Police clearance certificates

Once you get the invitation to apply,  you need to submit your documents to be able to prove your claim. Police clearance certificates are mandatory for every country you have stayed since the last 10 years for over 6 months. Members who 18+ years need PCC.

Why is this important?

Security is very important and that's why CIC expects you to get a clean chit from countries where you have stayed over 6 months in the last 10 years! The security requirement cannot be waived. This is the 1st thing that is checked in your application (post ITA) and if this is not correct, then your application will be rejected. You would have to submit a new profile.

When and how do I submit it?

After you express your interest, you would get an invite to apply. After you get the invite, you would have to provide more details and submit your documents.  The police clearance certificate(s) is one of them. While you are waiting for your invite to apply,  please research the steps to get the police clearance certificates.  For a few countries, it is online and fast but for others, it is paper based and slow . Post ITA, you now only have 60 days to submit your application. Plan accordingly!

Post ITA, when you login to your CIC account, you would see a place for uploading the PCC in the document checklist. It would prompt you to upload documents for the countries you have resided over 6 months in the last 10 years. It determines this based on your address history. So make sure that your address history is correct. The CIC site has the link for practically every country and those links lead to the security portal of those countries. For instance, the link for USA would lead to FBI portal.

What was our experience for getting US PCC? 

1) The process is online. You can create a request order thru the FBI site.
2) We went to our local police station which provided finger print service to get our fingerprint card.
3) We mailed the card to FBI.
4) We got the online copy 48 hrs after we mailed the card.
5) Within 5 days we got the physical copy.
6) CIC expects colored photocopies but we got black and white scans. So we mentioned the same in the letter of explanation.

What was our experience for getting Indian PCC if you are residing outside India?

There are 2 options-
1) Go to the Indian embassy with your documents and fees as stated on the site. Refer to "Miscellaneous services" for confirming timings, documents and fees to get the certificate. Typically the embassy is open only for 2.5 - 3 hrs in the morning.  If you don't get in early, you will have to wait the next day for your letter. Our nearest embassy was 5 hours drive so we decided to go in early on a Monday morning so that we could get the PCC on the same day.
OR
2) Mail your passport to the embassy with photographs and fees. It would take 5- 7 business days.  However, should there be any missing information, your passport would be returned back without the letter.

This is validated first. Providing incorrect certificates can lead to rejection. The process is easy but important. Hope this helps you get this very important piece of information!

Next steps -

Want to work on other parts of your application?

Ready  to submit your application? Here are some things you should know.

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