You were refused. Here is what actually happens next.

There is no difference between a visa rejection and a visa refusal; they are two names for the same decision. IRCC uses the word refused on the letter and in its own guidance, while almost everyone in India says rejected, so applicants often search for one word and receive the other. Nothing turns on which term you use. What does turn on something is the word appeal, which people also use loosely. Most temporary resident decisions carry no appeal at all, so the two routes open to you are a fresh application that answers what the officer found, or an application to the Federal Court for judicial review. Those are different things with different deadlines and different costs.

There is no appeal against a temporary resident refusal, and no tribunal hears one. People lose weeks looking for a form that does not exist, so it is worth saying first and plainly. Two routes exist instead. You can reapply, which you may do at any time unless the refusal letter says otherwise, and which is the right answer for the large majority of refusals. Or you can ask the Federal Court for leave and judicial review within 15 days if the matter arose in Canada or 60 days if it arose outside Canada. Judicial review asks whether the decision was reasonable and fair rather than whether it was right, generally admits no new evidence, and needs a lawyer. Permanent residence refusals can be different, and some sponsorship decisions do carry an appeal. Check which kind of refusal you are actually holding before deciding what to do about it.

Check the refusal letter and its attachments first, because the reasons are usually already there. IRCC has sent the officer's decision notes with most temporary resident refusals since 29 July 2025, and with most permanent residence refusals since 26 May 2026. That is a recent change and most of the advice written about Canadian refusals predates it, which is why an industry still exists selling to order what has already been sent to you free. The notes matter more than the letter. A refusal letter gives you ticked boxes from a standard list, and the notes give you the officer's own account of what they did not accept and why, in their words. That is the material any honest reapplication is built from. If they genuinely are not attached, order the GCMS notes yourself. It is free, it is yours, and nobody needs to be paid to ask for it on your behalf.

You can apply again immediately after a refusal, unless your refusal letter imposes a bar, which is uncommon. So the timing has a simple answer and it is not the useful question. The more useful one is what will actually be different in the new application, because an officer reading it can see the earlier refusal and the reasoning behind it. A file resubmitted unchanged is usually refused again, often faster, since the decision has already been reasoned out once and the second officer has it in front of them. Every refusal also joins the record the next officer reads, so a sequence of quick identical attempts costs more than it looks. Read the officer's notes, work out what was not believed, and change that. A single well-answered reapplication beats three hurried ones. The fee is the same either way, and so is the officer's memory.