Thousands of soccer fans applied to visit Canada for the 2026 men’s FIFA World Cup, but less than half were allowed to enter the country.
According to data provided by Immigration, Refugees and Citizenship Canada (IRCC), the most applications came from Ghana, who won its match against Panama in Toronto on June 17. While Canada processed at least 1,725 visitor visa applications from Ghanian soccer fans, just under 11 per cent of these were approved.
It was a different story for fans from Colombia. Although the South American country is not playing any group stage matches in Canada, 1,630 visa requests from Colombian soccer fans were processed, with 69 per cent approved.
The IRCC data covers the period of Nov. 14, 2025 to March 31 of this year. In that time, Canada processed nearly 17,000 visitor applications for soccer fans from more than 160 countries and territories. Only 41 per cent of them were allowed to enter the country.
Only a third of visas approved
The World Cup includes matches in Toronto, Vancouver and multiple cities across the U.S. and Mexico.
“Canada is proud to welcome hundreds of thousands of visitors for FIFA World Cup 2026, including athletes, coaches, officials, medical staff, media, corporate sponsors and fans from around the world,” an IRCC spokesperson said in a statement to CTVNews.ca.
“IRCC is working closely with FIFA and federal partners to make travel to Canada as simple and smooth as possible without compromising the safety and security of Canadians.”
Depending on where they come from and how they enter the country, visitors to Canada require what’s known as a “temporary resident visa” (TRV) or an “electronic travel authorization” (eTA). Completed online, the eTA process is relatively quick and straightforward.
Obtaining a visitor, visa however, can require submitting additional information, such as a travel itinerary and proof of funds.
For this year’s World Cup, citizens from many eTA countries – like Australia, Germany, Croatia and New Zealand – had all of their visitor requests approved. Others that required visas – like those from Syria, Uganda and Sri Lanka – had all of their applications denied.
Overall, citizens of countries that require eTAs to enter Canada had an approval rate of 96 per pent, compared to just 32 per cent for those that need a visa.
A note on the numbers
For tracking purposes, the Canadian government encouraged soccer fans to include the words “FIFA World Cup 26” in their eTA and visa applications. The data provided to CTVNews.ca by IRCC covers approved and refused World Cup-related eTA and visitor visa applications from Nov. 14 to March 31.
To protect privacy, the IRCC excluded counts of less than five. It also rounded numbers to the nearest multiple of five. All figures should be considered preliminary and subject to change. Unprocessed applications were excluded from this analysis.
The data also does not include visitors from the U.S., who do not require visas or eTAs to enter Canada. Because some visitors did not flag “FIFA World Cup 26” on their eTA or VISA applications, and since many visitors entered Canada with existing valid travel authorizations, the true number of international visitors for the tournament will be higher than the totals in the IRCC data.
