An applicant received their passport back with the COPR and visa counterfoil, but noticed the COPR listed their only (given) name in the
family name field — the passport has no surname at all — and asked whether this error needed correction.
- It's standard handling, not an error. The substantive answer: a family name is mandatory in Canadian immigration records, so when a passport carries only a single given name, IRCC places that name in the family-name field. The document is fine as issued.
- No return or correction needed. Since the treatment is deliberate, there's nothing to send back — the COPR and counterfoil remain valid for landing.
- Expect the same convention downstream. The single name will continue to be treated as the family name on Canadian records, so consistency (not correction) is what to watch for on future documents.
Caveat: this rests on one member's confident explanation (another was unsure); if the mismatch causes concern, confirming with IRCC before travel costs nothing. But the described convention matches how single-name passports are routinely handled.