Canada Passport Not Back After 3 Weeks From VFS? What the Data Shows
Most Canadian visa passports handed in at VFS India now come back in about two weeks. If yours has been away for three weeks or more, you are in the slow group. It is a small group, but a real one: at most centres, about 1 in 10 recent passports took longer than 20 days.
These figures come from Blue Dart's public tracking of 53,764 Canadian visa passports that VFS India sent back between 6 July and 17 October 2026. The wait is counted from the day you handed your passport in at VFS (the date at the start of your tracking ID) to the day VFS sends it back by Blue Dart.
How many passports take longer
For each week of hand-ins, this site records three markers: how long the fastest tenth took, how long half took, and how long 9 in 10 took. The last one is the line that matters if you are waiting. Whatever is past it is the slow 1 in 10.
| Handed in (week of) | Passports | Half back within | 9 in 10 back within |
|---|---|---|---|
| 31 August | 3,914 | 18 days | 20 days |
| 7 September | 3,702 | 14 days | 24 days |
| 14 September | 2,941 | 14 days | 24 days |
| 21 September | 3,653 | 14 days | 15 days |
Look at the September weeks. For hand-ins in the weeks of 7 and 14 September, half the passports were back within 14 days, but 9 in 10 were back only within 24. So the slowest tenth took roughly ten days longer than a typical passport from the same week. Being slow, in other words, does not mean your passport is lost. Plenty of people from those weeks waited more than three weeks and then got their passports.
The same shows up in what VFS sent out recently. Of the 4,516 passports sent back in the seven days up to 16 October, half had waited within 12 days. But 9 in 10 had waited within 26 days, which means some of the passports going out last week had been away for well over three weeks. The slow ones are still being sent back alongside the fast ones.
Your centre's slow line
The slow tail looks much the same across all ten centres. For hand-ins between 31 August and 27 September, half came back within 13 or 14 days everywhere, and 9 in 10 within 17 to 20 days.
| VFS centre | Passports | Half back within | 9 in 10 back within | 9 in 10 (August hand-ins) |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| Jalandhar | 3,646 | 14 days | 20 days | 26 days |
| Chandigarh | 2,392 | 14 days | 20 days | 25 days |
| Ahmedabad | 2,381 | 14 days | 19 days | 25 days |
| New Delhi | 1,573 | 13 days | 17 days | 24 days |
| Bengaluru | 1,393 | 14 days | 20 days | 26 days |
| Mumbai | 835 | 14 days | 20 days | 25 days |
| Hyderabad | 823 | 14 days | 20 days | 26 days |
| Chennai | 663 | 14 days | 19 days | 25 days |
| Pune | 302 | 14 days | 19 days | 25 days |
| Kolkata | 202 | 14 days | 18 days | 25 days |
So if you handed in at Jalandhar in late September and have waited past 20 days, you are among the slowest tenth for your centre and period. If you handed in during August, the line was further out, at about 25 or 26 days.
What being slow usually means
The data shows when a passport left VFS. It never shows why one passport was slower than another. The stamping is done by the Canadian visa office, and IRCC publishes nothing about this step.
What can be said is this. VFS does not stamp passports; it holds them and sends them back once the visa office returns them. When most passports from your day are already back and yours is not, the hold-up is almost always at the visa office, not at VFS or Blue Dart. That usually means extra checking on some files. This site cannot tell you what kind, or why yours was picked. The data also has no visa type, so it cannot tell whether visitor, study, work or PR passports are more often slow.
How to check where you stand
- Find your hand-in date. It is the date at the start of your tracking ID.
- Open the live tracker and pick your centre. You can see how many passports from your hand-in day have already been sent back.
- If most of your day is back, you are in the slow group. If many are still out, your day as a whole is slow and you are simply waiting with everyone else.
- Use the comparison page or all centres combined to see whether the wait is rising or falling this week.
Two limits to keep in mind. Only passports sent back by Blue Dart are counted, roughly a third of the total; passports collected in person do not show up. And Blue Dart keeps records for about 90 days, so very old hand-ins drop out of the data.
When contacting IRCC makes sense
Asking too early mostly gets you a standard reply. A sensible point to ask is when you are clearly past the 9 in 10 line for your centre and most of your hand-in day is already back on the tracker. By then you are not just in a slow week, you are in the slow tenth.
Ask IRCC through its web form, not VFS. VFS can only tell you whether it has your passport back from the visa office. It cannot speed up the visa office or explain a delay. If you have a fixed travel or job start date, say so clearly in the form.
Once VFS does send your passport, the last step is quick. Over the last 30 days, Blue Dart delivered half of passports within 1 day and 9 in 10 within 3 days, and 53% arrived the same or next day.
What this means if you are handing in now
- Expect about two weeks, but plan for the slow tenth. Half of recent hand-ins came back within 13 or 14 days. At most centres, 1 in 10 took longer than 20.
- Don't book a fixed flight before dispatch. The September weeks show that even when the typical wait is short, some passports still take more than three weeks.
- If you pass three weeks, check before you worry. Look up your hand-in day on the tracker. If most of your day is back, contact IRCC. If not, your whole day is slow.
- No one can see the reason from outside. Not this site, not VFS. Only the visa office knows why a file takes longer.
The numbers update every morning from Tuesday to Saturday. Check your centre and hand-in date on the live tracker to see how many passports from your day are already on their way.