How Québec immigration works

Most confusion about Canadian paperwork starts here, so it is worth settling first. Québec does not simply administer federal rules on its own territory. It selects economic immigrants itself, under an arrangement with the federal government, and only afterwards does the federal side decide on admission and status.

Two administrations, one applicant

The division is roughly this: the province decides who it wants, and the federal government decides who may enter and remain. Selection is provincial; admissibility, health and security screening, permits and permanent residence are federal. Neither stage re-runs the other's decision, and neither inherits the other's instructions about documents.

For an applicant this means one document set and two readers. The papers are largely the same at both stages; the rules about who may translate them are not, which is the subject of the comparison page.

The provincial stage

The province's economic route runs through an online portal in which candidates record their profile, and files are taken forward from there. Where selection succeeds, the outcome is a provincial certificate — described on the selection certificate page — which the federal stage then expects to see. What documents are uploaded, and at which point, is covered on the Arrima documents page, because uploading and translating too early is a recurring and avoidable expense.

We do not publish point thresholds, invitation rules or processing times on this site. They change, and a website that repeats last year's figures is worse than one that says nothing. Take them from the ministry's own current publication.

The federal stage

The federal application is a separate file with its own forms, its own document list and its own translation standard, which generally accepts a translation accompanied by the translator's signed declaration. The documents behind it are set out on the permanent residence document list, and the rule itself on the federal rules page.

Temporary files follow the same shape

Studying and working in Québec repeat the pattern in miniature. A student obtains a provincial acceptance document before applying for the federal study permit — see the student document list — and many work situations require a provincial step before the federal permit. In each case: province first, federation second, two files, one set of Turkish papers.

What sits outside immigration entirely

Two things people fold into their immigration planning are separate procedures with separate authorities. The comparative evaluation of studies is a provincial service producing an opinion, not a recognition — see the comparative evaluation page. And if your occupation is regulated, the right to practise is decided by a professional order, not by an immigration officer, which is the strictest file of all on translation.

Where the translation rule splits

At the provincial stage a translation produced by a translator registered with the province's professional order is what a reviewing officer expects to see, and a translation certified in Türkiye normally does not answer that. At the federal stage the declaration route is generally open. The same diploma can therefore need different treatment in the same year, and reading the country instead of the stage is the error that produces two invoices.

What can start now, whichever stage you are at

The Turkish side of the file does not depend on which authority reads it. Under a power of attorney we obtain civil registry extracts, criminal record certificates, social security service records, court decisions and sealed university transcripts; we arrange the apostille where a receiving body requires one; and we courier the wet-signed set to you with a full colour scan. That work serves both stages and usually takes longer than the translation does. The timing page says what to obtain early and what to leave until the end.