How to verify your immigration consultant is licensed

Every year, people hand their savings — and worse, their honest chance at Canada — to someone who was never allowed to represent them in the first place. The industry has a name for them: ghost consultants. They take payment, file nothing or file badly, and disappear. The application that follows carries their mistakes under your name.

Here is the part almost nobody tells you: checking takes two minutes, and it’s free.

Who can legally represent you

In Canada, only three kinds of people can charge a fee to represent you on an immigration application:

• A Regulated Canadian Immigration Consultant (RCIC) — licensed by the College of Immigration and Citizenship Consultants (CICC)
• A lawyer in good standing with a provincial or territorial law society
• A Québec notary, for matters in Québec

Anyone else charging you for representation — an “agency,” an “advisor,” a family friend with experience, an overseas office with a Canadian flag in the logo — is acting illegally, and IRCC can refuse or investigate applications connected to unauthorized representatives.

The two-minute check

1. Ask for the licence number. Every RCIC has one, and legitimate consultants print it on their website, their retainer agreement and their email signature. Ours is in the footer of every page on this site. Hesitation to give a number is the answer.
2. Search the CICC public register. The College maintains a public register of every licensed consultant in Canada. Search by the number, not just the name — names repeat, numbers don’t.
3. Check the status. The register shows whether the licence is active and in good standing, or suspended or revoked. Active is the only acceptable answer.

Do this for us. Do it for anyone. A consultant who earns their living honestly will encourage you to check — it’s the cheapest trust they’ll ever build.

Red flags that should end the conversation

• “Guaranteed visa. 100% success.” The College’s code of conduct prohibits guaranteeing outcomes, because outcomes belong to IRCC officers. A guarantee doesn’t mean they’re confident — it means they’re unlicensed, lying, or both.
• No written agreement. Licensed consultants must use a written retainer agreement that sets out the work and the fees. “Just e-transfer me and we’ll start” is not a process; it’s a disappearance waiting to happen.
• Payment to a personal account with no invoice, no receipt, no paper trail.
• “We have a special contact inside the embassy.” Nobody does. This line has cost families their life savings on every continent.
• They fill your forms with “adjusted” facts. A misrepresentation finding can ban you from Canada for five years. When someone lies for you, they are lying to you about the risk — and you carry all of it.

What a licensed consultant actually owes you

Licensing is not a logo. It comes with obligations that protect you: a written retainer before work begins, professional liability insurance, continuing education on rules that change constantly, a complaints and discipline process you can actually use, and a code of conduct with teeth. If something goes wrong with a licensed consultant, you have recourse. With a ghost, you have a story.

If you’ve already been burned

You’re not alone and it’s not your fault — these operations are polished. Keep every receipt, message and document. You can report unauthorized representatives to the Canada Border Services Agency and file a complaint with the CICC if a licensed consultant behaved badly. And a refusal caused by bad representation is often recoverable with an honest, properly-built reapplication — that conversation costs nothing to start.