Indian passport renewal in Canada (2026): BLS, the new fees, documents, tatkal, children and lost passports

An Indian passport is valid for ten years for an adult and five years for a child under 18 (or until the child turns 18, whichever comes first; a 15-to-17-year-old may take a ten-year booklet at the adult fee). The missions in Canada accept a renewal — a "re-issue", in the portal's language — up to one year before expiry, and the Toronto consulate's own advice is to file once there are less than six months left; a passport can be re-issued at any time for a change of particulars, appearance or signature, or after a loss. A passport that has been expired for more than a year needs a declaration explaining the delay; more than three years, a notarised affidavit and a search letter, and the file is treated as a fresh case with verification. Nothing is gained by waiting: the new passport's ten years run from its own issue date, not from the old expiry.

In Canada the passport is wired into your immigration status in a way that catches thousands of people a year, which is why renewing early is the rule here:

• IRCC will not issue a permit beyond your passport's expiry. A work permit, a study permit or a visitor record is dated to end no later than the passport does, whatever the LMIA, the program or the job offer says. An LMIA for two years and a passport with eight months to run means an eight-month work permit; a four-year degree and a passport that expires in year two means a two-year study permit. The same cap applies to the post-graduation work permit: a graduate entitled to three years gets a permit to the passport's expiry instead, and has to renew the passport and apply again.
• The extension costs money and a wait. Once the new passport arrives you apply from inside Canada to extend the permit — C$155 for a work permit, plus C$100 if it is an open permit; C$150 for a study permit; C$100 for a visitor record — and you sit in IRCC's queue on maintained status until it is decided.
• The visa counterfoil is in the old booklet. The temporary resident visa that lets you back into Canada after a trip stays valid in the cancelled passport; you travel with both. Lose the old passport and you are applying for a new visa (C$100) before you can fly home.
• Permanent residents feel it less, but not never. The PR card carries no passport number and is unaffected; but a PR card renewal asks for a copy of a passport, a citizenship application asks for every passport you have held, and a flight to India is still a flight on a passport the airline will check at the gate.
• Children's five years go fast. A passport issued to a newborn in Brampton or Surrey expires in senior kindergarten; put the date in the calendar when it arrives.

Everything is done from Canada, without a trip to India and without the Indian address needing to be yours — but a change of name, appearance or Indian address can trigger police verification at the Indian address on file, which is the one part of the process no fee can hurry. The sections below take the ordinary renewal first, then the special cases, then the Canadian paperwork the new booklet touches.

India revised every passport fee on 1 July 2026 — the Passports (Amendment) Rules, 2026, notified by the Ministry of External Affairs in June 2026, the first increase in fourteen years. Fees at missions abroad are set in US dollars — a 36-page adult booklet is US$125, plus US$2 for the Indian Community Welfare Fund — and the three Canadian missions charge them in Canadian dollars (C$) at a rate they fix: about C$1.39 to the dollar in the current table, with the welfare-fund surcharge folded into the single "passport fee" line that BLS International prints (the older Canadian tables showed it apart, as C$3). BLS's own charge is listed at C$1.70 an application. The figures below are the three BLS jurisdiction pages as published after the revision; BLS says an application that arrives with the old fee is refused, not topped up, so confirm on the BLS page for your jurisdiction on the day you pay.

What the extras buy

• Tatkal buys queue position at the consulate — a decision in about a week in Toronto — not at the police station: a file that needs a verification report waits for it like any other, and the surcharge is not refunded. Toronto takes tatkal for a renewal only, 36 pages only, and excludes whole categories; the timelines section lists them. Vancouver takes it only after an emailed request to the consulate; Ottawa does not offer it at all.
• 60 pages are worth the C$70 for anyone who flies to India twice a year and collects stamps elsewhere — Toronto and Ottawa issue them; Vancouver's checklist tells you to select 36 pages, and the booklet has to be replaced when the pages run out, at the full fee.
• The courier. A file handed in at a centre is collected there or delivered by BLS's courier — C$40 within the province, C$60 to another province. A postal file must enclose its own prepaid, self-addressed return envelope (BLS works with Purolator and will not promise delivery to a PO box), or pay BLS's courier line; BLS also books a Purolator pick-up from your door through its postal page. Photographs (C$9 for four), photocopies and form-filling (C$5 for a passport form) are sold at the counter, and a C$100 premium lounge exists for people who want to wait in a chair.
• How you pay. At the counter, debit card or exact cash — no credit cards. By post, a demand draft, money order or certified cheque payable to "BLS International Services Canada Inc." for the whole amount — consular fee plus BLS charge plus return courier; no cash in the envelope, no personal cheques. Fees are non-refundable and non-transferable once the file is accepted: a form filled wrongly is a second fee.

What nobody may charge you

The fees are paid to BLS against a receipt. Nobody — not a "documentation consultant" in Brampton or Surrey, not a "Passport Seva" website ending in .com, not a caller from a "High Commission helpline" — can take the fee on the mission's behalf or shorten the queue for money, and BLS's own page says it never telephones anyone about fees. The genuine portal is passportindia.gov.in and its service for missions abroad; the genuine logistics site is blsindia-canada.com. Everything else is a form-filler at best.

