How To Check Your Immigration Consultant Is Authorized

Last Updated On : March 12 , 2024

When embarking on the journey of Canadian immigration in 2024, having a reliable and authorised consultant by your side is crucial. "To ensure that your chosen immigration consultant is legitimate," it's essential to check their RCIC (Regulated Canadian Immigration Consultant) licence number.

Before starting the process, you should check that your application is being processed with a licensed RCIC consultant. At the same time, there are various steps to check that your RCIC licence number is valid and active.

However, before checking, you must be aware of CICC (College of Immigration and Citizenship Consultants) and how you can use their website to check the status of your immigration consultant.

CICC Registration Check

A regulated CICC consultant undergoes rigorous training and has to qualify in many examinations before being able to practice this profession as a consultant. The RCIC is evaluated in how they conduct themselves and by complying with a set of codes of professional conduct.

As per federal law, if a person living in Canada or abroad is not registered with CICC, then it is illegal for him to offer service as an immigration consultant and charge a fee for aspiring immigrants.

Is it safe to start your immigration process with a CICC member?
It is very important to process with a licensed immigration consultant whom CICC authorises. The certified immigration consultants are members of CICC. It is the best way to go through a fast, secure visa process.

These consultants will ensure the processing of your application is fool-proof, which means you have a lower chance of being rejected and reducing the processing time.

Certified CICC member list:

An immigrant consultant authorised and registered by CICC is referred to as an RCIC (Regulated Canadian Immigration Consultant), and you can check their details, such as college ID number, Canadian Provinces, and other details on CICC website.

CICC chooses the consultants based on their potential to practise being a consultant. It maintains the registry of all registered consultants. Regulated International Student Immigration Advisors (RISIA) is an international student advisor registered with CICC.

To avoid immigration fraud and look for a genuine immigration consultant, you can follow these steps.

STEP 1. CICC Registration

To check for the authenticity of the consultant and whether they are registered with CICC, you can visit the CICC website. Fill in their RCIC’s name, registration number, and company name or location to determine whether they have an immigration professional page.

Make sure your immigration consultant licence number is active.
There are two methods to check :

Alphabetic list of RCICs
Advanced RCIC Search

Licensed RCICs with relevant Provinces :

The Canadian government has a CICC member list. However, if you want to check an immigration consultant in a particular province, you can use the advanced search feature of the CICC website. Suppose you’re a skilled worker or an international student in Halifax on a study or work permit, and you want to settle in Canada permanently.

In that case, you may be searching for an immigration consultant near you to help you obtain your permanent residency as soon as possible. In this case, you can use the advanced feature to find an RCIC in your area.

Check Status With RCIC Number:

Some of you may have already begun the immigration process or are planning to do so, but it’s important to ensure your immigration consultant is legitimate. You can visit their website or ask them about their RCIC License Number to verify their authenticity.

For Paul Abraham Immigration Consultant (PAIC), our immigration consultant Paul Abraham has RCIC License No. R406367.

Visit the CICC website, go to Advance RCIC search, and enter the RCIC number. The results will show that your immigration consultant is legit.

STEP 2. Check IRCC Representative Portal:

An applicant can check the authorization of your immigration consultant through the IRCC (Immigration, Refugees and Citizenship Canada) Representative Portal.

The APR portal allows RCICs to submit and manage applications on behalf of clients.

If you are applying with a licensed RCIC, you can go through the portal and track your account status, including details like application tracking, documentation, appointments or interviews.

STEP 3. Not having a company email ID

Make sure your consultant has a valid email id for his firm like xyz@companyname. And not a commonly used email ID from Gmail or Yahoo like companyname@gmail.com

STEP 4. Payment via chat apps

A certified immigration consultant’s transactions will be foolproof. Payments are primarily communicated through email, and you will receive an acknowledgment of the payment.

If the communication of the payments is done via chat apps like WhatsApp, with no acknowledgment given for your payment. Then stay away from those consultants.

STEP 5. Take a closer look at the website

Beware of fraud websites of a fraud consultant. They might look impressive and attractive to you. Take a close look, sometimes domain names may not be the same as the actual company name, they might not have provided contact information, and the no information of the company representative. Check for domain security. There might not be a padlock in the URL section.

An immigration consultant can cost you peace of mind, money, and your career. Do proper research on immigration consultants before dealing with them. Be very careful with whom you are dealing with a fraud. An immigration consultant can cost you peace of mind, money, and your career. Do proper research on immigration consultants before dealing with them.

Speak to a Canadian Immigration Consultant

Should I Hire A Canadian Immigration Consultant?

It is not mandatory to hire an immigrant consultant or a certified immigration lawyer to assist you and represent you in the process of Canadian immigration application. You can do it by yourself.
You might require an Immigration Consultant only in these cases.

If you don’t want to waste your time filling the forms and documents or do not understand the process not so confident enough to do it by yourself.
If you are applying through a complex immigration program.
If you have records of crime in the past.
If your application has been rejected previously.

Conclusion

Immigration, Refugees and Citizenship Canada (IRCC) has introduced the updated immigration plan for 2024 to 2026 with increased targets. With the updated category-based express entry draws and new skilled occupations added to NOC codes, many skilled workers and international students are looking to move to Canada in 2024.

Thus, a person who is registered as RCIC can be trusted for his quality service as the Canadian and provincial governments have approved him/her. Our RCIC, Mr. Paul Abraham, has been a player in this particular aspect. Thus, he is the best person to guide you through the entire process. The PAIC team takes care of your immigration application from scratch till the end.