An applicant with a student-visa refusal from 2013 asked whether it still needed to be declared on their Express Entry profile, having heard refusals might drop off after 5 years.
What members clarified:- You must declare all previous visa refusals, regardless of age. There is no confirmed rule that refusals become irrelevant or disappear after a set number of years — treat every past refusal as something to disclose.
- Hiding a refusal is misrepresentation and carries serious consequences. Members specifically flagged that concealment can lead to a ban under section 40 of the IRPA (misrepresentation provisions) — a risk far more serious than disclosing an old, since-resolved refusal.
- An old refusal is not necessarily held against you the same way today. Eligibility criteria differ between a student visa and PR programs, and your profile (age, education, experience) has likely changed significantly since — the refusal itself is old context, not necessarily a current red flag, but it still must be declared.
Takeaway: always answer 'yes' to the refusal-history question if it's true, however old the refusal — the risk of a misrepresentation finding for hiding it far outweighs any assumed downside of disclosing it.