The renewal is online first, then at a counter or by post, and the two halves use different systems: the Ministry of External Affairs' portal for the form, BLS International for the appointment, the checklist, the fee and the physical file. In Canada the outsourcer is BLS, not VFS — the company that runs Indian consular desks in the United States and Britain has no Canadian passport contract — and BLS runs every Indian passport, visa, OCI and consular counter in the country. The missions themselves take no walk-ins for passports and grant no in-person appointments; the Toronto consulate's FAQ says so in as many words. An appointment at BLS, or an envelope to BLS, is the only way in.

1. Register on the Passport Seva portal for missions abroad (embassy.passportindia.gov.in — the Global Passport Seva system; BLS's Vancouver page links its newer mportal address, which is the same portal), choose Canada and the mission for your address — Ottawa, Toronto or Vancouver, by the jurisdiction table at the end of this page; the postal code decides — and start a "Re-issue of passport" application. Choose 36 pages unless you want the jumbo and your mission issues it, Normal unless the consulate has approved tatkal, and say why: validity expiring, pages exhausted, change of particulars, lost, damaged.
2. Fill it exactly as the current passport prints your particulars — the spelling, the place of birth, the parents' names — and without special characters in the address: an ampersand or a hash sign in an address line prints as an error on the booklet, and the consulate says it will not be responsible. Enter one Canadian and one Indian address: a permanent resident or work-permit holder gets the Canadian address printed, a student the Indian one, and the other goes in the "other address" field. Once submitted the form cannot be edited; an error means a fresh application, and the printout you hand in must be the correct one.
3. Upload the photograph and signature in the portal's digital sizes — the photograph 630 × 810 pixels, white background, the face filling 80 to 85 per cent of the frame, no glasses, no head covering except for religion — then print the form with its ARN (application reference number), paste a 51 × 51 mm (2 × 2 inch) print of the same photograph in the box, and sign on the first and last pages in black ink. A child signs under the photograph (a thumb impression under five — left for a boy, right for a girl) and both parents sign the last page, in the signatures their own passports show.
4. Book a BLS appointment on blsindia-canada.com at any centre in your mission's jurisdiction — "for any services at BLS centres, appointment is necessary" — or prepare a postal file for the hub: Brampton for Toronto's jurisdiction, Surrey for Vancouver's, Ottawa for the High Commission's. Centres take submissions 8:00 to 2:30, Monday to Saturday (Saturdays by appointment only in the west) and hand back passports from 3:00 to 4:00. One companion is allowed for a child, an elderly or a disabled applicant; nobody else gets past the door.
5. Attend with the originals and one set of self-attested copies — the list in the next section — or post them with the draft and the return envelope. BLS checks the file against the mission's checklist, takes the fee, scans and forwards it; there is no biometric capture for a passport re-issue (OCI applications, since 5 April 2026, are a different matter and must be made in person). Nothing can be added or changed after BLS has accepted the file.
6. Track by ARN on the portal and on BLS's tracking page, or ring the Brampton helpline (289 498 1320, 8 to 5, Monday to Saturday). "Granted" at the mission is followed by printing in India — the booklets are printed centrally and shipped — and dispatch to BLS, which couriers it or holds it for collection. The old passport comes back cancelled, with your visas intact; keep it.
7. The day it arrives, check the spelling against the old booklet, check that the old passport came back, and start the list in the "after" section — the permit extension, the SIN, the health card, the banks.

The mission's checklist — the one BLS enforces when the envelope is opened — is the authority, and the three jurisdictions publish their own versions. For an adult renewing on expiry with no change of particulars it comes to this; every copy is self-attested (signed by you across the copy), and the consulates say affidavits are not accepted as proof of anything.

• The printed application with the ARN, photograph pasted, signed in black ink on the first and last pages.
• The current passport, original — it travels with the file — and one copy of the first and last pages (copy any observation page too).
• Proof of your status in Canada, one copy: the PR card, the work permit, the study permit or the visitor record. A permanent resident must also include the landing paper or CoPR showing the immigration category — Toronto calls it mandatory and its FAQ spends four answers on it; an old PR card that shows the category, or the IM-1 stamp in an old passport, is accepted instead. A student adds the student card. If the permit has expired, IRCC's letter or email confirming that the extension application is in process stands in, with the expired permit; a payment receipt alone does not.
• Proof of a Canadian address in your name: driver's licence, provincial photo card, a tax statement or Notice of Assessment, a rental agreement, a hydro, water or home-internet bill (under six months old), a university letter for a student living on campus, or a permit or SIN letter carrying the address. Not accepted: bank statements and prepaid phone bills.
• Proof of an Indian address — your own, or a relative's or friend's who can answer for you when the police call: an Aadhaar card, voter card, utility bill, ration card, driving licence, landline bill or public-sector bank passbook. Not a private bank's passbook, not a rent agreement. If it is your father-in-law's address, the relationship is documented through your spouse's passport and the marriage certificate.
• Two photographs, 51 × 51 mm (2 × 2 inches — not the Canadian passport size, which is taller than it is wide), recent, colour, full face, both ears visible, plain white background, no glasses, no shadow, mouth closed, identical to the image uploaded; one is pasted on the form. Any pharmacy or Walmart photo counter produces it if you say "Indian passport, two by two, white background"; BLS sells four for C$9.
• Annexure E, the standard self-declaration for a re-issue, printed from the portal's annexure page and signed.
• The Personal Particulars Form (Toronto) with a photograph pasted — the mission's own one-page summary of the application.
• The change-of-appearance affidavit, sworn before a Canadian notary with a photograph, if the face in the old passport is not the face in the new one — a beard, a decade; a child never gives one.
• The ECNR document — a tenth-standard or higher certificate — if the current passport says ECR and you want it changed.

