Did Canada retroactively expand citizenship by descent in 2025? | Fact brief

In late 2025, Canada passed a law known as Bill C-3 that retroactively recognizes the Canadian citizenship of many people born or adopted abroad to Canadian parents who were previously excluded.

Earlier rules limited automatic citizenship by descent to the first generation born outside Canada. As a result, many children born abroad to foreign-born Canadians did not automatically receive citizenship.

The changes stemmed from court challenges and longstanding concerns about the “first-generation limit.”

With that limit removed, anyone born outside Canada to Canadian parents before Dec. 15, 2025, is now automatically a citizen. 

That change also applies to anyone born abroad who can prove their descent from a Canadian ancestor. The law does not limit how far back that ancestor can be.

Those born or adopted outside Canada after Dec. 15, 2025, only qualify if their Canadian parents can prove they were physically present in Canada for over three years previously.