Express Entry document checklist: every item, and what each must show

What documents do you need for Express Entry?

Express Entry is not one application. It is a profile, then an invitation, then a permanent residence application, and the documents behave differently at each stage. The profile is a self-declaration: you type in your language scores, your credential assessment reference number, your work history and your funds, and the system ranks you on what you say. Nothing is uploaded. The verification happens later, when an invitation arrives and you have sixty days to prove every claim with paper.

That gap is what makes a checklist worth having early. By the time IRCC generates your personalised list, the score is fixed and the clock is running, and a police certificate from a slow authority does not care about your deadline. The nine groups below are the whole universe of Express Entry documents. Which of them apply to you depends on your programme, your marital status, your family, and where you have lived.

One rule sits above everything else on this page. Once you complete the online application form in your IRCC secure account, the system builds a personalised document checklist from your own answers, and no two candidates get an identical one. That list is the one IRCC measures completeness against. Treat this page as the preparation tool and the personalised list as the final authority, and reconcile the two the day your invitation arrives.

Before the ITA or after? Which documents you need when

You need information from some documents to create a profile, and the documents themselves only when you apply. To build a profile you need your passport details, valid language test results, a credential assessment report if you are claiming foreign education or applying as a Federal Skilled Worker, the details of your work history, a written job offer if you have one, a certificate of qualification if you hold one, your proof of funds figure, and your provincial nomination if you have been nominated. Police certificates and the medical exam are not needed for the profile at all.

After an invitation, everything becomes evidence. IRCC gives you sixty days, and that window is not extended. The candidates who lose invitations are almost never the ones who could not write a form; they are the ones who started a police certificate on day forty. There were 226,673 candidates in the pool on 30 August 2026, and the Canadian Experience Class round on 1 September 2026 invited 2,000 of them at a cut-off of 521, which is to say that invitations are scarce enough that forfeiting one over a certificate is an expensive mistake.

The master checklist: every Express Entry document, what it must show, and how long it lasts

This is the table the rest of the page expands on. Read it by column: who has to provide the document, what it has to show on its face for an officer to accept it, how long it stays valid, and where it lands in the electronic application once the portal opens.

Identity and travel documents

Every person named on the application needs a passport or travel document, and that includes family members who are not coming to Canada. What IRCC wants is a clear scan of the biographical page, not the whole booklet, unless the checklist asks for visa pages or you are relying on old passports to evidence travel history. If your passport expires within six months of the day you apply, renew it before you file, then update the passport details in the application, because a permanent resident visa is issued into a passport and a short expiry creates work later.

Digital photographs are not always requested. Where the personalised checklist generates a photo field, the photograph has to meet IRCC's specification: a plain background, a full front view, no filters, and the photographer's information supplied with it. A phone snapshot cropped square is the single most common reason a photo field is bounced back, and it is entirely avoidable by using a passport photo service that knows the Canadian specification.

Family and civil status documents

Your declared marital status decides which civil documents you upload, and it decides them strictly. A married applicant uploads a marriage certificate. A divorced applicant uploads the divorce certificate and, where one exists, the legal separation agreement. A widowed applicant uploads a death certificate. A common-law applicant uploads IMM 5409, the statutory declaration of common-law union, sworn before a commissioner of oaths or a notary.

Every dependent child you declare needs a birth certificate showing both parents, and an adoption certificate where the child is adopted. The word to weigh here is declare. A dependant left off the application is not a saved fee; it is a misrepresentation finding, a five-year bar, and a permanent barrier to sponsoring that person later. Declare children who are not coming, children from an earlier relationship, and children who already hold Canadian status. They are examined, they are listed, and they cost far less to include than to explain.

Language test results: which tests count and how long they last

IRCC accepts five tests for Express Entry: CELPIP General and the General Training option of IELTS and PTE Core in English, and TEF Canada and TCF Canada in French. Two variants are specifically excluded. The IELTS Academic module does not count, and IRCC does not accept an IELTS One Skill Retake result for Express Entry, so a candidate who improved one band on a retake cannot use that improved band here.

Results have to be less than two years old at two separate moments: when you complete the profile, and when you submit the permanent residence application. That second date is the one people miss. A test taken twenty-two months before an invitation will expire inside the sixty-day window, and an application filed on an expired result is refused. If your results are within four months of their second birthday and you are still in the pool, book a retest rather than gamble on the timing of a round.

