COVID-19 Travel Document Fee Remission

Summary#

The Canada Gazette published the Certain Fees in Respect of Travel Document Services and Consular Services (COVID-19 Pandemic) Remission Order. It cancels or refunds certain passport, travel‑document and consular fees charged for urgent or expedited services tied to COVID‑19 during early 2020, with total foregone revenue of $777,900.

What it does#

• Remits fees for emergency travel documents and other travel‑document services for people who applied from abroad between January 31, 2020 and July 31, 2020 and said they needed to return to Canada urgently because of the COVID‑19 pandemic.
• Remits fees for urgent or expedited passport and travel‑document services for people who applied in Canada between March 18, 2020 and July 31, 2020 and confirmed their travel was urgently needed because of COVID‑19.
• Covers fees listed under the Passport and Other Travel Document Services Fees Regulations and the Consular Services Fees Regulations, including emergency travel documents, temporary passports, certificates of identity, refugee travel documents, expedited/express/pick‑up services and the consular services fee.
• In many cases the documents issued during this period had a shortened validity (for example a one‑year temporary passport) and were provided without charge or with waived expedited fees.

Who's affected#

• Canadians abroad who needed to get emergency travel documents to return to Canada during the early pandemic.
• Canadians in Canada who had urgent travel needs tied to COVID‑19 (for example serious illness or death of a family member abroad, humanitarian work, or essential travel) and applied for expedited passport services.
• People who paid fees for these services during the listed periods may be repaid; those who had unpaid fees that remained legally payable may have those debts cancelled.
• The order was put in place by the federal government; the measures were applied by Immigration, Refugees and Citizenship Canada and consular offices.

Why it matters#

• It reduced the financial burden on people who had to travel suddenly during the pandemic by cancelling or refunding fees for urgent travel documents.
• The measure is narrow and time‑limited (the windows are January 31, 2020–July 31, 2020 and March 18, 2020–July 31, 2020), so it does not change ongoing fee rules outside those dates.
• The government recorded the cost of this relief as $777,900 in foregone revenue and will report the remissions in the Public Accounts under the Financial Administration Act.