Remission Order for Certain Fees Under the Passport and Other Travel Document Services Fees Regulations: SI/2026-1
Canada Gazette, Part II, Volume 160, Number 3
Registration
SI/2026-1 February 11, 2026
FINANCIAL ADMINISTRATION ACT
P.C. 2026-47 January 26, 2026
Her Excellency the Governor General in Council, considering that the collection of certain amounts is unreasonable, on the recommendation of the Treasury Board and the Minister of Citizenship and Immigration, makes the annexed Remission Order for Certain Fees Under the Passport and Other Travel Document Services Fees Regulations under subsection 23(2.1)footnote a of the Financial Administration Actfootnote b.
Remission Order for Certain Fees Under the Passport and Other Travel Document Services Fees Regulations
Remission
1 Remission is granted, in respect of the fees set out in items 1 to 6, column 2, of the schedule to the Passport and Other Travel Document Services Fees Regulations for the services set out in column 1, of the amount of the fee adjustments made under sections 4 to 10 of those Regulations, as those sections read on April 1, 2023, for the period beginning on April 1, 2023 and ending on March 31, 2025.
Coming into force
2 This Order comes into force on the day on which it is made.
EXPLANATORY NOTE
(This note is not part of the Order.)
Proposal
The Governor in Council, considering that the collection of the debt is unreasonable, on the recommendation of the Treasury Board and the Minister of Citizenship and Immigration (the Minister), has made the Remission Order for Certain Fees Under the Passport and Other Travel Document Services Fees Regulations (the Remission Order) pursuant to subsection 23(2.1) of the Financial Administration Act (FAA).
Objective
The objective of the Remission Order is to remit actual and anticipated outstanding debts resulting from the non-collection of passport fee increases for the period beginning on April 1, 2023, and ending on March 31, 2025.
Background
The Revolving Funds Act (the Act) establishes the Passport Revolving Fund to account for the application and service fees collected from applicants that are used to fund the Passport Program. The Act ensures that Passport Program expenditures do not exceed revenues from passport fees.
The Passport Revolving Fund operates on a 10-year business cycle, which means that revenues and costs must balance out at the end of every 10-year cycle. The current fee structure is established in the Passport and Other Travel Document Services Fees Regulations (the Regulations), which took effect in 2013.
To account for the uncertainties of costs outside of the Passport Program’s control, such as mail and courier rates, the Regulations include formulas for adjusting fees up or down each year. The adjustment formulas took effect on April 1, 2016, and require fees to be assessed each fiscal year and adjusted annually, as required.
However, beginning on April 1, 2016, Immigration, Refugees and Citizenship Canada (the Department or IRCC) decided not to change the fee amount that it collected for each service according to the annual adjustment formulas and instead maintained the base fee structure established in the Regulations. The Department assessed that the adjustment formula did not accurately reflect actual Program costs and that the inclusion of general inflation in the 2013 fees meant that any increased costs to deliver the Program were largely accounted for. Furthermore, in the first half of the business cycle, the Passport Revolving Fund had accumulated a significant surplus, which was projected to sustain operations through the end of the cycle. An increase in fees at a time when the Program had sufficient resources to cover its current and projected costs was deemed to be unfair to clients and inconsistent with cost-recovery provisions of the FAA. A remission order to address the foregone revenue accumulated between April 1, 2016, and March 31, 2023, was published in the Canada Gazette, Part II, Volume 158, Number 4 on February 14, 2024.
As communicated in the Department’s 2023–2024 Fees Report, from April 1, 2023, and onwards, the Department continued charging unadjusted fees while the adjustment formulas were under review. The review examined whether the adjustment formulas were an appropriate mechanism to adjust Program fees, given the formulas only account for limited changes in costs, such as freight, receiving agents and Global Affairs Canada’s services abroad, whereas domestic processing costs are the greatest contributor to Passport Program expenditures. For instance, expenses not included within the makeup of the adjustment formulas include material costs, processing costs for the domestic delivery of passports and other travel documents, Passport Program support costs (including salaried employees), and IT costs. Altogether, the adjustment formulas do not account for roughly 85% of the Passport Program’s cost of operations. Given this, the Department did not collect the adjusted fees per the adjustment formulas for fiscal years 2023–2024 and 2024–2025. The foregone revenue from fiscal years 2023–2024 and 2024–2025 totalled $34,597,462.
Subsection 23(2.1) of the FAA allows the Governor in Council to remit any debt owing to the Crown, on the grounds that the collection of the debt is unreasonable or unjust, or that it is otherwise in the public interest to remit the debt. In this case, the collection of the debts already incurred is considered unreasonable, as it would require small amounts to be recovered from millions of individual clients who are not aware of the debt.
Implications
This Remission Order remits the debts owing to the Crown for fiscal years 2023–2024 and 2024–2025. The total foregone revenue from remitting fees payable to the Crown for the period covered by this remission order is $34,597,462.
| Fee waived / Service provided | Volume | Amount collected as per the fee set in 2012 | Adjusted fee | Total foregone revenue |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| Adult regular passport, outside Canada service, 10-year validity | 147 456 | $235 | $301 | $9,732,096 |
| Adult regular passport, outside Canada service, 5-year validity | 25 964 | $165 | $211 | $1,194,344 |
| Child regular passport, outside Canada service, 5-year validity | 127 810 | $100 | $127 | $3,450,870 |
| Total | N/A | N/A | N/A | $14,377,310 |
| Fee waived / Service provided | Volume | Amount collected as per the fee set in 2012 | Adjusted fee | Total foregone revenue |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| Adult regular passport, in-Canada service, 10-year validity | 3 355 965 | $135 | $137 | $6,711,930 |
| Adult regular passport, in-Canada service, 5-year validity | 178 883 | $95 | $96 | $178,883 |
| Child passport, in-Canada service | 962 575 | $57 | $58 | $962,575 |
| Adult refugee travel document | 38 648 | $95 | $96 | $38,648 |
| Child refugee travel document | 4 964 | $57 | $58 | $4,964 |
| Adult certificate of identity | 1 146 | $235 | $237 | $2,292 |
| Child certificate of identity | 148 | $141 | $143 | $296 |
| Adult regular passport, outside Canada service, 10-year validity | 192 448 | $235 | $289 | $10,392,192 |
| Adult regular passport, outside Canada service, 5-year validity | 13 342 | $165 | $203 | $506,996 |
| Child regular passport, outside Canada service, 5-year validity | 64 608 | $100 | $122 | $1,421,376 |
| Total | N/A | N/A | N/A | $20,220,152 |
Accountability
All remissions associated with the Remission Order will be reported in the IRCC Fees Reports and IRCC Public Accounts.
Contact
Kathryn Fredericks
Director
Passport Program Policy
Immigration, Refugees and Citizenship Canada
Email: Kathryn.Fredericks@cic.gc.ca