These are minimums to be eligible, not the levels that get invited. The cut-offs in general rounds have sat far above the floor for years, and language is the fastest part of the Express Entry language requirement to improve.

Educational Credential Assessment and education documents

An educational credential assessment verifies that a credential earned outside Canada is equal to a Canadian one. You need it to be eligible as a Federal Skilled Worker principal applicant, and you need it to claim any points for education completed outside Canada, including a spouse's education. You do not need one for a Canadian degree, diploma or certificate; a transcript and the parchment do that job.

The assessment has to be less than five years old when you complete the profile and again when you submit, on the same two-date logic as the language test, and an application filed on an expired report is refused. In most cases you only assess your highest credential. If you want points for two or more credentials, each one needs its own assessment, and at least one of them has to represent three or more years of study. The credential assessment guide lists the designated organisations and what each one asks the issuing institution to send.

Proof of work experience: what a reference letter must contain

The employer reference letter is the document that decides more Express Entry files than any other, because it is the only proof that the work you claimed actually happened as you described it. IRCC wants it on company letterhead and it wants six things on the page: your job title, the exact start and end dates of each position, the number of hours worked per week, your annual salary and benefits, the main duties you actually performed, and the signatory's name, title and direct contact details.

The duties are where letters fail. An officer compares them against the lead statement and main duties of the occupation code you claimed, so a letter listing five generic bullet points from a job advertisement does not establish the code. Nor does a letter that says "full time" without a number: without hours per week, an officer cannot verify a year of full-time experience, and the safe reading is the one that costs you points. Where an employer will not sign, or has closed, the file is built differently, with contracts, pay records, tax documents and a sworn statement, and our guide to proof of work experience sets out that fallback in detail. Check the duties against the code with the NOC code finder before the employer signs, not after.

Police certificates: which countries, and which dates

The online system asks for a police certificate for you and each family member aged eighteen or over, for every country where that person stayed six months in a row or longer during the last ten years. Time spent in Canada is excluded, and so is any period before your eighteenth birthday. Short repeated stays do not trigger the requirement either: four separate four-month study terms in one country do not add up to six months in a row.

Two dating rules then apply, and they are different. For the country where you currently live, the certificate must be issued no more than six months before the date you submit. For every other country, it must be issued after the last time you stayed there for six months in a row or longer, which means a certificate you obtained years ago is often still perfectly good. Some countries print an expiry date on the certificate; include an expired one anyway if it was issued after your last long stay and it is not for your current country, because IRCC will accept it on those terms.

An officer can also ask for certificates outside the ten-year window, from any time since you turned eighteen. If you had a long stay eleven or twelve years ago, ordering that certificate now is cheaper than being asked for it at month five. Some authorities will only issue on receipt of a request letter from IRCC; in that case you upload a document in the police certificate field stating that you are applying from a country requiring an official request letter, and IRCC reviews the file and sends instructions.

The immigration medical exam

An immigration medical exam by an IRCC panel physician is required for permanent residence, and it is required for every family member, including those who are not coming to Canada with you. You do not need a form from IRCC to book it. You contact a panel physician directly, sit the exam, and the physician gives you either an information printout sheet or an IMM 1017B upfront medical report. One of those two documents, or the medical exam number from it, is what you upload.

Do not book more than one appointment. Duplicate exams create duplicate records against your file and are a genuine source of delay. If you already completed an immigration medical within the last five years for another application, for example for a study or work permit, and you are currently living in Canada, you may not need a new one; supply the previous printout or the exam number and IRCC will tell you if it cannot use the earlier result. Results have to be valid both when you submit and when you actually become a permanent resident, which is why timing the exam close to submission matters on a file that may take months. Our immigration medical exam guide covers the panel physician network and what the exam involves.

Proof of funds: how much, and what the bank letter must show

Proof of funds is money you show, not money you pay. Federal Skilled Worker and Federal Skilled Trades applicants must show it. Canadian Experience Class applicants do not, and neither does anyone who holds a valid job offer and is authorised to work in Canada, whichever programme they are invited under.

Family size counts you, your spouse or common-law partner, your dependent children and your partner's dependent children, and it counts them even if they are Canadian citizens or permanent residents and even if they are not coming with you. Undercounting the family is the commonest way a candidate ends up short of the figure they actually had to show.

