Canadian citizens and permanent residents can sponsor their parents and grandparents to Canada permanently. The parental sponsorship is approved on the basis of the sponsor’s earning capacity.

Eligibility For Parental Sponsorship

• 18 years old or above in age.
• Canadian citizen OR a permanent resident of Canada
• able to support your sponsored parent or grandparent including their dependents such as their partner and children
• able to support your spouse/partner and any dependents (e.g. your children plus your partner’s dependents from different marriage/partnership)

Proof Of Income

The sponsor will be financially responsible for himself/herself, spouse/partner, and dependents along with incoming parents or grandparents. It is mandatory to prove that there is enough income to support all of them. Sponsors need to provide their Notice of Assessment (NoA) issued by the Canada Revenue Agency for the three taxation years.

Minimum Income Requirement

The sponsor must meet the minimum income requirement for each of the three taxation years before the submission of the parental sponsorship application.

The minimum income requirement for the program is updated every year. See the table below that gives information about the minimum income you must have, for the last three years for applying to sponsor your parents or grandparents in 2020.

The figures given below are in the Canadian dollar.

Minimum Income Requirement for Parental Sponsorship

In general, there is a 30 percent increase in the minimum income requirement every year, which has been omitted this year due to the adverse impact of the COVID-19 pandemic.

Sponsorship Agreement

Sponsor is required to sign a sponsorship agreement with an undertaking to support the dependents for 20 years after they become permanent residents of Canada. During the period of undertaking, if any of the sponsored family members avail any kind of social assistance, sponsor will be responsible for repaying it to the government.

Application Process

• First of all, sponsor will need to submit an ‘Interest to Sponsor’ form online.
• IRCC randomly selects and invites potential sponsors to invite them to apply. The selected sponsors, who are eligible, are issued ITA’s (Invitation to Apply) via email.
• Sponsor has to submit the complete sponsorship application within 60 days of receiving an invitation.

Submitting Sponsorship Application

Two separate applications will need to be submitted, together, for sponsoring your parents or grandparents.

1. An application to sponsor, that you will need to submit.
2. An application for permanent residence that your parents or grandparents will need to submit.

Documents Required

• Identity and travel documents such as passport and national identity card (for both sponsor and sponsored)
• Marriage certificate/ divorce certificate/ annulment certificate, as applicable (from the sponsored)
• Income proof in the form of Notice of Assessment (NoA) for the three years preceding the application (from the sponsor)
• For accompanying dependent children, birth certificate/ adoption certificate/ custody letter etc. as applicable
• Any documents that can help establish a parent-child relationship between the sponsored and sponsor (birth certificate, academic documents, adoption certificate etc).

Application Fee And Processing Time

The fee for sponsoring each parent or grandparent is CAN $1050. This fee includes application processing fee and the right to permanent residence fee. You may have to pay the biometrics fee separately. The processing time could vary from 12 to 24 months.

Cap On The Number Of Applications

IRCC have announced that they will be accepting a maximum of 10,000 applications in 2020, which originally was set at 21,000 before the COVID-19 outbreak in March. This means you must apply as soon as possible to be among those 10,000. Applications for the program are set to open on October 13, 2020.

In case, you are unable to apply for the program for any reason, you can apply for 2021 intake. IRCC has set a target of accepting up to 30,000 applications for 2021. Please visit https://www.canada.ca/en/immigration-refugees-citizenship/services/immigrate-canada/family-sponsorship/sponsor-parents-grandparents.html for more details.

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