Updates to the PAL Process for 2025

Updates

• For updated details about PALs, including adjusted expiry dates, see the Provincial attestation letter section of the Government of Canada website.

• On December 10, 2024, the IRCC confirmed that students who are transferring institutions in January or May 2025 can attend the new institution (DLI) while their study permit is being processed. For more information, see the Changing your school as a post-secondary student information on the IRCC website.

Field Changes

For the 2025 PAL year, Ontario’s Ministry of Colleges and Universities (MCU) is requesting program information to be collected as part of the PAL request. These fields are used for reporting only; the information is not currently included in the PAL.

The Ontario Attestation Letter Service has been updated to include these new fields. You must include the new program level data with your PAL requests. If you have any questions about these changes, please reach out to our support team at [email protected].

PAL Excel Templates

The updated Excel template for 2025 includes the new columns. You can download the file from this article:

OCAS-PAL-ExcelTemplate - Jan 2025

18.91 KB

January 22, 2025:

• The following new program fields will be required for PAL requests: Program Title, Level of Study, and APS Code. The MCU Code is optional.

• You must use the new PAL Excel template and include program information.

• The older PAL Excel templates will no longer be supported.

The new program-level information is based on guidelines from the MCU. For more details on these fields, see the Colleges of applied arts and technology procedures for funding approval of programs of instruction page on the ontario.ca website.

Level of Study (Credential)

This field is required for the PAL 2025 period. Please select one of the following options:

• Baccalaureate Degree

• Certificate

• Diploma

• Masters Degree

• Ontario College Diploma

• Ontario College Advanced Diploma

• Ontario College Certificate

• Ontario College Graduate Certificate

• Not Available or Not Applicable (The full phrase must be entered in the request.)

Approved Program Sequence (APS) number

This field is required for the PAL 2025 period.

This is a unique 5-digit number assigned to an approved program of instruction by the Credential Validation Service and used for enrolment reporting to the MCU. If your program appears to have only 4 digits, you must include a leading zero in the APS code. For example, the program code 1234 is invalid; it should be indicated as 01234.

We recognize that not all programs have the APS code defined, so you can include 99999 as undefined.

Program Title

This field is required for the PAL 2025 period.

PAL Expiry Dates

Attestation letters issued during the 2025 allotment year will expire on December 31, 2025 at 11:59 p.m. EST.

PAL APIs

Our next release will include updates to the PAL APIs. The new fields will be part of the Program object in the CreateBatch endpoint. For more details on the new fields, see the API Reference - QA documentation. If you have any questions on these changes, please reach out to the OCAS team.

Partners Using the OCAS IAS (International Application Service)

If you are using the OCAS IAS to send PAL requests, you do not need to make any changes.

The workflow has been updated in the IAS to include the program fields from the applicant’s offer that you choose for the PAL request. Please ensure that your program APS and MCU codes are up to date in the IAS. If you don’t have an APS code, you can use 99999.

Reports

In a future release, we will make updates to the reports in the DLI Portal. Please watch for further updates.

Next Steps

Important: Please monitor your email for release notices about the Ontario Attestation Letter Service.

If you have any questions, please reach out to our support team at [email protected].