Identify your actual application account
The per-file limit is 4 MB in the IRCC secure account and 5 MB in the IRCC Portal. These are different accounts. Return to the account for your application and check the requirements shown for that upload field; do not switch accounts to obtain a larger allowance.
IRCC secure account — official sign-in guidance
Set a target in PDFMinto and compress
Open the compression tool and select an ordinary PDF, up to 30 MB and 200 pages. Select Custom; the unit is MB. For a 4 MB field, try 3.9; for a 5 MB field, try 4.9. These are PDFMinto suggestions to leave room for rounded size displays, not official IRCC limits or guaranteed results.
Click Compress and read the actual result status. PDFMinto uses 1 MB = 1,000,000 bytes: 3.9 MB is 3,900,000 bytes and 4.9 MB is 4,900,000 bytes. A file already below the target is returned unchanged. A result still above the target is not reported as meeting it.
Review the download before returning to your account
Compare page count and order with the original. Zoom in on names, dates, amounts, stamps and small text. Check the actual downloaded file size rather than only a rounded MB display. Compression does not delete pages or turn entire pages into images, but image detail may degrade.
If the file is still too large, try exporting a smaller copy from the original scan source and review legibility. Text-only or already optimized PDFs may have little room to shrink. Do not remove required material to meet a limit. If a small enough file is rejected, check the field’s accepted formats and portal error. Meeting a size target does not guarantee portal acceptance or application approval.
Supported documents and privacy
This workflow is for ordinary supporting-document PDFs. PDFMinto compression does not support encrypted PDFs, interactive forms or digitally signed PDFs. Do not alter required forms, signatures or barcodes to make compression possible. Keep the originals and follow the application instructions for special files. The merge tool also rejects annotations (including links) and attachments.
Image conversion and merging run in your browser without uploading files. On the compression page, clicking Compress uploads the PDF for server processing with temporary private Vercel Blob storage. Normal download completion or failure triggers cleanup, with daily expired-task cleanup as a fallback. Read the compression page’s privacy notice before uploading.