---
title: "Attestation Letter Requirements"
slug: "pal-requirements"
description: "Details about the provincial attestation letter and sample English and French letters."
updated: 2025-04-09T18:27:01Z
published: 2025-04-09T18:27:01Z
canonical: "help.ocas.ca/pal-requirements"
excludeFromSearch: true
excludeFromExternalSearch: true
---

> ## Documentation Index
> Fetch the complete documentation index at: https://help.ocas.ca/llms.txt
> Use this file to discover all available pages before exploring further.

# Attestation Letter Requirements

A PAL must be written and signed by a provincial or territorial government and contain the following information:

- The student’s full name, as it appears on a valid passport or identity document
- The student’s date of birth
- The student's current residence address
- The designated learning institution (DLI) name (this is the primary/main institution name)
- The student’s ID / Student Number

The following fields are added by the Ontario Attestation Letter Service when the letter is created:

- Unique PAL ID – This format has been agreed upon with the MCURES and the OUAC for consistency and uniqueness across the province
  - First part: ON24 (For the next calendar year, it will be ON25)
  - Second part: 01 (OCAS code) or 02 (OUAC code)
  - Third part: A library will generate a unique set of characters with letters (caps only) and numbers (excluding 0, o, l and 1)
- Date of Issue
- Effective / Expiry Date:
  - For 2025: December 31, 2025 at 11:59 p.m. EST

**Note**: The expiry date isn’t enforced or validated by OCAS or IRCC. It’s a "soft" recommendation to encourage applicants to use their PAL in a timely manner.

We’ve attached samples of a generated PAL in English and French. See the **Attachments** section in the upper-right corner.

## Attachments

- [PAL_English_12mar2024.pdf](https://cdn.us.document360.io/98c48b39-7164-46f0-8769-e87df43b09f3/Images/Documentation/PAL_English_12mar2024.pdf)
- [PAL_French_15apr2024.pdf](https://cdn.us.document360.io/98c48b39-7164-46f0-8769-e87df43b09f3/Images/Documentation/PAL_French_15apr2024.pdf)