What Happens If You Fail the Canadian Citizenship Test: Retakes, Hearings and What to Do Next

The pass mark for the Canadian citizenship test is 15 out of 20, or 75 percent. Most people who have prepared properly get there. But some do not, and if you are reading this after failing, the situation is not as dire as it feels right now. The process has clear next steps, and knowing what they are makes them much easier to work through.

What happens after a failed attempt

The citizenship test is taken online, and you get up to three attempts. IRCC gives you a window of about 30 days to complete the test, and your three attempts all fall within that period. So a single failure does not end your application. If you do not reach 15 correct answers, you can sit the test again on the same material, drawn from the Discover Canada guide: Canada's history, government, rights and responsibilities, geography and symbols.

Because the attempts happen inside the same window, there is no long delay between them. What matters is using the time between them well, even when that time is only a few days.

What happens if you fail all three attempts

If you do not pass after all three attempts, IRCC usually invites you to a knowledge hearing with a citizenship officer. The hearing can take place in person or by video. Not showing up for a scheduled test without rescheduling can also affect your application, so it is always better to attend or to contact IRCC if you cannot make it.

At the hearing, the officer does not simply give you another multiple choice test. They speak with you and assess your overall knowledge of Canada, as well as whether you meet the other requirements for citizenship. The officer decides how to run the assessment and which questions to ask. Some hearings are conversational. Others are more formal. What they have in common is that you need to demonstrate genuine understanding, not just the ability to pick a correct answer from a list.

A hearing adds further months to the process and is more stressful than the test for most people. It is worth doing everything possible to pass within your three attempts rather than reaching that point.

What to do between attempts

Each attempt is a chance to fix what went wrong on the last one. Use the time between them deliberately, not generally.

Start by reviewing which areas felt weakest during the test. IRCC does not release a detailed question-by-question breakdown, but most people have a sense of where they struggled. Go back to those sections of the Discover Canada guide and read them again, slowly. The history chapter and the government chapter are where most candidates lose points. If you are unsure which topics gave you the most trouble, treat all of them as priorities and work through the guide in full.

After rereading, switch to active practice rather than passive reading. Use practice questions in the same format as the actual test. Work through them chapter by chapter so you can see exactly where gaps remain. When you get a question wrong, understand why the correct answer is right before moving on. That single step, repeated consistently, matters more than any amount of extra reading.

Before your next attempt, take several full 20-question mock tests under timed conditions. If you are consistently scoring 17 or higher, you are in good shape. If you are still falling below 15, keep working and sit the test again only when your practice results are solid.

Reading the Discover Canada guide once is rarely enough. Give it another full pass, with active testing in between, and your next attempt will look very different.

Why preparation before your first attempt is always the better option

Each failed attempt adds time to the path to citizenship, and a knowledge hearing adds more. The application window you are waiting in is not paused while these steps happen. Passing within your attempts, ideally on the first one, is the faster route as well as the easier one.

Where to practise

PassCitizen has all the Canadian citizenship test practice questions available for free, organised by chapter from the Discover Canada guide. You can work through specific sections or take full timed mock tests. No account needed.

Start practising now