Family Sponsorship
The family sponsorship program in Canada is a way for Canadian citizens and permanent residents to sponsor certain relatives from other countries to come to Canada as permanent residents.
The program is designed to reunite families who have been separated by distance and to help new immigrants settle into their new lives in Canada. Your relatives can live, study and work in Canada if they become permanent residents of Canada.
Eligibility and requirements
- You are at least 18 years old
- Canadian citizen or
- permanent resident of Canada
Who can you sponsor?
Spouse, partner or dependent children
Relatives
Adopted Children
Parents and grandparents
Sponsor your spouse, partner or dependent children
If you’re eligible, you can sponsor your spouse, partner or dependent children to become permanent residents of Canada.
If you do, you must be able to:
- support them financially
- make sure they don’t need social assistance from the government
Sponsor your relatives
If you sponsor a relative to come to Canada as a permanent resident, you must:
- support your relative financially when they arrive
- be able to meet basic needs for yourself and your relative, such as:
- food
- shelter
- clothing
- make sure your relative doesn’t need social assistance
Sponsor your adopted child
There are two processes that you must go through when you adopt a child from another country: the adoption process and the immigration process.
The immigration process has two parts:
- the application for sponsorship
- the application for permanent residence for the child
After your child arrives in Canada as a permanent resident, you can apply for citizenship on the child’s behalf. However, the adoption must be finalized before the child can be granted citizenship.
Sponsor your parents and grandparents
If you submitted the interest to sponsor form in 2020 and were invited to apply to the 2021 intake, you can sponsor your parents and grandparents to become permanent residents of Canada.
If you’re invited to apply, there are 2 applications that are submitted and reviewed for the parents and grandparents program:
- the sponsorship application
- the permanent residence application
If both applications are approved, you’ll sign an agreement called an undertaking that starts on the day the person you’re sponsoring (and their family members, if this applies) becomes a permanent resident of Canada.