Spousal Sponsorship

You are a Canadian citizen or a Permanent Resident and you want to sponsor your spouse to become a Permanent Resident of Canada? Canada has the ideal program for you, the ‘Family class sponsorship’. Canada offers sponsorship programs for permanent residents or citizens of Canada that wish to bring their loved ones to Canada. The Canadian government strongly supports family reunification, thus spousal sponsorship application processing is given the highest priority at Canadian Visa Offices. The Spousal Sponsorship is very popular as it is the most demanded stream under Family class immigration.

Who can apply to become a sponsor ?

You’re at least 18 years old
You’re a Canadian citizen, a permanent resident of Canada, or a person registered in Canada as an Indian under the Canadian Indian Act
- If you’re a Canadian citizen living outside Canada, you must show that you plan to live in Canada when the persons you want to sponsor become permanent residents.
- You can’t sponsor someone if you’re a permanent resident living outside Canada.
You’re able to prove that you’re not receiving social assistance for reasons other than a disability
You can provide for the basic needs of any persons you want to sponsor

You can sponsor your spouse, common-law partner, conjugal partner or dependent children. You and your foreign spouse or partner will have to prove that you are in an authentic relationship.

Your spouse: you are legally married.

Your common-law partner: you are not legally married. You have been living together for at least 12 consecutive months, meaning you’ve been living together continuously for 1 year in a conjugal relationship, without any long periods apart. Any time spent away from each other should have been short and temporary.

Your conjugal partner: you are not legally married nor in a common-law relationship together. You have been living together for at least 12 consecutive months, outside Canada. You can’t live together in your country of residence or marry you because of significant legal and immigration reasons such as their marital status (for example, they’re still married to someone else in a country where divorce isn’t possible) their sexual orientation (for example, you are in a same-sex relationship, and same-sex relationships are not accepted, or same-sex marriage is illegal where they live), persecution (for example, your relationship is between different religious groups which is not accepted and they may be punished legally or socially)

You’ll need to give proof that you could not live together or get married in your conjugal partner’s country (for example, proof of refused long-term stays in each other’s country).

Dependent children: Children qualify as dependants if they meet both of these requirements: they’re under 22 years old and they don’t have a spouse or common law partner

Children 22 years old or older qualify as dependants if they meet both of these requirements: they are unable to financially support themselves because of a mental or physical condition and they have depended on their parents for financial support since before the age of 22.

In all cases, sponsored individuals must be 18 years old at least and will pass medical tests, background and security test.

OUTLAND VS INLAND

Most of the applications are done from outside Canada meaning the sponsored person lives outside Canada and the sponsor lives in Canada. The Visa Office in the residing country of the sponsored person will be handling the process. Applicant (person being sponsored) will become permanent resident upon landing in Canada.

If you are looking to apply for spousal sponsorship inside Canada (meaning living together) the application will be handled in a local immigration office in Canada. Once approved, the status of the sponsored person will change from temporary to permanent. Spousal sponsorship within Canada gives an opportunity to sponsored person and living in Canada to apply for an OWP (Open Work Permit).

Did you know that processing time was recently reduced from 26 to 12 months? The Covid-19 pandemic created a major bottleneck for all immigration application especially the family sponsorship. Canada is now back to pre-pandemic processing times.

For more info on Spousal Sponsorship click here