FAQ's

Sponsors must:

• Be at least 18 years old.
• Live in Canada.
• Be a Canadian citizen, permanent resident, or a person registered in Canada as an Indian under the Canadian Indian Act.
• Have enough money to support those they want to sponsor by meeting minimum income requirements for the previous three years. Candidates can include a co-signer in their application, allowing the combined income to be considered.

Sponsors must also:

• Agree to financially support the parent or grandparent for 20 years from the date they are approved for permanent residence.
• Reimburse the government for any social assistance paid out to the parent or grandparent during that time.

Your parents can stay in Canada on a regular visitor visa or a super-visa during the processing of the application. The regular visa typically allows for a stay of six months while a Super-visa can allow a stay for 5 years and extend to two years consecutively. The visitor status can be extended in Canada before the expiry to provide maintained or implied status until a decision is rendered.

Some common reasons for return of a Parent and Grandparent sponsorship application as incomplete or wholesale refusal are:

• Failure to provide updated forms or fees.
• Errors in information submitted.
• Failure to provide supporting documentation and/or evidence.
• Failure to meet the financial requirements to sponsor parent.

Income to be eligible to sponsor parents and/or grandparents is the total income on line 15000 of your Notice of Assessment (NOA) from the Canada Revenue Agency (CRA).

Subtract any income that must be excluded:

• provincial or territorial allowances for an instruction or training program (such as taxable scholarships, bursaries, or fellowships if included on line 13000 of the NOA)
• social assistance from a province or territory
• payments from the Government of Canada under a resettlement assistance program
• regular Employment Insurance earnings (except for the 2020 and 2021 tax years)
• Old Age Security and Guaranteed Income Supplement payments.

• Citizens and permanent residents can sponsor their own parents and grandparents, related by blood or adoption.
• In cases of divorce or separation, the spouses or common-law partners of parents and grandparents are also eligible.
• A sponsor’s brothers and sisters, or half brothers and sisters, are only eligible if they qualify as dependent children.
• More than one person or couple can be sponsors if the financial requirements are met.