Canada splits its documents across governments, so the guides are grouped by who issues the thing you are asking about. Start with the table if you are not sure which guide fits, then read the summaries.
Start here by situation
| Your situation | Go to |
|---|---|
| Someone offers you a driver's licence without tests | Buy a driver's licence in Canada |
| You got a text about an unpaid ticket or licence suspension | ICBC and ServiceOntario text scams |
| You need the agency for your province | Driver's licence by province |
| You want to renew a passport | Passport scam websites |
| A job offer asks you to pay | Fake job offers and LMIA |
| Someone sells language test scores | Fake CELPIP, IELTS and TEF certificates |
| You already paid someone | I paid a scammer |
| You want to report it | Where to report fraud |
Driver's licences and ID
- Buy a driver's licence in Canada: the longest guide here. It explains that licensing is provincial, walks through the Ontario graduated steps and the Newfoundland and Labrador numbers, and sets the Criminal Code ceilings beside them. Read it first if a stranger has offered you a licence.
- Driver's licence by province and territory: the official agency for all 13 jurisdictions, with eight we opened and five flagged.
- Get a driver's licence in Ontario: G1, G2 and G with the $90 fee and the new-resident deadline.
- Fake driver's licences: how features are checked and which sections apply.
- Fake ID in Canada: what Ontario tells venue staff to check.
- ICBC and ServiceOntario text scams: the 2025 warnings from ICBC, North Bay police and the OPP, set out as a five-step pattern with the agencies' own statements beside it.
- International driving permit: CAA is the only issuer, the fee is $32 as of 1 December 2025, and a look-alike seller is not CAA.
Passports, SIN and the law
- Passport scam websites: the fees in force since 31 March 2026, how payment works and what the Competition Bureau announced in July 2026.
- SIN scams: the number is free, Service Canada does not phone you for it, and SIN cards are listed as identity documents in the Criminal Code.
- The Criminal Code and fake documents: sections 366, 367, 368, 56.1, 402.2 and 380 and the immigration sections, each with its ceiling and the conduct it covers.
Immigration, language tests and credentials
- Immigration document fraud: IRCC's list of fraud types, what it says it never does, the five-year misrepresentation bar and the reporting channels.
- Fake job offers and LMIA scams: the rule that employers must not pass recruitment fees to the worker, and why that settles most offers.
- Fake language certificates and how results are checked: what CELPIP, IDP and IRCC say, and where a fake fails.
- Fake nurses: two Ontario cases, the doctored register screenshot and the Find a Nurse check.
Check, report, recover
- How to check a Canadian document: one table, document by document.
- Scam red flags: the signs the official sources share.
- I paid a scammer and where to report fraud.
- Glossary and official sources.
How the guides fit together
Each scam guide ends with a route to the same three pages: the official check, the red-flag list and the reporting page. If you only have time for one, read the official checks table. If you are reading this after sending money, skip everything else and go to what to do now.
What this country's guides are not
We did not find Canadian police or regulator evidence of rings selling driver's licences, passports or birth certificates, so we do not describe one. We did find documented text scams, passport look-alike sites, language-test certificate sales and fake nurses. The guides follow that evidence; how we research lists what we left out.