Form IMM 5669, the Schedule A – Background/Declaration, asks you to account for every month of your adult life going back ten years, disclose any criminal or immigration history, and certify that everything you have written is true. To fill it out correctly, gather your employment, address, education, and travel records before you open the PDF; enter dates with no gaps in your personal history; answer every yes/no background question honestly; validate the form to generate its barcode page; and sign it in pen for paper applications or electronically through the IRCC portal for online ones. Each adult in your application file completes a separate copy.
Who Needs to Complete a Copy
Three people in an application file each need their own Schedule A: the principal applicant, the spouse or common-law partner, and any dependent child aged 18 or older. The spouse and adult dependents must complete the form even if they are not moving to Canada.1Canada.ca. Schedule A: Background / Declaration Form (IMM 5669) Children under 18 do not fill it out. If a dependent turns 18 while the application is in processing, IRCC may ask for a fresh form covering the period since that birthday. Leaving a required family member’s copy out of the package can cause the whole application to be returned as incomplete.
What to Pull Together Before You Start
Schedule A rewards preparation. Have these records in front of you before you begin:
- Employment history: job titles, employer names, cities, and exact start and end dates (month and year) for every position.
- Post-secondary education: institution names, cities, and dates of attendance. High school is not required.
- Every residential address since you turned 18, written in full, including short-term rentals, dormitories, and addresses abroad.1Canada.ca. Schedule A: Background / Declaration Form (IMM 5669)
- Military or paramilitary service records: branch, rank, dates, and locations.
- Memberships in political parties, professional associations, or social organizations, including any positions held.
- Old passports. Stamps help reconstruct dates and addresses when memory falls short.
- Any records of arrests, convictions, visa refusals, or deportations from any country.
The form is available as a downloadable PDF from IRCC’s website or through the online application portal.
Personal History: Account for Every Month
The personal history section is where most applicants stumble. You have to account for every month of the past ten years, or every month since you turned 18, whichever period is shorter.1Canada.ca. Schedule A: Background / Declaration Form (IMM 5669) That means listing each period of employment, education, unemployment, parental leave, retirement, or any other activity with specific start and end dates. IRCC’s instruction is direct: do not leave gaps. An unaccounted-for period forces an officer to stop and request clarification, which delays the file.
If your job title was vague, add a short description of your duties. For periods without paid work, write what you were actually doing: caring for children, traveling, job searching. Applicants who have not worked recently — retirees, for instance — still need to fill in the timeline back to age 18, and IRCC will cross-check what you write against the résumé or CV in your application.1Canada.ca. Schedule A: Background / Declaration Form (IMM 5669)
If you run out of space, attach a separate sheet with the extra entries. Label it with your name and the section it belongs to so it stays with your file.
Addresses, Education, and Military Service
Write every residential address in full. No abbreviations for street, avenue, or province. Include apartment or unit numbers.1Canada.ca. Schedule A: Background / Declaration Form (IMM 5669) If you moved often — shared student housing is a common example — each address needs its own entry with dates, and the address timeline should match the months in your personal history.
For education, list every post-secondary institution (college, university, trade school) with the city and exact dates of attendance.
The military and paramilitary section requires the same gap-free treatment: branch, rank, location, and precise dates. If you never served, write “N/A” rather than leaving the field blank. IRCC’s instructions do not name a specific discharge document, but keep your service records available in case an officer asks for proof during processing.
The Yes/No Background Questions
The back portion of the form is a series of yes-or-no questions about criminal history, ties to political or paramilitary organizations, prior immigration violations, and visa refusals or deportations from any country. A “yes” answer requires a full written explanation, either in the space on the form or on an attached sheet.
Answer honestly. IRCC shares information with law enforcement in other countries and can surface records you might assume are buried. Under Section 40 of the Immigration and Refugee Protection Act, misrepresenting or withholding material facts makes you inadmissible to Canada for five years from the date of a final determination.2Justice Laws Website. Immigration and Refugee Protection Act – Section 40 A fraud finding also stays on your IRCC record, and if you are already in Canada you can be removed.3Immigration, Refugees and Citizenship Canada. Consequences of Immigration and Citizenship Fraud
If a past incident is complicated — a decades-old charge that was dismissed, a group whose reputation changed after you left it — disclose it and add context. Officers distinguish between a candid explanation and an attempt to hide something. Disclosure rarely sinks an application. Concealment often does.
Police Certificates and Foreign-Language Documents
Your Schedule A answers need to line up with the police certificates you submit alongside the application. You need a police certificate from every country where you or an accompanying family member aged 18 or older lived for six consecutive months or more during the past ten years.4Immigration, Refugees and Citizenship Canada. Police Certificates You do not need one for time spent in Canada or for any period before you turned 18.
The certificate for the country where you currently live must be issued no more than six months before you submit your application. For countries you no longer live in, the certificate must be issued after the last time you lived there for six months or longer.5Immigration, Refugees and Citizenship Canada. Police Certificate: When to Get a Police Certificate Some countries print their own expiry dates; IRCC will accept those as long as they satisfy the timing rules. Request certificates early. Some agencies take weeks or months to issue them.
Any supporting document not in English or French — a police certificate, a transcript, a service record — must be submitted with three things attached: an English or French translation, an affidavit from the translator confirming the translation’s accuracy (typically sworn before a notary or commissioner of oaths), and a certified photocopy of the original.6Immigration, Refugees and Citizenship Canada. What Language Should My Supporting Documents Be In? Do not assume an officer will read the original language. Missing translations trigger document requests that push processing back by weeks.
Validate, Sign, and Submit
When you have filled in every field on the PDF, click “Validate” at the top or bottom of the form. The system checks for missing information and outlines incomplete fields in red with a note on what is missing. Once the form passes validation, a new page containing 2D barcodes appears at the end. Those barcodes let IRCC scan your data directly into their processing system.7Immigration, Refugees and Citizenship Canada. How Do I Fill Out and Validate IRCC Application Forms With 2D Barcodes Print the form including the barcode page.
How you sign depends on how you are applying. For paper applications, print the validated form and sign it in pen.7Immigration, Refugees and Citizenship Canada. How Do I Fill Out and Validate IRCC Application Forms With 2D Barcodes For online applications through the IRCC portal, entering your name and answering a security question serves as your electronic signature. The signed form is then uploaded to your online profile or included in the mailing package.
What Happens After You Submit
After IRCC receives your file, officers review your Schedule A and may verify details with third parties or foreign governments. If they spot gaps, inconsistencies, or missing information, they send a request for additional documents through your online account, along with a deadline.8Immigration, Refugees and Citizenship Canada. You Asked Me for a New Document. How Do I Submit It? Check that deadline as soon as it lands and treat it as firm. If a discrepancy could lead to a negative decision — for instance, a mismatch between your Schedule A and a police certificate — IRCC may send a procedural fairness letter giving you a chance to respond before deciding. Missing either kind of deadline usually results in a refusal.
The best defense against post-submission back-and-forth is the review you do before you click “Validate.” Cross-check every date on Schedule A against your résumé, your passport stamps, and your police certificates. If your form says you left a job in March but a reference letter says April, an officer will notice. Consistency across every document in the file is what keeps the application moving.