Federal Court Electronic Filing System
Before using the Electronic Filing System, please note the following:
You may only have one (1) browser tab or window of the Federal Court Electronic Filing System open at a time while submitting documents. Using multiple tabs of the Federal Court Electronic Filing System will cause submission errors.
The format for all electronic documents is Portable Document format (PDF) without password protection.
You will be asked to provide an e-mail address and telephone number in case the Registry needs to contact you.
There are no transaction fees to use the Electronic Filing System. However, fees may apply to file documents (see Tariff A, IMM Rule 23).
If the document you are submitting requires a filing fee, please note that your document will only be filed and processed as of the time you provide payment. The E-Filing portal now offers secure online payment.
A document that is accepted for filing is deemed to have been filed at the time in the Eastern time zone that the document was submitted for filing via the electronic filing system. However, a document that is submitted for filing on a holiday is deemed to have been filed on the next day that is not a holiday.
You have the ability to identify that a filing is urgent, to include special handling instructions for a document and to select the Registry office closest to your location with which to associate this filing for future correspondence.
Filing parties will receive electronic confirmations of submitted documents with a summary of the information provided. Filing parties will also receive a confirmation when their documents were processed by the Registry.
This electronic filing system does not provide for service of documents on other parties. For information on electronic service of documents, consult the most recent Covid-19 Practice Direction at Notices and see Rule 141 of the Federal Courts Rules.
The electronic filing system does not currently provide for special treatment of confidential documents. Therefore, such documents should not be filed electronically. See further details at bottom of page.
You should keep a copy of all documents sent electronically for 30 days after the expiry of all appeal periods. For paper-based documents that are scanned to a digital format for electronic filing, the original paper document should be kept.
For information about Court procedures, please refer to the Federal Courts Rules, Information for Litigants and the Practice Guides available on this web site or contact the Registry at 1-800-663-2096. If you encounter a problem with the Electronic Filing System you should contact the Registry.
The Registry is open from 8:30 a.m. to 4:30 p.m., Monday to Friday. See Holidays for a list of days when the Registry office is closed.
You must complete all steps in a single session in order to submit your transaction. It is not possible to save an incomplete session. Note that the session will automatically time out after 60 minutes of inactivity.
For further information, please refer to the Notice to the Public and Profession issued by the Court regarding electronic filing and electronic legal service.
Click one of the links below to access the Federal Court's Electronic Filing System
Note: Documents for the Federal Court of Appeal will not be accepted for filing through the Federal Court's Electronic Filing System.
Initiate New Proceeding Select this option to initiate a new proceeding such as an Action, Application, Appeal, Preliminary Motion or an Application for Leave and for Judicial Review.
File Document(s) on Existing Proceeding To file a document on an existing Court proceeding
Electronic Payment of Filing Fees is now available.
Filing of Confidential Documents: The electronic filing system does not currently provide for special treatment of confidential documents.
Confidential materials filed pursuant to a confidentiality order or direction should be filed in a manner that preserves the confidentiality of the document. One acceptable procedure is to submit a password-protected PDF or a secure electronic file transfer to the appropriate e-mail address set forth below, and provide the password or instructions to the Registry by email or telephone as appropriate. Such documents must be clearly identified as confidential and broken down into documents not exceeding 18 MB, or by such other means as may be directed by the Court. Paper copies of confidential documents may be filed at the Registry.
E-mail addresses of the local Registry office:
- Vancouver and Yukon: VAN_reception@fct-cf.ca
- Calgary: CAL_reception@fct-cf.ca
- Edmonton and Northwest Territories: EDM_reception@fct-cf.ca
- Winnipeg, Regina and Saskatoon: WPG_reception@fct-cf.ca
- Toronto: TOR_reception@fct-cf.ca
- Ottawa: fc_reception_cf@cas-satj.gc.ca
- Montreal and Nunavut: MTL_reception@fct-cf.ca
- Quebec: QUE_reception@fct-cf.ca
- Halifax: HFX_reception@fct-cf.ca
- Charlottetown: CHA_reception@fct-cf.ca
- Fredericton: FRE_reception@fct-cf.ca
- Newfoundland and Labrador: STJ_reception@fct-cf.ca
* Note: the maximum e-mail size is 25 MB. However, conversion of attachments into e-mail format adds up to about 30% of the original document size, so an 18 MB attachment will come close to the maximum email size limit. It is recommended that larger PDF documents (i.e., over 18MB) be split into smaller parts before sending. Please consult sections 3.2.1.1 and 6.8 of our E-filing Guide for information on reducing the size of PDF documents: https://www.fct-cf.gc.ca/content/assets/pdf/base/E-filing-Guide-May-7-2020-Final-EN.pdf.