The proof is a letter from each bank or financial institution where you hold an account, printed on that institution's letterhead, showing its address, telephone number and email, your name, your outstanding debts including credit cards and loans, and for every current and investment account the account number, the date the account was opened, the current balance and the average balance for the past six months. That six-month average is the requirement people miss, and it is deliberate: it defeats a lump sum parked a fortnight before filing. The money must be legally accessible to you on arrival, so equity in property does not count and money borrowed from another person does not count. A joint account with an accompanying spouse counts, and funds in a spouse's sole name may count if you can prove access. Our guides to proof of funds for Express Entry and bank statements for immigration go through the letter wording.

Provincial nomination, job offer and LMIA documents

A provincial nomination through an enhanced Provincial Nominee Program stream adds 600 points and brings its own paperwork: the nomination certificate itself, showing the nomination number, the stream, the province and the dates, and often a separate nomination letter. The nomination has an expiry printed on it, and it has to be live when you accept the invitation.

A declared job offer needs the written offer itself, with the employer, the occupation code, the wage, the hours and the duties, together with the labour market impact assessment number or the details of the exemption relied on. Federal Skilled Trades applicants relying on a certificate of qualification upload that certificate, naming the trade and the issuing province or territory. Note that Express Entry does not select candidates for Quebec, which runs its own selection system, so a nomination in this context means a nomination from another province or territory.

Which IMM forms does the e-APR ask for?

Fewer than people expect. A paper permanent residence application runs on IMM 0008, Schedule A, the additional family information form and the travel history form. The Express Entry electronic application collects all of that through online screens instead, so the only PDF forms you normally upload are the three below, and only when they apply to you.

Forms you upload can carry a hand signature or a digital one, and IRCC accepts a typed name, DocuSign or a secure signature on a PDF. If you are represented, IMM 5476 has to name the representative correctly, including the licensing number of a regulated consultant; the IRCC forms guide explains who signs what.

What do the Express Entry fees cost in 2026?

At a minimum you have to pay the processing fee and the biometrics fee when you submit. The right of permanent residence fee can be paid later, but paying it with the application avoids a request and a delay near the end. If IRCC finds the application incomplete it refunds the processing fee and the right of permanent residence fee if you paid it, but it does not refund the processing fee once processing has begun. Document costs sit outside these figures: tests, credential assessments, police certificates, medicals, translations and courier charges. The cost to immigrate calculator totals the fees, the document costs and the settlement funds for your own family size.

Translations, certified copies and affidavits: the rules IRCC applies

Any document not in English or French needs a translation, and IRCC is precise about what accompanies it. The preferred route is a translation stamped by a certified translator, uploaded together with a scan of the original document, or a scan of the certified photocopy the translator actually worked from. You can include a short letter explaining that no affidavit is needed because a certified translator did the work.

Where a certified translator is genuinely unavailable, the translation may instead be accompanied by an affidavit from the person who did it, and the affidavit has to refer to both the translation and the original document the translator worked from. Two details catch people out. Every stamp and seal that is not in English or French must be translated too, including the ones on the back of a certificate. And you cannot translate your own documents, nor have a family member do it, however fluent they are.

How do you upload documents to the IRCC portal?

1. 01

   Complete the online form first

   The personalised document checklist does not exist until the application form is finished. Fill in the form, then look at the checklist it generates and reconcile it against the list on this page.

2. 02

   Scan to the accepted formats

   Make electronic copies with a scanner or a camera, in one of the formats the portal accepts. Colour for police certificates. Legible enough that seals, stamps, signatures and dates can be read without zooming.

3. 03

   Merge multi-page documents into one file

   Each field takes a single file, so a five-page reference letter or a multi-page bank letter has to be merged into one document before it is uploaded, in page order.

4. 04

   Match each file to the right field

   A document loaded into the wrong field reads as missing from the field it belongs to. Name files so the content is obvious from the filename, for example passport-principal or police-certificate-india.

5. 05

   Use the optional documents field deliberately

   Letters of explanation, supporting pay records and anything an officer might otherwise question go here, or into the field of the document they explain. Do not bury an explanation in an unlabelled file.

6. 06

   Pay and submit before day 60

   The system will not let you submit while a mandatory field or a required document is missing. Pay the processing and biometrics fees, submit, and keep the confirmation and a full copy of everything uploaded.

The portal is stricter than a paper package in one useful way and weaker in another. It will not accept a submission with an empty required field, which catches genuine omissions. It cannot tell whether the file you loaded is the right document, legible, in colour, or current, which is where the real risk lives. Before you submit, open every uploaded file and read it as an officer would, with the profile beside it.

