120 | 21 |
| CEC - French | 101 days | 85 | 102 | 5 |
| CEC - Healthcare | 109 days | 69 | 125 | 11 |
| FSW - French | 116 days | 98 | 126 | 6 |
CEC alone is roughly 76 days. Once you add PNP, healthcare, or FSW into the mix, the median moves up to 100 days or more. So when you see Vancouver at 131 days, part of that is "Vancouver is slow" and part of it is "Vancouver gets a higher share of the slower streams."
Etobicoke, by contrast, is processing largely CEC files, which biases its number lower than a pure office-versus-office comparison would suggest.
Stage-by-Stage: Where the Time Actually Goes
Across all 1,000 timelines in the dataset, here is how the median timeline plays out from AOR forward:
| Milestone | Median Days from AOR | p25 | p75 | Sample (n) |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| Biometrics request | 33 days | 21 | 61 | 780 |
| Final decision / PPR | 70 days | 44 | 95 | 346 |
| Background check complete | 78 days | 58 | 98 | 232 |
| eCoPR | 86 days | 70 | 126 | 163 |
Two things stand out:
Biometrics requests come faster than people expect. Median is 33 days from AOR. The 25th percentile sees a BIL in three weeks. If you have not received one by the 75th percentile mark (61 days), it is reasonable to start watching your portal more closely.
The eCoPR median (86 days) is lower than the background check median (78 days), which seems contradictory. It is not. The reason is that the 232 timelines with a background-check completion date are not the same 163 with a full eCoPR. Many applicants update their background check stage but never log their eCoPR, which biases the background sample older. The takeaway: if you only have eCoPR data points to look at, the realistic median end-to-end is just under three months.
For more on background check specifically, see our Express Entry background check guide.
What Drives Office-to-Office Differences
Three factors explain most of the variance between offices.
1. Stream Mix
Already covered above. The single biggest variable. Etobicoke being mostly CEC is a structural advantage in median statistics.
2. Caseload Per Officer
IRCC does not publish per-office staffing or backlog data. But anecdotally, Vancouver has been flagged as a slow office for years, and our 2026 data confirms it has not improved. Sydney has historically been a high-volume processing center for paper-based and Atlantic-immigration files, which pulls its turn-around higher.
3. Complexity Triggers
Files flagged for extended background checks, security review, or eligibility concerns route to specialized streams within an office. A single complex file in a small dataset can pull a median up noticeably. The p75 column on the visa office table is a better proxy for "how bad can it get" than the median.
Look at Ottawa: median 85, p75 157. That is a clean 72-day spread between a typical file and a problem file at the same office. The same gap exists at Montreal (125 to 151) and Vancouver (131 to 147).
How to Use This Data
If you have already received your AOR and know your visa office: look up your office in the table. Compare your current week count to the median and p75 for that office. If you are below the median, you are on a normal track. Past the median, you are normal-but-slower. Past the p75, you are in the tail.
If you have a choice about where to apply from (some CEC applicants effectively do, by virtue of address listed): know that inland offices tend to clear CEC files fastest. This is not a recommendation to manipulate your address, which would be misrepresentation. But it is useful context for understanding the system.
If you are still building your profile: the stream you qualify under is a much bigger lever than the office you happen to land at. A CEC candidate is structurally faster than a PNP or FSW candidate, on average by 24 to 40 days at the median.
Compare Your File Against the Data
You can add your own timeline to the tracker and see how your numbers compare to the medians for your stream, visa office, and complexity. The more data the community contributes, the sharper these reports get.
We will refresh this report quarterly. The next update will be in September 2026.
Frequently Asked Questions
How can you tell which visa office processes your application?
After AOR, the office name appears in your IRCC secure account portal under the application details page. Some applicants need to wait until biometrics or eligibility messages to see it confirmed.
Can I request a transfer to a different office?
In general, no. IRCC assigns your file based on your residence and stream, and they do not entertain office transfer requests for routine timeline reasons. Transfers happen internally when an office's queue is rebalanced, not on applicant request.
Why is the "Unknown" office data missing from the table?
About 81 of our 163 completed timelines did not log a primary visa office. We excluded the Unknown bucket from the headline table to keep it clean, but the medians for that group (75d) are very similar to Etobicoke (75d), which suggests most of those unspecified files are also inland CEC.
How does this compare to IRCC's published processing times?
IRCC publishes a 6-month service standard for Express Entry. Our 86-day median is significantly faster than that standard, because the IRCC number is a service commitment (the time within which 80% of files clear), not a typical-case median. Our data is the typical case.
What if my office is not in your table?
Either we do not have enough data on it yet (most likely), or you are processed at a paper-only or specialized office that handles a small share of EE files. Add your timeline once you finish and you will help future reports.
Methodology note: Data pulled from 1,000 community-submitted Express Entry timelines as of June 2, 2026. Of those, 780 had a biometrics request date, 232 had a background check completion date, 346 had a final decision or PPR date, and 163 had an eCoPR date. All percentiles computed on the subset with complete fields for that milestone. Visa offices with fewer than five completed timelines (Edmonton, Calgary, Paris, Winnipeg, Accra) were excluded from the published medians. Submissions are self-reported and not verified against IRCC records.