Sponsor

Sponsorship Eligibility Criteria

Canadian Citizens and Permanent Residents may sponsor eligible family members to become Permanent Residents of Canada.

To be able to sponsor your family members, you must meet the following eligibility criteria as a sponsor:

Be at least 18 years of age;
Be a Canadian citizen, a registered Indian under Canadian Indian Act, or a permanent resident of Canada:
- If you are a permanent resident, you must be physically located inside Canada to initiate the sponsorship process.
You are financially sustainable and are not receiving social assistance for reasons other than disability:
- Financial sustainability means that you will be able to financially support yourself and the person you are sponsoring to cover basic living needs.

Eligible family members that can be sponsored are:

Spouses, common-law partners and/or conjugal partners;
Children - natural and adopted generally under 22 years of age;
Parents, grandparents;
Orphaned children such as siblings, nieces, nephews or grandchildren under 18 years of age;
Other family members for ‘lonely Canadians’.

Factors that could prevent you from being a sponsor are as follows:

You are sponsoring a spouse or a partner that is below 18 years of age;
You are sponsoring a spouse or partner but you signed an undertaking for a previous spouse or partner and it hasn’t been three years since they became a permanent resident;
You previously sponsored someone and did not pay back any social assistance that they received while the undertaking was in place;
You are in default on an immigration loan or a performance bond;
You did not pay court-ordered alimony or child support;
You have declared bankruptcy which has not been discharged;
You were convicted of:
- an offence of a sexual nature;
- a violent crime;
- an offence against a relative that caused bodily harm; or
- threatened or attempted to commit any of the above offences.
You are sponsoring a spouse or partner and you were previously sponsored as a spouse, common-law or conjugal partner and became a permanent resident of Canada less than five years ago;
You are under a removal order;
You are in a penitentiary, jail, reformatory or prison;
You have already applied to sponsor your current spouse or partner and haven’t received a decision.

If you are looking for an immigration lawyer, you do not have to look any further, as our firm will gladly assist you with your immigration matter. At UL Lawyers, for all immigration matters, we offer free consultation for the first 15 minutes and in the event our law firm is retained, we will credit the consultation fee towards your legal fees. For more information, you can contact us via telephone or WhatsApp at 1-905-744-8888 or email us at info@ullaw.ca. We look forward to assisting you with your immigration matter.

Sponsorship categories

Spousal Sponsorship:

To be eligible under this class, you and your spouse must be legally married according to the laws of the country where you were married – this generally means obtaining a legal marriage certificate reflecting both of your names and date of marriage. A marriage license is not accepted for these types of applications. The process can be started at any time, there’s no geographical requirement for both of you to be together to initiate the application.

If you are a permanent resident however, you must be present in Canada at the time of application submission and must be regularly residing in Canada on a permanent basis.

Common-Law Partner Sponsorship:

The sponsored person must have been living together with you for at least 12 continuous months without any long periods apart that don’t have a valid reason. You will be asked to provide various documents of joint cohabitation for the eligible period to meet eligibility under this class.

Conjugal Partner Sponsorship:

This is a special class of sponsorship application that is extended to individuals that cannot be legally married or be in a common-law relationship due to circumstances outside of their control. Regardless, you must prove that you have been in a relationship for at least 1 year and provide a reasonable explanation of why you are not able to get married or live together as common-law partners. For example:

You and your partner are of same gender living in a country where same sex relationships are not accepted or considered to be illegal;
You and your partner are of different religious groups which does not allow you to get legally married;
You are in a relationship with a person who is married and cannot legally obtain a divorce due to national laws of the country where that person lives.

Parents/Grandparents Sponsorship

The most important information about this class is that you must meet minimum income requirements in order to sponsor parents or grandparents for permanent residence. While the first 3 classes above only ask for you to be financially sustainable, this class will require for you to submit income tax assessments to prove financial admissibility from your end. To see how much funds you need to be eligible as a sponsor, please visit the government website here as the numbers get updated every year. You must provide documents to prove familial relationship such as birth certificates, adoption documents, or other documents clearly stating the relationship between you and your parents.

Children Sponsorship:

To sponsor dependent children, there are a few options that are available under this category:

Sponsoring your biological or adopted child if you are a citizen of Canada will allow you to obtain Canadian citizenship for them.
Sponsoring your biological or adopted child if you are a permanent resident of Canada will allow you to sponsor them for permanent residence.

Children must be under 22 years old to be eligible under this class, unless they are unable to financially support themselves due to a mental or physical condition or have relied on parents for financial support since before the age of 22. For adopted children, age restriction can be excused depending on the personal circumstances of the child.

Other Relatives Sponsorship:

This class is available for other family members that do not fall under any category mentioned above. It is further divided into 2 categories:

Orphaned brother, sister, nephew, niece or grandchild:
1. They must be related to you by blood or adoption;
2. Both of their parents passed away;
3. They are under 18 years of age;
4. They are not married/common-law or conjugal relationship.
Other relative of any age as long as you (the sponsor) meet the following criteria:
1. You don’t have any living relative that you can sponsor such as spouse or a life-partner, children, parents/grandparents, and orphaned relatives mentioned in the section above;
2. You don’t have any other relatives living in Canada as citizens or permanent residents.