Blog Post.
A departure order is the least severe of Canada’s three removal orders, and it gives you 30 days to leave the country and have your exit verified by the Canada Border Services Agency. Kingwell Immigration Law acts for people at every stage of a departure order, from the day it is issued to the day it quietly turns into something far worse.
That conversion is the part most people miss. If you do not complete both steps inside the window, the departure order becomes a deportation order on its own, with no hearing, no warning letter, and no officer decision.
A departure order is a removal order that lets you leave Canada on your own terms and return later without asking permission first. That is what separates it from an exclusion order, which imposes a fixed bar, and from a deportation order, which bars you until the Minister says otherwise.
All three are removal orders under the Immigration and Refugee Protection Act, and all three require you to leave. The difference lies in what happens after you go.
Order type | Time to leave | Bar on returning | Written authorization to return |
Departure order | 30 days from the date it becomes enforceable | None, if you comply in full | Not required, if you comply in full |
Exclusion order | As directed once enforceable | 1 year, or 5 years for misrepresentation | Required during the bar period |
Deportation order | As directed once enforceable | Indefinite | Always required |
A departure order that is properly enforced leaves you free to apply for a new visitor visa, study permit, or work permit on the ordinary rules. The order itself does not make you inadmissible.
The label on your paperwork is not always the label your circumstances warrant, and we read the order alongside the ground it was issued on before advising you on anything else.
💡 Additional reading: For a side-by-side breakdown of how these orders differ in practice, see our guide on removal order vs deportation order.
Departure orders go most often to refugee claimants, and to permanent residents found not to have met their residency obligation. They also reach temporary residents who have overstayed a permit or otherwise fallen out of status.
Three bodies can issue one:
The ground of inadmissibility, not the officer’s discretion, decides which of the types of removal orders you receive. The Regulations prescribe a departure order for some grounds and a more serious order for others.
We can tell you which route produced your order and whether the ground it rests on is itself open to challenge.
The 30 days do not run from the date printed on the order, which is where most people go wrong. They run from the day the order becomes enforceable, and for many people that is a considerably later date than the one they have been counting from.
The chain from issuance to conversion runs in six stages:
Stage two is where the branching happens, and which branch applies to you depends on your status and how your order arose. We work this out on the file before anything else, because every later date is calculated from it.
The order comes into force on the day it is made, so there is no built-in grace period. Your 30 days begin immediately, which is why a departure order handed to you across a counter at an inland office is far more urgent than it looks.
The order comes into force the day after your appeal period expires, if you file no appeal. If you do appeal, it comes into force on the day a final determination confirms the removal order, so a permanent resident with a live appeal keeps their status throughout.
Your departure order was issued on the day you made the claim, and it stayed conditional while your claim was decided. It generally comes into force 15 days after notice that the Refugee Protection Division or Refugee Appeal Division rejected your claim, or that it was declared abandoned.
Withdrawal works differently. A claim determined to be withdrawn brings the order into force on the day notice is provided, with no 15-day cushion at all.
The Regulations suspend the 30-day period in two situations:
Working out your real deadline means reading the order, the notice, and any stay together. That calculation is one of the first things we do on a new removal file, and we would rather do it before your date passes than afterwards.
Leaving Canada is only one of three things you have to do. The Regulations treat a removal order as enforced only when all three are complete, and skipping any one of them carries the same consequence as never leaving at all.
The three steps are:
We can arrange the verification appointment, confirm the certificate was issued correctly, and hold a copy on your file so the proof exists long after the flight.
This is the single most common way that voluntary compliance turns into a permanent problem. People leave Canada well inside their 30 days, believe they have done everything asked of them, and never speak to a CBSA officer on the way out of the country.
Boarding a flight is not verification. Airline records, an entry stamp from another country, and a boarding pass are evidence of travel, not evidence that a Canadian officer verified your removal.
Immigration, Refugees and Citizenship Canada is explicit on this point: you escape the authorization requirement only if you left within the 30 days and you hold a Certificate of Departure showing the date you left. One without the other is not enough.
Where someone did leave in time but the paperwork never caught up, there is often a record to correct, and we can take that argument to the department on your behalf.
Under section 224 of the Immigration and Refugee Protection Regulations, a departure order becomes a deportation order if the three enforcement steps are not completed within 30 days of the order becoming enforceable. Officers sometimes call this a deemed deportation, because it happens by operation of law.