Validity depends on your permit

A permanent resident or a work- or study-permit holder gets the full ten years (five for a child). An applicant in Canada on a visitor record or a super visa gets a passport of two years only (or to age 18), may not change any particular, and — on a super visa — files the sponsoring child's passport, status and address proof as well. In Vancouver a visitor without a letter from the Immigration and Refugee Board confirming that no refugee claim has been made gets a one- or two-year passport; refugee claimants get no passport services at all. A US green-card holder visiting Canada is normally sent back to a US consulate to renew, and gets at most a six-month passport on medical grounds.

What is not accepted

A photocopy without the original passport, an address proof in someone else's name, a photograph in the Canadian size, a form signed in blue ink or outside the box, a stapled or double-sided file, a title or salutation in the name field, an "alias" or "aka" in the name (the rules no longer allow it; you choose one of the names or go through a change of name), and a passport that has been laminated or written on — that is a damaged-passport application with the higher fee. A passport whose lamination is merely peeling can be taken to the consulate on a working day to be fixed, free.

A change of particulars is a re-issue with the same fee and a longer document list, it is excluded from tatkal, and it is the renewal most likely to go for police verification — so it pays to make every change in one application. Canada's rules have two features of their own: a residence qualification for a real change of name, and consulates that accept the ordinary things — a marriage, a split surname — on a declaration while treating a change of name as a formal procedure.

Adding or removing a spouse's name

The Indian passport prints the spouse's name. Toronto's rule is the simplest in the network: to add a spouse you enter the name in the online form and no supporting document is needed; Vancouver's checklist asks for a self-attested copy of the marriage certificate. To delete a spouse's name after a divorce, the court's divorce certificate. A Canadian provincial marriage certificate is accepted as it is. If a mission ever wants a Canadian certificate authenticated, Canada joined the Hague Apostille Convention on 11 January 2024: the issuing province (where it runs its own apostille office) or Global Affairs Canada issues the apostille, and the Toronto consulate's own page says an apostilled Canadian document needs no further attestation from it.

Taking a spouse's surname

A woman changing or adding her surname after marriage or remarriage needs only a self-declaration on plain paper in Toronto; Vancouver asks for the marriage certificate and the spouse's current passport. After a divorce she may revert to her maiden name if an old passport in that name exists; otherwise it is a change of name like any other.

A real change of name

This is where Canada is strict. The facility is open only to someone who has lived in Canada continuously for more than three years on PR, a work permit or a study permit — a visitor cannot change a name — and it needs either original full-page clippings of two prominent newspapers announcing the change (Vancouver's checklist: one from the area of your permanent address in India and one from your Canadian address, in English, more than a month old; no cuttings) plus at least two identity documents already in the new name, or publication of the change in the Gazette of India. Vancouver also wants a notarised affidavit in the consulate's format. The newspaper wording is prescribed — "I, ..., holder of Indian Passport No. ..., do hereby change my name from ... to ..., with immediate effect" — and there is a parallel format for a child's name, declared by the father.

Splitting a name, correcting a parent's name

Splitting a single string into a surname and given names — "Rameshbhai Rajubhai Rastogi" into Rastogi, Rameshbhai Rajubhai — is allowed on the form with no proof in Toronto (Vancouver wants the affidavit and two Indian IDs in the split form); turning "Rameshbhai" into "Ramesh Bhai" is not. A parent's name spelt differently needs a copy of the parent's passport with the correct spelling; if no such passport exists, the parent changes theirs first or publishes in the Gazette.

Date and place of birth

A wrong date of birth is corrected only on a declaratory order of a First Class Magistrate in India and a new registered Indian birth certificate attested by the MEA in Delhi; a wrong place of birth on the attested birth certificate. Neither is tatkal, both go to India, and both take months. Someone born before 15 August 1947 in what is now Pakistan selects "Undivided India".

Signature and appearance

A changed signature is the old specimen and the new one on plain paper; a changed appearance is the notarised affidavit with a photograph. Both are excluded from tatkal (a child's appearance excepted), and both become the new record in the new booklet.

