South African police clearance for Canada
For Canadian permanent residence and Express Entry, IRCC requires a police certificate from every country you have lived in — and Canada has one rule that makes it simpler than most: no apostille needed.
- Our fee
- R2,450per applicant
- Timeline
- 2–4 weeksSAPS controls it
When IRCC requires a South African PCC
Immigration, Refugees and Citizenship Canada requires a police certificate from every country or territory where you have spent six months or more in a row since the age of 18. For South African applicants to Express Entry, provincial nominee programs and most PR streams, that means a SAPS police clearance for your South African period. Each accompanying family member aged 18 or over needs their own.
Canada does not require an apostille
This is the key difference from the US, UK and Europe. IRCC accepts the original SAPS police clearance certificate directly — it does not ask for an apostille or any further legalisation on the police certificate. That removes a step, a cost and about a week from the process compared with a Hague-legalisation route. You still send us the finished certificate for verification and courier, but there is no DIRCO apostille stage unless another authority in your file specifically asks for one.
Do not over-order. Because Canada needs no apostille, be wary of anyone quoting you an apostille as mandatory for a Canadian PR file — it is not, and paying for one you do not need is money wasted. We will only add legalisation if something in your specific application actually calls for it.
Validity
IRCC generally treats a police certificate as acceptable if it was issued in the correct window relative to your application, and for PR it is usually expected to be recent. Certificates do not have a fixed statutory expiry, but plan on your clearance being no more than six months old at submission. Start around two to three months out.
How we do it
Fingerprints on the SAPS form (locally, in Canada, at a police station or accredited agency), couriered to us, submitted, collected, and returned to your Canadian address (Zone 3 courier, R1,050). Detail on applying from abroad.