Is Your Immigration Consultant Licensed? How to Check in Two Minutes

IRCC's rule is short. Only an authorized representative may take money, or any other kind of payment, for immigration or citizenship advice or representation: a consultant licensed by the College of Immigration and Citizenship Consultants, a lawyer or Quebec notary in good standing with their law society or the Chambre des notaires du Québec, or, in Ontario only, a licensed paralegal. Everyone else is unauthorized, however experienced they say they are.

IRCC will not deal with an unauthorized paid representative, and it may return or refuse an application one has prepared. A friend or family member may do the same work for you for free; what makes the difference is the payment, not the help.

Some people who help are not representatives at all: a translator, a travel agent, a school's education agent, or someone who helps you use the website. That is fine as long as they do not advise you which program to apply for, fill in or change your application, or deal with IRCC as if they were you.

For a consultant, open the College's public register and search by name or licence number. It shows whether the person is a licensee, whether they are in good standing, and any disciplinary action. Consultants (RCICs) and Regulated International Student Immigration Advisors (RISIAs) are on separate lists, so check the right one.

Ask for the licence number before you pay, and check that the name on the register is the person you are dealing with, not only a company name. Karam Mundi's entry is licence R1055866. For a lawyer or notary, IRCC's page on authorized representatives lists every law society and the Chambre des notaires, and most let you check standing online.

If the person is not on the register, or is listed as not in good standing, IRCC's advice is plain: do not use their services.

On October 28, 2026 IRCC's penalty regulations for paid representatives came into force, with the final text published in the Canada Gazette, Part II on November 4, 2026. IRCC can now fine anyone paid for immigration or citizenship advice who breaks the rules, wherever in the world they are: $5,000 for advising or representing without authorization, $15,000 for knowingly giving false, incomplete or misleading information on an application or helping someone do so, and $10,000 for refusing to hand over documents in an inspection.

Penalties grow with repeat violations, up to $1.5 million per notice, and any profit from the violation is added. IRCC will publish the name of each person penalized, their business, the violation, the amount and whether it has been paid. It expects that online registry to launch in 2027, after the first penalties are issued. Someone who receives a notice can ask for a review within 30 days.

The rules cover licensed representatives too. A consultant or lawyer who tells a client to leave something out of an application faces the same $15,000 penalty, on top of discipline by their own regulator.

You are responsible for everything in your application, including the parts a representative wrote. IRCC says it is against the law to give false or misleading information, and an application that contains it can be refused. The penalty lands on the adviser; the refusal lands on you.

If you find out your representative is not authorized, IRCC's instructions are to update your application as soon as possible: cancel the representative on your file, and if you suspect fraud or false information, tell IRCC through its web form and tell the Canada Border Services Agency.

If an application prepared by someone else has already been refused, your GCMS notes show what the officer saw, and a refusal review starts from there.

Someone who will not answer your questions. Services advertised as free that turn into a fee later. Advice to leave something out of the application or change a date. No written contract listing the services and the fee. IRCC's advice is to ask several people before choosing, ask about training and experience, ask for references, and read the contract before you sign it.

About a licensed consultant: the College of Immigration and Citizenship Consultants. About a lawyer or notary: their law society or the Chambre des notaires du Québec. About an Ontario paralegal: the Law Society of Ontario. About an employee of an authorized representative: the employer first, then that regulator. Suspected fraud or false information, by anyone, licensed or not: IRCC's web form and the Canada Border Services Agency.

Karam Mundi is licensed by the College as an RCIC with the Class L3 RCIC-IRB licence, number R1055866; her register entry and the About page are the places to check. Every file starts with a written agreement that sets out the services and the fee, and nothing goes to IRCC that you have not seen. In our experience, the clients who arrive after a bad experience with an unlicensed adviser never saw a licence number or a written agreement, and both take two minutes to ask for.