The police verification that follows

Any change of name, and most changes of Indian address, send the file for a report from the police station for the Indian address on record — keep that address with someone who will answer the door and the phone, and do not pay the tatkal surcharge on a change-of-name file: the consulate will refuse the category and keep the fee.

A child's application has three rules of its own: both parents sign and consent, the passport lasts five years (or until 18), and since the Citizenship (Amendment) Rules 2026, notified on 30 April 2026, a minor may not hold an Indian passport and a foreign one at any time.

A baby born in Canada to Indian parents

Here Canada sits with the United States and almost nowhere else Indians live: a child born on Canadian soil is a Canadian citizen at birth, whatever the parents' status (the children of foreign diplomats excepted), and is entitled to a Canadian passport from day one. Indian law still allows the child to be registered as a citizen of India by descent under section 4(1) of the Citizenship Act — on the Ministry of Home Affairs' portal (indiancitizenshiponline.nic.in, "registration of birth of a minor child at an Indian consulate"), within one year of the birth; later registrations need the Ministry's approval in Delhi and can take years — and the consulates issue an Indian passport only after that registration, against a declaration signed by both parents that the child has not acquired Canadian nationality and will not apply for Canadian citizenship until 18. Before April 2026 the declaration was made once; it is now a continuing rule, and a Canadian passport taken later ends the Indian one.

So the choice for a Canadian-born baby is binary. Most families take the Canadian passport and an OCI card — the OCI guide covers the child's application — because it gives up nothing the child does not have anyway and keeps the family on one set of rules at the border. The Indian passport is the route for families who expect to move back and want the child's Indian citizenship kept alive until 18, when the Citizenship Act makes the young adult choose. Whichever you choose, choose before the child needs to fly.

If you choose the Indian passport: the provincial birth certificate (the long form, with both parents' names), the registration of birth with the mission (the Toronto consulate's page lists a fee of about C$17, paid by debit card at the consulate — confirm), both parents' passports and their status in Canada with the landing paper or CoPR, the parents' marriage certificate, Annexure D — the consent of both parents, signed by both — the Canadian address proof, and two 51 × 51 mm photographs of the baby: eyes open, white background, nobody's hands in the frame, which takes patience and a white sheet. A fresh passport for a child up to eight gets the 10 per cent discount: C$116 plus BLS's C$1.70. The consulate may ask to see the child.

Renewing a child's passport

The child's current passport, the child's status in Canada (PR card, study permit or visitor record) with the landing paper, both parents' passports, status and landing papers, Annexure D again, a parent's address proof, two photographs, and the form signed by the child under the photograph and by both parents on the last page, in the signatures their own passports show. A child of 15 to 17 may take a ten-year passport at the adult fee under the normal category only — a tatkal passport for a minor runs only to the eighteenth birthday. A child's passport comes only as a 36-page booklet.

One parent, or parents apart

Where only one parent can sign, the mission's Annexure C — a declaration by the applying parent — replaces the joint consent, with a death certificate where a parent has died, or with the divorce certificate and the custody order. Two Canadian peculiarities. A parent who is in India and has never landed in Canada signs a no-objection affidavit before an Indian notary or lawyer (in any other country, a notarised no-objection), with copies of both parents' passports. And — the one that surprises families — a Canadian court's custody order is not recognised for a child of a marriage solemnised in India; the consulates want an Indian court's order, or both parents' consent on Annexure D, and say so in capitals. A child whose parents are separated or divorced is excluded from tatkal, so plan the renewal early.

School and the five-year clock

A child's Indian passport expires between school years with no warning; the renewal takes the same weeks as an adult's and goes for verification less often. Renew in the spring, before the summer trip to India, and before any study-permit or dependant work-permit extension that will be dated to the child's passport.

Two things decide the wait: whether the consulate can re-issue on its own records, and whether the Indian police have to confirm something first. A third, peculiar to Canada, is which of the three missions holds your file — their published times are not the same.

The published timelines

Add three or four working days for a postal file to be logged, and the courier each way. Printing happens in India — the booklets are printed centrally and shipped — which is why "granted" is followed by a fortnight of silence. The eight weeks is what BLS commits to in 2026 and the honest planning number; many clean files finish sooner, and none should be booked against.

What triggers police verification

A re-issue with no change, on a passport the mission can see on its system, is granted on file. The file goes for a report from the police station for the Indian address on record when there is a change of name, Indian address or appearance, when the passport is lost or stolen, when a child gets a first passport, when the previous passport was issued in India before the central database and the particulars cannot be matched, when it expired more than three years ago, or when an officer sees a discrepancy between the form and the record. This is why the form asks for an Indian address and proof of it: give the address of a relative or friend who knows to expect the visit and the call, send them a copy of your passport and the ARN, and keep the Indian mobile number on the form live. A long-closed address, a flat the family has sold, a village with nobody home: those are the files that take a quarter. The police clearance certificate, three sections on, is the same report by another name.

