Applicants for Federal Skilled Worker Program will get their fee refunded

Federal Skilled Worker Applicants have been asked by the CIC to confirm their contact information for the fee to be refunded

Citizenship Immigration Canada has estimated that they will be refunding the application processing fee to the applicants applying under Federal Skilled Worker Category. 

The back ground of refund

Way back in June 2012, CIC had cancelled the processing of Federal Skilled Worker applications which were submitted before February 2008. Till March 2012, CIC looked indecisive about the way or process of making the refund to the applicants.

The step was taken after a much debated announcement was made by the Immigration Minister Jason Kenney, wherein he had announced that the country needs to clear the backlog of applications coming under various categories of aspiring immigrants.

The Minister had also announced that along with the returning of applications the “processing fee” would also be returned back to the applicants. 

The latest development

In a recent announcement, CIC has made it clear that it would be refunding the application processing fee to as many as 100,000 applicants who had submitted their applications under Federal Skilled Worker Category.

The first and foremost step the applicants need to make is to confirm their contact information.

The formalities for the Applicants

This can be done by filling up the form return of Processing Fee, Right of Permanent Residence Fee or Right of Landing Fee Form to CIC.

The most important to be noted here, is that there refund will not include any kind of interest on it.
FSW applicants who are not sure of the fate of their applications are free to write to the CIC to understand the status of the same.

Those applicants, who had experienced their applications standing rejected before the introduction of the new law, will not get a second consideration. Hence, CIC suggests them to not get their applications status evaluated. Also, they wold not get their processing fee, because their application did not get rejected due to the enforcement of law, rather there might have been other reasons to it. 

The fate of the refund

CIC further announces that they will refund the processing fee to the applicants, but, the same cannot be adjusted with a new set of application, in case an applicant wishes so. This clearly indicates that if an applicant is interested in making a fresh application, he has to submit the form and the fee all over again.
As a matter of fact, CIC has not made any announcement on the new date or criteria to submit the applications afresh.