To get a visa to Canada, you need to make a lot of effort, namely: familiarize yourself with all the conditions and rules for obtaining this visa, collect all the necessary documents, fill out questionnaires, make translations, file documents and get a decision from the Canadian Embassy. If the visa is granted, you will receive the passport with a pasted visa (as shown below). If the application is denied, you will receive a letter with the reason for refusal. In a passport, where the Canadian visa is already pasted, you should know how to red it. Using the example of a fresh visa that was issued in 2020, we want to share this information with you.
We will consider the most standard visa - Visitor visa (this is otherwise called "tourist visa to Canada"), which can be used for travel for tourism, business, guest purposes, transit, as well as for training lasting up to 6 months.
1) We are all used to the fact that any visa should display our photo, but this does not apply to the visa to Canada! According to the internal rules of the Canadian Embassy, your photo will not appear on the visa, as all biometric data (photo, fingerprint) are stored in the embassy and handed over to the Border Guard. During the passage of the border, the officer will check all the information in the database.
2) The inscription "Kyiv" refers to the city where the visa was issued.
3) This is the start date of the visa. It is important to note that the duration of stay in Canada is decided by a border officer on arrival in the country. As a rule, it will be for up to 6 months, but it could be for less time.
4) The expiration date of the visa, but to be more precise it is the last date on which you can enter Canada and not the time before which you must leave Canada. If it happens that your passport has expired and your visa is still valid, you have the right to travel with two passports, with a valid passport and with a passport that has expired, in which the valid visa is pasted.
5) The word "Multiple" means that you have been given a multi-visa visa and you have the right to use it many times. If the word "One" or "Two" is indicated in this graph, it means that you can enter the country once or twice, but this happens very rarely, and is usually given for transit visas. Please note! A transit visa to Canada for Ukrainians is free and is available with a minimum package of documents.
6) Category V-1, Visitor is the name of a temporary resident visa, with which you can visit the country for tourist, business, and guest purposes, transit through the country, and attend training for up to 6 months.
7) Your name and surname according to the foreign passport. Be sure to check the correctness of this data.
8) This section contains the number of your passport abroad. Check the accuracy of this data. If you find an error, contact the embassy immediately, as travel with a data error is prohibited.
9) The word "One" means that the visa is issued for one person, that is, only for you.
We also want to remind once again that usually a visa to Canada for Ukrainians is issued for a period of up to 10 years or until the end of the application of a foreign passport.
It always takes time to process a visa to Canada, so we recommend you contact professionals on any issues or carefully study the website of the Canadian Embassy.
