As we are now eligible to apply for Canadian citizenship, we wondered how easy it is to do the application ourselves?

The immigration company that dealt with our PR have quoted us $1200 plus fees for two of us, ( roughly $1500/ $1800 all in), and we want to know how easy the application process is, cost of the fees, etc.

Has anyone done it themselves? Or like the PR, is it better to leave it to a professional?

I am aware it can take up to 24 months, just thought we could save some money if it is a straight forward process.

Download the forms from CIC fill them in, copy all needed docs, get pics done, pay online and post in a envelope to the provided address.

Don't pay all that money? Who will take your pics? Who will copy the docs? Who will work out how long you been in Canada using the passport pages. YOU WILL

So what on earth is the $1800 for ??????

And yes I applied this year, and it is no 5 min matter but it is not beyong anyone who can speak and read English fluently.

http://www.cic.gc.ca/english/citizenship/

Why don't you just look at the forms which are online and see?

Good lord! It's $200 per adult and $100 per child to apply for citizenship (CIC site). Why would you think that it would be cheaper to use a consultant?

I knew it would be cheaper to do it myself, I just didn't know how much of a pain it would be. I am running my own business, which takes up 12 hours a day ( at least) so I don't have a lot of time. I would happily pay someone to take care of it, if it wasn't much more expensive, but, being Scottish, saving myself $1000 + sounds good to me!

We did it ourselves. I think the forms took less than an hour for 2 of us, 5 minutes at the photocopier.

Same with PR, although that's a little more time consuming. Unless it's a particularly complicated case, consultants for that are a complete waste of money.

If you can run a business you can complete some forms surely? Looked at them yet?

A quickie on the citizenship situation please...do I have to have been living here day after day for three years to apply, or is it from the day that I 'landed' which was the year before? I have looked around a bit and can't seem to see. I have discovered that I long for citizenship...local elections here I come...and God help the rest of you!

Come on unDutchables...yes of course you can fill the forms in, what can possibly go wrong? Other than you part with a considerable slice of dosh?

It's similar to how they work out PR status. The amount of days present in Canada after landing. Any vay Kay out of the country don't count.

http://www.cic.gc.ca/english/citizen...ligibility.asp

To apply for Canadian citizenship as an adult, you must:

be a permanent resident;
be 18 years of age or older;
have lived in Canada for at least 1,095 days in the four years before the date you sign your application (time spent residing in Canada prior to acquiring permanent residence counts as a half day of residence);
have an adequate knowledge of either English or French;
have an adequate knowledge of Canada and the responsibilities and privileges of citizenship;
not be under a removal order (in other words, the Government of Canada has not ordered you to leave the country);
not be a security risk;
not be criminally prohibited; and
attend a ceremony and take the oath of citizenship

Yes, I have now had a look at them, and I complete many forms on a day to day basis, and don't see too much of a problem.

That wasn't my concern, I just wanted to hear from someone who had done it to confirm that it is a straight forward process. Have you done your citizenship application? Or your PR? Are you even in Canada?

I got our PR done by an immigration consultant, and even then, it wasn't an easy, straight forward process. We sent them what they asked for, and there was always some other additional info that the wanted. The CIC changed offices where our application was being processed, ( Buffalo NY to LA) and lost police checks, medicals and other documents in the process, which cost us money and time.

As it seems it is an easy, and quick process to fill out the application forms, and relatively inexpensive, then yes, I will do it myself, that was the reason for my post in the first place, to have that confirmed. As a busy man, it is often cheaper for me to pay someone to take care of certain thing, and using my time to do what I get paid for.

We did both our PR and citizenship applications ourselves. Both were fairly straightforward, just a case of following instructions and giving them everything they asked for as per the guidance notes.

We too did our PR application without any help for an immigration consultant or similar. The hardest (and most time consuming) part was finding all the various documentation, and trying to remember where I'd lived in the many years since I was 18. Even with a consultant you'll still need to do this yourself (although you should have a lot of it from the PR application).
We haven't applied for CItizenship yet but we will be doing it ourselves when the time comes. It looks to me as though the Citizenship application is more straightforward than the PR one was. I'd go for doing it yourself and only get the consultants in if you start running into problems.

It's extremely easy to do it yourself. I did it myself. You shouldn't need to hire a consultant to do it for you.

Yes. The hard part is listing every trip out of the country in the last four years, which you'll have to do regardless of whether you pay someone else to fill in the form.