For Express Entry applicants and Canadian newcomers
Your ECA expires. The documents behind it should not expire with it.
An assessment body keeps its own report, not your evidence. In 2026 ProofSnap seals the degree, transcripts and verification pages your assessment was built on into one certified package, delivered in 24 hours and still verifiable the next time you are asked.
Degree and transcripts sealed exactly as you send them
Verification screens captured with network evidence
Qualified eIDAS timestamp and Bitcoin anchor
Ready for the renewal, the second application or the appeal
assessment portal / report status
Educational Credential Assessment
Where people get caught
An assessment ordered early to be ready can expire before the invitation arrives. The report has to be valid when you submit the application, not only when you create the profile.
Written by Radim Motycka, founder and lead engineer of ProofSnap, who builds the hashing, signing and timestamping pipeline described on this page.
What should you keep from an Educational Credential Assessment?
WES, one of the organisations designated by IRCC, publishes its assessment at C$264 before delivery and tax. The report is valid for five years from issue, and IRCC requires it to still be valid when the application is submitted, so it can expire while a profile waits. ProofSnap seals the documents behind it, and the pages that verify them, in 2026, within 24 hours, for $59.99.
What the assessment does and does not leave you with
Four facts worth knowing before you pay for the second one.
It is priced per report
WES publishes its standard package at C$264, before delivery fees and the 13 percent harmonised sales tax. Every extra recipient copy is charged again.
It has a shelf life
WES issues the report with a five-year validity, and IRCC requires it to still be valid when you submit the application. Applicants who order the assessment early, to be ready in time, are the ones caught out.
The documents travel out of your hands
Transcripts often go directly from the institution to the assessment body. What you keep is the assessment body's report, and the underlying documents may never come back to you.
The second round starts from the same paperwork
A renewal, a provincial nomination, a licensing body or a later employer all ask for the same underlying documents. Having them sealed and dated once saves chasing a registrar again.
How it works
Best done before the transcripts leave your hands, and still worth doing afterwards.
Pay and upload
Pay the one-time fee of $59.99, about CAD 83. Straight after payment a secure upload page opens for your degree, transcripts and any name-change documents.
Send anything verifiable online
A university verification page, an alumni portal record, a digital diploma viewer or a public register entry. Send the link while the page still loads.
We capture and seal
We capture those screens with their HTML and network evidence, hash every file, sign the manifest, add a qualified eIDAS timestamp and anchor it in Bitcoin.
You get the package
Within 24 hours you receive one signed ZIP with your documents in a files/ folder and the sealing files beside it, ready for the next application.
Sealing your documents does not extend an assessment report and does not substitute for one. It fixes what you hold, so the next round starts from evidence rather than from memory.
What is inside the package
One ZIP. Twelve files do the sealing, and every document you send sits in a files/ folder of its own.
files/diploma.pdfyour diploma, byte for byte
files/transcript.pdfyour transcript, unchanged
files/good_standing_letter.pdfand anything else you send, under its own name
files/web_verification_capture.zipthe official verification page, sealed: screenshot, HTML, DNS, TLS, headers, UTC time
provenance_certificate.pdfthe human-readable report
chain_of_custody.jsonevery step, in order
forensic_log.jsontamper-evident hash chain
manifest.jsonSHA-256 of every file
manifest.sigRSA signature over the manifest
publickey.pemthe key needed to check that signature
manifest.json.tsreIDAS qualified timestamp
eidas_validation.jsondata to validate it years later
manifest.json.otsBitcoin anchor
verification/verify.shoffline check on macOS and Linux
verification/verify.ps1the same check on Windows
verification/VERIFICATION_GUIDE.txthow to run it, in plain language
The package carries both timestamps. Everything you send sits in files/, under its own name, so a package with more documents simply contains more files.
The capture of the official screen travels as its own sealed package inside the ZIP, with its own manifest and chain of custody. Two independent layers, no clashing file names, and each layer can be checked on its own.
Degree, transcripts and supporting letters preserved unchanged
Screenshots and HTML of the verification screens you pointed us at
DNS, TLS and HTTP headers recorded at the moment of capture
A SHA-256 manifest signed with a per-package RSA key
A qualified eIDAS timestamp with long-term validation data
A Bitcoin OpenTimestamps anchor, independent of us
Verification scripts for Windows, macOS and Linux that check the hashes, the signature and the timestamp offline
1Manifest signature valid
2All file hashes match
3Qualified timestamp valid, 2026-09-13 10:22 UTC
4Bitcoin anchor present, deep check with the ots client
Immigration files get reopened years later by a different officer, a different province or a different regulator. The package is what makes that conversation short.
What this is, stated plainly
Four things the package proves, each of them checkable by the person you send it to.
That your documents existed in exactly this form no later than the timestamp
That the verification page, as it was served to the capture from this domain, showed this content on this date
That nothing in the package has changed since it was sealed
That an officer, a regulator or a lawyer can verify it offline, with no account
What Canadian credential paperwork costs in 2026
The assessment is unavoidable. Owning the evidence underneath it is the part nobody tells you about.
| Route | Published price | What it gives you |
|---|---|---|
| Educational Credential Assessment, standard package | C$264 | Valid five years from issue, before delivery fees and the 13 percent harmonised sales tax. |
| Course by course evaluation | priced above the standard package | Breaks down every course, for regulators and institutions that ask for it. |
| Extra recipient copy | charged per copy | A duplicate of an existing report. It does not restart the five years. |
| Certified translations | priced per page by the translator | Required where documents are not in English or French. |
| ProofSnap certified package | $59.99, about CAD 83 | Your own documents and the verification screens, sealed, dated and verifiable offline by anyone. |
Prices are the providers' published figures, checked in September 2026. Each route answers a different question. This one answers the question about your own documents: what you hold, unchanged, proved as of a date you can point to.
ECA documents certification
Delivered within 24 hours of receiving your files, one flat fee, no subscription
$59.99, about C$83 at rates in September 2026.
- Every document you send, preserved byte for byte inside the package
- A capture of the official verification screen or register record, when your credential has one
- SHA-256 for every file and an RSA-signed manifest
- A qualified eIDAS timestamp and a Bitcoin OpenTimestamps anchor
- A chain of custody document recording every step, and the evidence report as a readable PDF
- Verification scripts that check the hashes, the signature and the timestamp offline, so the recipient never has to call us
- An email delivery note when the package is ready
The upload page opens as soon as payment goes through. Questions first? Write to support@getproofsnap.com.
ECA paperwork, answered
The extension
Would you rather do it yourself?
The extension does the same job on your own machine: certify your documents locally and capture the verification screens yourself, as many times as the process demands.
The side panel holds the File Certifier, the evidence language and the qualified timestamp toggle.
File Certification in the extension
Drop your diploma, transcript and any completion letters into the panel and seal them in one package: SHA-256 for every file, a signed manifest, a chain of custody document and a report PDF. One by one, or all of them in a single combined package.
How File Certification worksAdd an eIDAS SnapPack
A qualified electronic timestamp bound to your sealed package, issued by Disig a.s., whose timestamping service is listed as qualified on the EU Trusted List. Under Article 41(2) of the eIDAS Regulation it enjoys, in proceedings in the European Union and the EEA, the presumption of the accuracy of the date and time it indicates and of the integrity of the data it is bound to.
$6.99
1 stamp
$24.99
5 stamps
$49.99
10 stamps
Bought inside the extension as a one-time purchase, with no auto-renewal. Credits stay on your account.
Free to install. The package on this page exists for people who would rather hand the job over and receive a finished file.