Tatkal

Tatkal — "Tatkaal" on BLS's pages — is a re-issue with priority at the consulate for C$349 instead of C$176 (36 pages; C$301 for a child), open to anyone in the jurisdiction with a valid passport and valid status in Canada. The Toronto consulate's list of who cannot use it is long and specific: a lost, stolen or damaged passport; anyone on implied or maintained status, or whose permit has expired; any change of personal particulars, including adding or deleting a spouse's or a parent's name; a change of name, signature, appearance, sex, date or place of birth; renewal of a short-validity passport; an adopted applicant; a minor whose parents are separated or divorced; and a fresh passport or a 60-page booklet of any kind. Vancouver applies the same exclusions and adds a gate: you email ppt.vancouver@mea.gov.in with scans of the passport's first and last pages, two Indian photo IDs, your Canadian status and a letter explaining the emergency, and apply only once the consulate says yes — BLS Vancouver's checklist tells you to select "Normal" because it does not process tatkal. Ottawa does not offer tatkal; the BLS Ottawa page says so flatly. No consulate refunds the surcharge if the file turns out to need verification, and the Toronto consulate's definition of an emergency is the death or critical illness of immediate family; a booked holiday, in its words, "will not be considered".

Short-validity passports

A consulate issues a short-validity passport — two years, or six months — to someone whose status in Canada is not settled: a visitor, a super-visa parent, someone whose permit extension is pending, a US green-card holder stranded by illness. Once the status is granted the passport is upgraded with a fresh application at the full fee; renewal of a short-validity passport is never tatkal.

Tracking and asking

The portal shows the status by ARN; BLS answers on the physical file (the Brampton helpline, or the tracking page); the consulate's passport desk answers on the decision — Toronto through the query form on its site, which refuses status enquiries, Vancouver at ppt.vancouver@mea.gov.in, the High Commission through its consular wing — and the MADAD portal is the formal grievance route when a file is stuck past the published time. Asking BLS about the consulate's decision, or the consulate about BLS's envelope, is the wrong door in each case.

A lost Indian passport in Canada is two months of admin and double the fee, not a crisis — unless you are flying on Saturday, in which case it is also a crisis, because tatkal is not available for a lost passport, whatever the tatkal line in BLS's fee table suggests.

Lost or stolen

1. Report it to the local police — Toronto Police, Peel Regional Police, the RCMP detachment, the Service de police de la Ville de Montréal, whoever covers the place it was lost; most take a lost-property report online — and get the report with the passport number in it: the consulates reject a report that does not name the passport. Some police services do not hand the report to you but will send it to the consulate (toronto@mea.gov.in, for Toronto's jurisdiction); you then write to the consulate, with your name and passport number, to have it released, and may be charged for it.
2. Tell the consulate by email the same day, so the passport is cancelled on the system: a lost Indian passport used by someone else is your problem until it is. If the passport turns up after a lost-item report has been filed, do not use it; apply for a new one.
3. Apply for a re-issue "in lieu of lost passport" on the portal and at BLS, with the police report, Annexure F (the declaration of loss, in the portal's format), a covering letter to the mission explaining how it was lost, a copy of the lost passport if you have one — photograph every passport's bio page the day you get it — your Canadian status (the permit is on IRCC's system; a student adds a current enrolment letter), the landing paper for a PR, and the standard address proofs and photographs. The High Commission in Ottawa wants a lost-passport application in person, not by post; Toronto and Vancouver take it at any centre.
4. Pay the higher fee — C$349 for 36 pages, C$419 for 60, C$301 for a child, each plus BLS's C$1.70 — and expect the file to go to India for confirmation of the lost passport's particulars and a report at the Indian address, which puts it in the months-long timeline. The new passport comes with a new number and full validity.

Damaged

A passport that has been through the washing machine, is torn, has a loose page, has been written on or laminated is a damaged-passport re-issue: the same route, the damaged passport handed in, Annexure F and the covering letter, and the lost-passport fee. Toronto's older schedule drew a line between a passport damaged "but with recognisable details" and one damaged beyond recognition, and only the second had to be verified from India; let the consulate decide which yours is rather than pre-paying the wrong one. Peeling lamination alone is not damage — the consulate fixes it on a working day.

Urgent travel: the Emergency Certificate

The Emergency Certificate is a one-way travel document to India, valid for the single journey. The Toronto consulate's description of who it is for is precise: an Indian national who cannot be issued a passport — because police verification from India is pending, because a passport has been refused, impounded or revoked, or because they no longer hold a valid permit to stay in Canada — and must return home. It is applied for at the consulate itself, between 9:30 and 12:00 on any working day, never at BLS and never by post, with the printed online form, copies of the first and last pages of the last passport, two photographs, proof of the Canadian address and of an Indian address, and a letter explaining the circumstances; the fee is paid by money order or bank draft to the consulate (US$17 in the MEA's schedule since July 2026 — about C$24; the consulate quotes the Canadian figure). If you hold valid status and have simply lost your passport, the Emergency Certificate is not the designed route; the route is the lost-passport re-issue and a letter to the passport desk about the bereavement or the illness, which the consulates do act on case by case. An Emergency Certificate does not bring you back: you apply for the new passport at a Passport Seva Kendra in India and return on that — with a new Canadian visa if the old one was in the lost booklet.