What if you cannot get a document?

The sixty-day window collides with slow authorities often enough that IRCC has a published route for it, and using that route properly is very different from simply leaving a field empty. Where you cannot get a police certificate in time, you upload two things into that country's own police certificate field: a letter of explanation, and proof that you made your best effort. Proof means a confirmation receipt, a payment receipt, a delivery notice, a tracking number, or a written explanation from the issuing agency about the delay.

An officer then reviews it. If they are not satisfied that the effort was genuine, the application can be rejected as incomplete, so the evidence has to be specific and dated. The same logic applies to any other unobtainable document: explain what it is, why it cannot be produced, what you did to try, and what you are offering in its place. A record destroyed in a fire, a registry that no longer exists, or a country that does not issue the document at all are all answerable; silence is not.

Checklist by program: FSW, CEC, FST and PNP compared

The practical effect of that table is that a Canadian Experience Class file is the lightest on documents and the heaviest on reference letters, because the qualifying Canadian year is the eligibility test itself. A Federal Skilled Worker file carries the credential assessment and the funds. A Federal Skilled Trades file lives or dies on the trade evidence.

Documents for your spouse and dependent children

The row that surprises people is the medical exam for a family member who is not coming. IRCC examines every family member because admissibility is assessed for the family unit, not just for the travellers. The same principle explains the police certificate row: an adult dependant who stays behind still has to be examined and, where the stay rules bite, still needs certificates.

In what order should you start? A document timeline by lead time

The document mistakes that get Express Entry files refused

The pattern is consistent, and it is rarely about missing paperwork. It is about paperwork that does not say what the profile said.

• A reference letter with no hours per week. Without a weekly figure an officer cannot verify full-time experience, and the conservative reading is the one that removes points.
• Duties that read as a different occupation. Copied from a job advertisement rather than describing the work, so they do not match the lead statement of the code you claimed.
• A bank letter without the six-month average. A balance certificate is not a bank letter. Missing the average, the account opening dates, or the outstanding debts sends the whole item back.
• A police certificate outside its window. Current-country certificates issued more than six months before submission, or a certificate for a country obtained before the last long stay there ended.
• A greyscale or certified-copy police certificate. IRCC requires colour scans of originals and says plainly that copies can result in rejection.
• An expired language result or credential assessment at submission. Valid on the profile date, expired inside the sixty days. This is a refusal, not a correctable slip.
• An empty proof of funds field on an exempt file. The system asks everyone; exempt applicants upload the exemption letter.
• An undeclared spouse or child. A misrepresentation finding, a five-year bar, and the undeclared person barred from being sponsored later. See misrepresentation.
• Gaps in the personal history screens. Every month of the last ten years needs an entry, including unemployment, study and travel.

When an officer has a concern that could lead to refusal, they may issue a procedural fairness letter with a deadline to respond. That is the one chance to answer before a decision, and the quality of the documents you can put behind the answer decides how much it helps.

Your printable Express Entry document checklist

This page prints as a working checklist. Use your browser's print command and tick the groups off as they arrive, then reconcile against the personalised list in your IRCC account when the invitation comes. The short form:

• Identity: passport biographical page for every family member; digital photos if the checklist asks.
• Civil status: marriage certificate, or divorce certificate and separation agreement, or IMM 5409, or death certificate; birth certificates and adoption certificates for children.
• Language: test report, under two years old at profile and at submission.
• Education: credential assessment under five years old, plus Canadian transcripts and parchments.
• Work: a reference letter per employer with dates, hours, salary and duties; pay and tax records to support them.
• Police: a certificate per country of six months or more in the last ten years, colour scans of originals, dated correctly.
• Medical: panel physician printout or IMM 1017B for every family member, coming or not.
• Funds: bank letters with the six-month averages, or an exemption letter.
• Programme: nomination certificate, job offer and assessment, or certificate of qualification.
• Forms: IMM 5476 if represented, IMM 5409 if common-law, IMM 5475 if requested.
• Explanations: letters for gaps, name variations, missing documents and anything an officer might question.

Compliance note. Wild Mountain Immigration is a licensed RCIC practice (CICC R706497) based in Canmore, Alberta, working with clients online across Canada and abroad. Fees, checklists, validity windows and settlement funds figures are IRCC's, read in September 2026, and they change. Nothing on this page is a guarantee of any outcome, and your personalised IRCC checklist always governs your own file.