To be eligible to become a Canadian citizen, you must meet the conditions in all these areas:

You must be at least 18 years old to apply.
To apply for citizenship for a child under 18:

You must have permanent resident (PR) status in Canada, have no unfulfilled conditions related to that status, and your PR status must not be in question. This means you must not:

You do not need to have a PR card to apply for citizenship. If you have a PR card, but it is expired, you can still apply for citizenship.

You must have been physically present in Canada as a permanent resident for at least 1,095 days during the five years immediately before the date of your application. .

When calculating how long you have lived in Canada, you can only count time spent after you became a permanent resident of Canada.
Find out if you have lived in Canada long enough to apply to become a citizen.

You must have met your personal income tax filing obligations in three taxation years that are fully or partially within the five years immediately before the date you apply.

Canada has two official languages—English and French. To become a citizen, you must show that you have adequate knowledge of one of these languages. In general, this means you can:

If you are 18 to 54 years of age, you must send documents with your citizenship application that prove you can speak and listen in English or French at this level. Use our wizard to see if you have the proof we will accept. The citizenship application guide also contains the type of proof we will accept.
Second, we will note how well you communicate to staff or a citizenship officer during your interview.
A citizenship officer will make the final decision on your application, including how well you can communicate in English or French.
Visit the acceptable language proof to apply for citizenship wizard.

To become a citizen, you must understand the rights, responsibilities and privileges of citizenship, such as voting in elections and obeying the law. You must also show, in English or French, that you understand Canada’s:

If you are 14 to 64 years of age, when you apply for citizenship, you will need to take a citizenship test to show you have adequate knowledge of Canada and the responsibilities and privileges of citizenship. It is usually a written test, but it is sometimes taken orally with a citizenship officer. All you need to know for the test is in our free study guide, Discover Canada: The Rights and Responsibilities of Citizenship. We will send you a copy of it once we get your application. The questions in the citizenship test are based on this study guide.

If you have committed a crime in or outside Canada you may not be eligible to become a Canadian citizen for a period of time. For example if you:

Time in prison or on parole does not count as time you have lived in Canada. Time on probation also does not count if you were convicted of a crime.

For more information, please contact us.