Lost abroad

A passport lost in India is replaced in India, at a Passport Seva Kendra, with the police report there; your Canadian visa counterfoil, if it was in the lost booklet, is gone with it and has to be applied for again (C$100) before you can board. A passport lost in a third country goes to the Indian mission there for an Emergency Certificate home — to India, not to Canada.

After a loss

Tell the bank, the employer and IRCC (the permit on file names the old passport); keep the police reference with the new passport, because the next renewal's form asks for the previous passport's details and the lost one's number is still the answer; and if the lost booklet carried your Canadian visa, budget the time for a new one before the next trip.

The new booklet is the beginning of a list, and in Canada the first item is the one that costs people their status.

1. Extend the permit that the old passport cut short. Your work permit, study permit or visitor record was dated to the old passport's expiry, and it still is. Apply from inside Canada — C$155 for a work permit (plus C$100 if it is an open permit), C$150 for a study permit, C$100 for a visitor record — at least 30 days before the permit's date, uploading the new passport; you keep working or studying on maintained status while IRCC decides. If an employer-specific permit was shortened only because of the passport, the LMIA question is where advisers differ: one reading of IRCC's instructions is that the permit can be re-issued for the balance of the LMIA's period without a fresh LMIA, others tell workers to expect a new one — ask the employer's adviser before you file, and the jobs guide explains what an LMIA costs an employer in 2026. A permit that has already expired is a restoration: C$246.25 on top of the permit fee, inside the window IRCC allows, and no work in between.
2. The visa counterfoil stays in the old passport, and stays valid. The temporary resident visa in the cancelled booklet is good until its own expiry — the Toronto consulate's FAQ and every university's immigration page say the same thing — and you travel with both passports: the officer reads the visa in one and admits you on the other. Do not cut the visa page out. When the visa expires (it was probably dated to the old passport too), the new one is C$100. The eTA does not apply to Indian citizens; the counterfoil is the document that matters.
3. Your SIN has a new expiry date to match. A Social Insurance Number that begins with 9 expires on the same date as the permit; once the extension is granted, take the new permit to Service Canada (or apply online) to extend the SIN, and destroy the old confirmation. You may keep working on the expired SIN while the permit extension is pending, on maintained status.
4. The provincial health card. A temporary resident's OHIP, MSP or AHCIP coverage is issued against the permit; when the permit is extended, bring the new permit to ServiceOntario, Health Insurance BC or the Alberta registry so the coverage is not cut off at the old date — Ontario's renewal page asks for your most recent immigration document whenever your status has changed. A permanent resident's card is unaffected.
5. The PR card is unaffected. It carries no passport number and expires on its own five-year clock. The next renewal (C$50, through the Permanent Residence Portal) asks for a copy of your passport or travel document, so renew the passport before the card.
6. Express Entry and anything pending at IRCC. An Express Entry profile, a PR application, a citizenship application: each holds the old passport's number, issue date and expiry. Update the profile, and send the new passport to a pending application through IRCC's web form, so the next request for a passport copy does not find an expired one.
7. Banks, brokers and the CRA. Canadian banks that hold your passport for identity want the new copy; so do the NRE/NRO account, the demat account and the mutual-fund KYC in India, where an expired passport means a frozen account on a visit home. The CRA holds no passport. Aadhaar and PAN do not change with the passport; Aadhaar's name can be updated online if the name changed.
8. NEXUS. A permanent resident with a NEXUS card updates the passport in the Trusted Traveler Programs account before the next crossing.
9. Keep the cancelled old passport, always. It carries the visas and entry stamps that prove your history in Canada — the citizenship application asks for every passport you have held in the eligibility period and every trip outside Canada — and any valid Canadian visa in it is still the one you travel on. After the visa expires, it goes in the safe, not the bin.
10. The calendar entries: passport expiry minus twelve months, "renew Indian passport", and for a child, expiry minus six; and a second entry at the permit's expiry minus sixty days, because the permit does not renew itself when the passport does.

If you became a Canadian citizen since

A citizenship certificate means the Indian passport is surrendered, not renewed: the OCI guide sets out the surrender certificate (C$59 plus BLS's C$1.70), the renunciation declaration, and the penalty schedule for a passport kept or used after the oath — which the consulates say cannot be waived or reduced. Do not travel to India on the Indian passport after the ceremony; the penalty is counted per journey.

BLS and the portal handle more than the booklet, and several of these come up at the same time as a renewal — one of them, the police clearance certificate, is on the critical path of almost every permanent-residence file.

