IMM Form Validation Errors and How to Fix Them

IMM forms are the fillable PDF forms IRCC uses for many applications. When you finish one, you click Validate, and the form checks your answers and adds barcodes. Two things can go wrong. The Validate button can do nothing at all, or the form can validate on your computer and then fail when you upload it to your IRCC account.

IRCC's help centre has a page for each problem. This guide goes through both, in the order IRCC lists the causes, and adds our own suggestions where they help.

Why does nothing happen when I click Validate?

IRCC's help centre lists these causes when the Validate button does nothing and no barcodes appear.

Your version of Adobe Acrobat Reader is too old. IRCC says you need Adobe Acrobat Reader 10 or higher. A browser's built-in PDF viewer is not Adobe Acrobat Reader, so we suggest saving the form to your computer and opening it from Adobe Acrobat Reader itself, rather than clicking it open in a browser tab.

You are on a phone or tablet. IRCC says the barcode forms don't work on mobile devices. Use a desktop or laptop computer.

A mandatory field is empty. Required fields are marked with an asterisk. If any of them is incomplete, the form won't validate. Scroll through every page; a starred field on page 3 blocks the whole form.

A date is in the wrong format or conflicts with another. Dates must be entered as YYYY-MM-DD. IRCC gives two examples of conflicts that block validation: a travel date in the past and a birth date in the future. Our advice is to check every date field against the format, especially ones you typed from memory.

A field that should be empty has something in it. IRCC says special characters, including spaces, can't be used on its forms, and asks you to remove any spaces in fields that should be empty. A space you can't see counts. Click into each field you meant to leave blank and delete anything there.

JavaScript is turned off in Reader. The form's checks run on JavaScript. The next section shows how to turn it on.

IRCC also notes a known problem for Mac users with the newer Adobe Acrobat Reader DC, and links to an older version of Reader on Adobe's site as a workaround. If you are on a Mac and nothing above helps, that page is worth reading.

How do I turn on JavaScript in Adobe Reader?

IRCC gives these steps:

1. Open Adobe Acrobat Reader.
2. Click Edit, then Preferences, then JavaScript.
3. Check the box beside "Enable JavaScript" and click OK.

After you change a setting or install new software, IRCC says to download a new copy of the form and enter your information again. Treat the fresh copy as part of the fix: fixing the setup and carrying on in the same file skips the step IRCC asks for.

That is tedious for a long form. We suggest keeping your answers in a plain text file while you work, so retyping them into a fresh copy is a matter of copying and pasting.

I validated my form, but my IRCC account shows a validation error. What can I do?

This is a different problem. The form validated on your computer, but the account rejects it. IRCC explains that when you upload the form, its system checks the PDF for the mandatory information and compares it with the answers you gave in your online questionnaire. A missing answer or a mismatch between the two triggers the error.

IRCC lists these things to check:

• The UCI field. If this is your first application, or you don't remember your Client ID, leave the UCI field empty.
• Your eligibility. Make sure you are eligible for what you are applying for. The form can be filled in correctly and still not match an application you can make.
• A scanned form. Don't upload a scanned version of the form. For online applications you don't need to sign it by hand, so there is no reason to print and scan it.
• Your browser. Try uploading with the latest version of Edge, Safari, Chrome or Firefox.
• Current details. Check that your information is accurate and that your documents have not expired.

IRCC's error message can also say the document can't be validated right now and to try again later. If you have checked everything above, waiting and trying again is a reasonable next step. If the problem continues, IRCC asks you to report it through its technical problems page.

Our own advice for the mismatch case: open your online questionnaire and the form side by side and compare the answers that appear in both, such as your name, date of birth, marital status and the program you are applying to. The form and the questionnaire are checked against each other, so a difference that looks minor to you can be enough.

Can I merge, compress or scan an IMM form?

Upload each IMM form on its own, in the field meant for it, as a validated PDF. Many IMM forms use a fillable format that most PDF tools break, and turning the pages into images removes the form data IRCC reads. That means three things to avoid: merging the form with other documents, compressing it, and printing and scanning it.

Our Merge PDF tool warns you if you add a fillable IMM form, and the merge page explains why these forms won't combine with other files. If you aren't sure which of your PDFs are IMM forms, the IRCC file checker flags them, along with files over your account's size limit.

Your other documents still follow the usual rules: one file per field, under the size limit. The IRCC document upload guide covers those, including how to submit a document once it is uploaded.