Once the order has converted, it does not convert back. Leaving Canada afterwards enforces a deportation order rather than a departure order, and the consequences that follow are the deportation order’s, not the ones you were originally given.
A converted order is not a closed file. We can advise you on where the conversion leaves you and what relief is realistically still available.
An enforced departure order relieves you of the requirement to obtain an Authorization to Return to Canada, often called an ARC. A deportation order does not, and that single difference is worth far more than most people realize while they are counting the days on a calendar.
An ARC is not a formality. You have to satisfy an officer that you have compelling reasons to return, weighed against the circumstances that produced the removal order in the first place, and there is no fixed period after which the requirement simply expires.
You may also remain inadmissible on some separate ground, such as criminality or misrepresentation, which is assessed independently of the removal order.
Our team prepares ARC applications and the inadmissibility submissions that often have to travel with them, so the two are argued together rather than in sequence.
Some people genuinely cannot comply, and the law recognizes several routes for them. Which route fits depends on your status, the ground of inadmissibility, and how much time is left on the clock.
The main options are:
Filing something is not the same as protecting your position, because only detention or an actual stay suspends the period. We will tell you which of these routes your facts actually support, and we will say so plainly when the answer is none of them.
Permanent residents are the group most likely to receive a departure order without recognizing what it is. If you are found not to have met the 730-day residency obligation, the order issued against you is a departure order, and your status continues only while an appeal is available or ongoing.
The moment that order comes into force, you cease to be a permanent resident. You become a foreign national, and the 30-day rule begins to apply to you like anyone else.
This is the kind of file Daniel Kingwell built his practice around. As he puts it, “I’m sort of the fire department.”
Our case results include a residency obligation appeal of exactly this type:
Family from Iran allowed to remain in Canada after appeal to Immigration Appeal Division. Family of permanent residents from Iran. After acquiring PR status, they were only in Canada for a few weeks to a year in their first four years, and so IRCC issued removal orders against them for failure to meet their residency obligation. We successfully appealed the decision to the Immigration Appeal Division, explaining that Canada would benefit from their professional experience, and they would suffer hardship in Iran, in particular the children who faced disruption of their education and required military service. They were allowed to remain in Canada as permanent residents.
J.R. v Minister of Citizenship and Immigration (2018 CanLII 54731)
Every case turns on its own facts, and past results do not predict future ones. What the file does show is that a departure order arising from a residency finding is an argument we are prepared to run.
You should not have to work out which date your clock started, whether an officer verified your exit properly, or which remedy fits your circumstances. That is our job, and we do it for people whose orders were issued yesterday and for people whose orders converted years ago.
We are a Toronto firm of three lawyers and three registered consultants, and we act on removal and enforcement matters for clients right across Canada. Meetings and tribunal appearances are conducted remotely, so where you live does not limit who can represent you.
We never apply a one size fits all approach, because two departure orders with the same date on them can call for completely different strategies. Daniel Kingwell has practised immigration law since 2001 and holds the Law Society of Ontario Certified Specialist designation in Citizenship and Immigration Law.
We will tell you honestly what your position is, what can still be done, and how quickly it has to happen.
A departure order does not override criminal proceedings, and an outstanding charge, bail condition, or family court order can legally prevent you from leaving Canada within your 30 days. Kingwell Immigration Law coordinates with the CBSA and your criminal counsel so compliance with one process does not breach another.
No, you pay for your own flight when you leave Canada under a departure order, which is one practical advantage over removal that the CBSA arranges and later bills you for. Kingwell Immigration Law can advise on timing so your booking and departure verification align.
A departure order names one person and applies only to that person, so your Canadian citizen or permanent resident spouse and children are not removed with you. Kingwell Immigration Law can assess whether family circumstances support a deferral request, stay motion, or later sponsorship from abroad.
You may only work or study during the 30 days after a departure order if you still hold a valid permit, which is unlikely where the order was issued because your status expired. Kingwell Immigration Law can confirm whether restoration or a bridging option remains open.
You can ask the CBSA to confirm your removal record, and a visa office can sometimes verify enforcement from its own systems where the Certificate of Departure is lost. Kingwell Immigration Law makes that request for you and corrects records showing an unenforced departure order.