ECR and ECNR

Every Indian passport is either ECR (Emigration Check Required — for work in the countries, mostly in the Gulf, where India requires a clearance from the Protector of Emigrants) or ECNR. Anyone with a matriculation (tenth-standard) certificate or above, every minor, anyone over 50 and every income-tax payer with an established income is ECNR, in the Toronto consulate's list; if your passport still says ECR, add the certificate to the renewal and the new booklet comes out ECNR at no extra fee. It matters for nothing in Canada and a great deal if you are ever posted to Dubai.

Police clearance certificate — the IRCC one

IRCC wants a police certificate from every country you lived in for six months or more in a row since turning 18, within the last ten years, for a permanent-residence application — so almost every Indian applying through Express Entry or a provincial nomination needs an Indian PCC, and the one from the country you live in now must be issued no more than six months before you submit. From Canada the PCC is applied for on the same portal and at BLS, for C$59 plus C$1.70, against the passport, status and address copies and a photograph; Canadian citizens who once lived in India apply too, with proof of the period of stay (pcc.toronto@mea.gov.in approves the file where documents are missing). The consulates are candid about the time: Toronto says around eight weeks minimum, Vancouver four to six, Ottawa two weeks after the police report arrives — and all three say the certificate issues only on a clear report from the police in India, "which may take several months". With a 60-day window after an invitation to apply, that is a problem: apply the day you create the Express Entry profile, not the day the invitation lands, and if it has not come, IRCC accepts a letter of explanation with proof of the request — the BLS receipt, the ARN — and decides whether you were diligent. A PCC from India itself, through a Passport Seva Kendra, is the alternative for someone visiting home; it is the same police report.

The surrender certificate

For the newly Canadian, handled at the same desk — C$59 plus BLS, the last Indian passport physically surrendered (no certificate without it; a lost one gets a renunciation certificate instead), eight weeks in Toronto and three to four in Ottawa, the penalty for a passport retained or used after the oath assessed on the file and, in the consulates' words, not waivable; there is no penalty for someone who took foreign nationality before 1 January 2005 whose last Indian passport also expired before then. The OCI guide covers it in full, and explains why the certificate is the first document the OCI application asks for.

Attestations and the apostille

Canada joined the Hague Apostille Convention on 11 January 2024, and India is a member, so a Canadian document for use in India — a degree, a marriage certificate, a power of attorney to sell a flat in Pune — is apostilled by the issuing province where it runs its own apostille office, or by Global Affairs Canada, and the Toronto consulate's page says an apostilled Canadian document needs no further attestation from the mission. The consulates still attest a power of attorney or an affidavit executed in front of them, which is the format a sub-registrar in India trusts most; BLS books it as an attestation service. Life certificates for pensioners and attestations are requested from the mission directly, Vancouver's page notes, not through BLS.

Registration of birth

A child born in Canada to Indian parents is registered as an Indian citizen by descent under section 4(1) on the Ministry of Home Affairs' portal within one year of the birth — the step before the first Indian passport, if that is the choice, and the children's section sets out what the 2026 one-passport rule makes of it. BLS's counter will do the online registration for you for a nominal charge; the consulate completes it.

The Emergency Certificate, the certificate of identity and the rest

The one-way Emergency Certificate (previous section) and the Certificate of Identity for someone whose nationality is in doubt are the mission's own, not BLS's. A "certificate based on passport" when an Indian authority wants the mission to confirm what the booklet already says, a certificate of date of birth, a no-objection certificate, the Global Entry background verification for a frequent flyer to the United States: the same desk, each with its own BLS checklist and its line in the fee schedule.

Your mission is fixed by the postal code of the address you prove, not by convenience. Three missions share Canada, and the lines are not provincial: Montreal's BLS centre reports to Ottawa, Quebec City's residents to Toronto, and an Ontario address with a K postal code — Kingston, Cornwall, Brockville — to the High Commission rather than the consulate down the 401. A file lodged in the wrong jurisdiction is returned unprocessed, and the fee is not.

Twelve centres, all open 8:00 to 4:00, Monday to Saturday, submissions until 2:30 and collections from 3:00; the western centres take Saturday files by appointment only. The Calgary and Edmonton addresses are new in 2026 — the older guides still print the previous ones — and the Brampton hub moved from 40 to 60 Gillingham Drive, which matters if you are copying an address from a 2023 forum post onto a Purolator label.

Where the envelope goes, and who decides

A postal file goes to the hub for your mission's jurisdiction — Brampton, Surrey or Ottawa — never to the consulate, which accepts nothing by post except what it says it does (the Emergency Certificate, in person only). A walk-in file can be lodged at any centre in the jurisdiction: a Winnipeg resident can hand in at Toronto while visiting; a Regina resident cannot hand in at Winnipeg, because Winnipeg is Toronto's and Regina is Vancouver's. Whatever the centre, the decision is made at the mission, not at BLS — BLS's own checklist says it "has no say" in whether a passport is granted — and the passport is printed in India.

