Centralized Intake Office (CIO) Mailing Address

This post is for those who are looking for the mailing address of Centralized Intake Office.

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It should be in the application kit, particularly in the document checklist, but just the same, here it is:

CIO Mailing Address:

Citizenship and Immigration Canada
Federal Skilled Worker
Centralized Intake Office
PO Box 7500
Sydney, NS B1P 0A9
Canada

CIO Courier Address:

Citizenship and Immigration Canada
Federal Skilled Worker
Centralized Intake Office
196 George Street
Sydney, NS B1P 1J3
Canada

Aside from the available CIO Mailing address, you can also contact Centralized Intake Office via email. Read Centralized Intake Office E-Communication.

Centralized Intake Office's E-Communication

In sending your application to Centralized Intake Office (CIO) for assessment, make sure that the email address you will provide is working and you must check your email regularly.

Effective May 12, 2009, the Centralized Intake Office has implemented e-communications with applicants. If the email they sent you bounced or was returned to CIO as undelivered, that may be the only time time that they will send a hard copy of the letter to the postal address you have indicated.

IF you are using a free email email service such as yahoo, gmail or hotmail, there is a chance that email from CIO may be filtered as spam. To avoid that, it will help if you will add CIO's email address to your contact list.

The email address being used by CIO in sending the assessment result is FSW-Centralized-Intake-Office@cic.gc.ca. And in case you need it, here's CIO Mailing Address.

New Procedure: Federal Skilled Worker Class Application

When the new Federal Skilled Worker Class program was implemented last year, the guidelines clearly stated that all applications will have to be submitted first to Centralized Intake Office (CIO) for assessment. But if have an Arranged Employment Opinion or Provincial Nominee Program nomination certificate, you may submit your application directly to Canadian Visa Office applicable to you.

Here's a new procedure for Federal Skilled Worker Class Applications .

All applicants in the Federal Skilled Worker Class, must submit their initial application to the Centralized Intake Office in Canada as of April 1, 2009.

There are three categories under the Federal Skilled Worker Class:

Category 1: For persons in an occupation which corresponds to the list of occupations identified in the Ministerial Instructions and have evidence of one year of continuous full-time (or full-time equivalent) experience in that occupation;

Category 2: For persons who have arranged employment offer with a Canadian employer; or

Category 3: For students or workers who are legally residing in Canada, and have done so for at least 12 months immediately before submitting their application.

There are two other programs for skilled workers who want to become permanent residents - Provincial Nominee and Quebec Skilled Workers.

IF you have an AEO and you have submitted your application to Canadian Visa Office and wondering why it is taking so long to be processed, check your Canada visa application status online. There is a great chance that your application was transferred to CIO. Here's CIO Mailing Address.

For more information about the new procedure on Federal Skilled Worker Class program, visit www.cic.gc.ca.

Canadian Visa Office - Beirut, Lebanon

Lebanese nationals who are applying to live and work in Canada no longer needs to travel to nearby Visa Office in Syria. The Canadian Visa Office in Beirut, Lebanon is nw processing permanent resident visa appliation.

These changes was made March 31, 2009. Prior to this, Beirut’s visa office only process temporary residence applications (temporary resident visas, students and temporary workers)

Montreal, April 3, 2009 — As of March 31, Lebanese nationals applying to immigrate to Canada may select the visa office in Beirut, Lebanon, as their main point of service, Citizenship, Immigration and Multiculturalism Minister Jason Kenney announced today.

“This change follows up on last year’s announcement, which gave immigration applicants from Lebanon the option to have their interviews conducted in their own country rather than have to travel to Syria,” said Minister Kenney. “That was a first step. We have now expanded the services offered in Beirut to provide citizens of Lebanon access to all visitor and immigration services.” [Source]

Federal Skilled Worker applicants from Lebanon will need to submit their application to the Case Processing Centre - Centralized Intake Office in Sydney, Nova Scotia in the same way that other applicants from other countries do. Here's CIO Mailing Address.

To qualify under the new Federal Skilled Worker program, applicant must have at least one year work experience in any of the high demand occupations. For applicants with Arranged Employment Opinion (AEO), they don't need to submit their application to CIO. They may submit their application to Canadian Visa Office applicable to them.

For more information about Canadian Visa Office in Lebanon, vist http://beirut.gc.ca

Centralized Intake Office (CIO) Notice of Assessment

Based on the Citizenship and Immigration Canada's bulletin, outlining the procedures in handling the new Federal Skilled Worker program, the Centralized Intake Office (CIO) or Centralized Intake Unit (CIU) in Sydney Nova Scotia will send the assessment result within several weeks.

But just exactly how long is several weeks?

I normally tell my clients that it may take two months before they will receive the assessment from CIO. It turned out that it could even be faster! By the way, here's CIO Mailing Address.

Here's a very interesting case of a Clinical Instructor/Nurse client:

Feb 09, 2009 - Application form was sent to CIO via courier
Feb 13, 2009 - Application form received by CIO
Feb 24, 2009 - Date of letter from CIO
Mar 10, 2009 - Letter received from CIO

The next step after receiving the positive assessment from CIO is the submission of full application (application forms and supporting documents) to the Visa Office. This client was given 120 days to comply.

Here's an excerpt from the actual letter:

You must inform the visa office of any changes in your application (e.g. birth of a child, marriage, new occupation or employer, etc) when submitting your full application. Please include a letter identifying what the changes are.

You have120 days from the date of this letter to prepare and submit forms and supporting documentation. If your full application is not received within this time, we will assume you are no longer interested in immigrating to Canada and we will close your file.

We strongly suggest that you prepare all your supporting documents in advance to save time. Do not wait for assessment result from Centralized Intake Office (CIO) before you start preparing your supporting documents.