Sponsorship

If you are already settled in Canada, sponsoring is the route for bringing your family to join you permanently. Who you can sponsor, what you have to prove and what you are committing to are set out in full on our Family Sponsorship page. This one covers the part that depends on your position rather than on theirs.

Citizen or permanent resident — it changes where you must live

Both can sponsor. The difference is residence. A permanent resident must be living in Canada to sponsor, and must stay. A Canadian citizen may sponsor a spouse, partner or dependent child from outside Canada, provided they show they will return to live here when the person arrives. Sponsoring a parent or grandparent requires living in Canada either way.

If you were sponsored as a spouse or partner yourself, you cannot sponsor a new spouse or partner until five years have passed since you became a permanent resident. The clock runs from landing, not from the application.

Inland or outland, when your partner is already here

This is the decision most people on this page are actually facing, and it is a real trade rather than a formality.

Inland means your partner stays in Canada while the application is processed, and can usually apply for an open work permit at the same time — so they can work for any employer while they wait, which for most couples is the deciding factor. The cost: leaving Canada during processing puts the application at risk, and a refusal carries no right of appeal.

Outland is processed through a visa office abroad even if your partner is physically in Canada. They can travel freely, and a refusal can be appealed to the Immigration Appeal Division. There is no open work permit attached.

Neither is faster in a way you can rely on, and the right answer depends on whether your partner needs to work, whether they need to travel, and how much appeal rights matter to your particular file.

While the application is in progress

The person being sponsored has to keep valid temporary status in Canada in the meantime — sponsorship is not status, and an application in progress does not stop a visitor record or a work permit expiring. See Status Extension and apply before the current one runs out.

Where Skylam comes in

The inland-versus-outland choice is worth a conversation before you file, because it is difficult to change afterwards. So is anything that complicates your side of it: a previous sponsorship, time spent outside Canada as a permanent resident, or an undertaking you have signed before.

Requirements

Who qualifies

The requirements for the person you are sponsoring are on the Family Sponsorship page. What follows is what is asked of you, as somebody already in Canada.

Your status and residence

At least 18, and a Canadian citizen, permanent resident, or a person registered under the Indian Act. A work permit or study permit does not allow you to sponsor.
Permanent residents must be living in Canada to sponsor, and to remain so.
A citizen sponsoring a spouse, partner or dependent child from abroad must show they will return to live in Canada when the person lands. For parents and grandparents, you must be living here.
At least five years must have passed since you became a permanent resident, if you were yourself sponsored as a spouse or partner.

Your commitment

The undertaking — a binding promise to provide for their basic needs and to repay any social assistance they receive. Three years for a spouse or partner, longer for a child, twenty years for a parent or grandparent. It survives divorce, separation, unemployment and leaving Canada.
Income at or above the minimum necessary income, for parents, grandparents and most other relatives. There is normally no income requirement for a spouse, partner or dependent child.
You are in Quebec: the province assesses your ability to support them under its own rules after IRCC approves you as a sponsor.

You cannot sponsor if

You are in prison, bankrupt, or under a removal order.
You have defaulted on a previous undertaking, an immigration loan, or court-ordered support.
You receive social assistance for a reason other than disability.
You have been convicted of certain offences — it depends on the offence, when it happened, and whether you have been pardoned.

Requirements change without notice. Check IRCC’s own page

Want a first answer now? Our short Sponsorship check asks only what this programme depends on, and tells you where you stand on it.

Check your eligibility

Every case turns on its own facts. Book a consultation and a licensed consultant will tell you where you stand on Sponsorship.

Book a Consultation

Last updated 26 September 2026

What has changed recently

Current processing time

Dependent child in Canada: 17 months
Adopted child in Canada: 24 months

Published by IRCC and last revised 1 October 2026. These are averages over applications IRCC has already decided, not a promise about yours.

These two figures are for sponsoring a child who is already in Canada. For a child abroad, IRCC publishes a figure for only a handful of countries, and for spouses, partners, parents and grandparents it publishes none in a form this page can read automatically — so we do not print one that would go stale. Check IRCC's own processing times tool for those, and book a consultation for where your own case stands.

Published by Immigration, Refugees and Citizenship Canada · last checked 2 October 2026. These figures describe decisions IRCC has already made — a consultation is where you find out what Sponsorship means for your own case.

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