The people who can actually move a file

The consulate's passport desk answers on the decision — Toronto through the query form on its site (status enquiries excluded, answers within a day), Vancouver at ppt.vancouver@mea.gov.in, Ottawa through its consular wing; BLS answers on the envelope, the appointment and the tracking, on 289 498 1320; and MADAD is the grievance route after the published time has passed. The groups in each city carry last month's experience — which centre has appointments this week, how long Surrey took in August, whether Ottawa really is eight weeks — and the Indians in Canada page has the community around each of them: the events, the groups, the businesses and the city pages.

Mistakes

• The photograph. The Canadian passport size, glasses, a shadow, a grey background, a photo older than six months, or a print that is not the image you uploaded. 51 × 51 mm, white, recent, identical; 630 × 810 pixels online.
• The form filled from memory. The place of birth, the parents' names and the previous passport's details must match the current booklet to the letter; "Bombay" stays "Bombay". The consulate cannot change what you typed, and a mistake on the printed booklet is a second renewal under "change in personal particulars" at a second fee.
• An ampersand in the address. Special characters in the address fields print as errors on the booklet; spell "and".
• The missing landing paper. A permanent resident who brings the PR card and not the CoPR or landing record showing the immigration category is sent home to find it; Toronto calls it mandatory, and no other document stands in except an old PR card or an IM-1 stamp that shows the category.
• The wrong jurisdiction. A Kingston address at Brampton, a Montreal one at Toronto, a Quebec City one at Ottawa: all returned. The postal code decides.
• The wrong fee. Since 1 July 2026 a postal file with the old amount is refused outright; a draft for the exact new total, payable to BLS International Services Canada Inc., or a second trip to the post office.
• The return envelope. No prepaid self-addressed envelope, or one addressed to a PO box, and the finished passport sits in Brampton or Surrey until you sort it.
• Applying with travel booked. The passport is away for eight weeks or more; a trip inside that window means tatkal if you qualify, and nothing if you do not.
• Undeclared changes. A new Indian address, a beard, a surname taken at marriage — declared, they are a longer process; undeclared, they are a refused file and a second fee.
• Blue ink, a signature outside the box, one parent's signature on a child's form, a stapled file, copies not self-attested. The counter sends all of these home.
• Renewing the passport and forgetting the permit. The permit still ends on the old passport's date. The worker who renewed the passport, kept working and never extended the permit is the commonest "out of status by accident" story in the Canadian forums — and a restoration at C$246.25 plus the permit fee, with no work in between, is the cheap version of how it ends.

Scams

• "BLS agents" and "consultants" on WhatsApp, Instagram, Kijiji and Facebook offering appointments, "priority processing" or a document check for a fee, often with the BLS logo on the profile. The consulate has authorised no agent; an application is lodged by the applicant or a close family member with an authority letter, and travel agents and solicitors are not permitted to submit one. BLS warns about people outside its centres claiming to be BLS staff: its officers work inside the office, and its appointments are free.
• "Passport Seva" look-alike sites ending in .com, .ca or .org, which charge to fill the free form and sometimes for nothing. The portal is passportindia.gov.in; the logistics site is blsindia-canada.com.
• "High Commission" phone calls and emails — the High Commission published an advisory on 18 March 2025 — from callers claiming to be officials in Ottawa, Toronto or Vancouver, about your "visa or immigration status", a "job offer" or a "fee to be repaid", demanding money, or your passport number and date of birth, to avoid deportation or arrest. The missions "do not make such calls or communications". Hang up; report it to the police and the Canadian Anti-Fraud Centre (1-888-495-8501, or reportcyberandfraud.canada.ca).
• Courier texts asking for a "customs fee" or a "redelivery fee" to release your passport: Purolator and BLS do not collect fees by text link. Track the real number on the real site.
• Agents promising tatkal for an excluded case, "no police verification", or a name change without the three years' residence: the agent fills the form; the consulate decides on the facts, and the fee is not refunded.

Things nobody tells you

• The consulates print nothing in Canada: booklets are printed in India and shipped, which is why "granted" is followed by a fortnight of silence.
• A renewal can be done while a permit extension or a PR application is pending at IRCC; the new passport is simply the one you upload to the file when it arrives. Tell your representative the new number.
• The cancelled old passport comes back in the same envelope; if it does not, write to BLS the same day, because the Canadian visa in it is the one you travel on.
• The consulate's fee is the consulate's; the BLS charge, the courier and the photographs are BLS's; a refund of one never includes the others — and the consular fee is not refunded at all once the file is in.
• Children's renewals are the ones families forget, and the study-permit extension for a child with an expired Indian passport is the renewal everyone then does in a hurry.
• The same process from the United States is described in the US passport-renewal guide — the dollar schedule is the one Canada's table is converted from, the logistics are not — and from Britain in the UK one. Every guide for Indians abroad is at /indians-in; the Indians in Canada page has the events, groups, businesses and city pages, the events listings and the Indian businesses directory have the rest of Indo-Canadian life, and the groups have whoever renewed last week.