Family is one of the primary pillars of Canadian society. Accordingly, Canada has several family sponsorship programs that the country’s citizens and permanent residents (PR) can apply under to reunite with their loved ones.
In fact, among family-class immigrants, Canada seeks to welcome some 80,000 newcomers per year under its Spouses, Partners, and Children category. One program under this category is called Inland Spousal and Common-Law Partner Sponsorship.
This program is for spouses or common-law partners who are legally living together in Canada.
Sponsor your family for Canadian immigration
For these purposes, a “spouse” and “common-law partner” are defined as follows:
Individuals hoping to apply for Canadian permanent residence through inland sponsorship must keep the following in mind:
There are several requirements for an individual to become eligible as a sponsor. The sponsor:
For a duration of three years from the day that the inland sponsorship application is approved, a sponsor must:
The two key requirements of a foreign national hoping to be sponsored and come to Canada include:
Note: Inland sponsorship hopefuls living in the province of Quebec will have to follow different application steps. Details regarding these steps can be found here.
There are six key steps involved with inland sponsorship applications.
Step 1: The Canadian citizen or permanent resident in the relationship must apply to become eligible to fulfill their role as a sponsor. This application must be sent at the same time as the application for sponsorship of the foreign national spouse or partner and will be included within the application package described in step two
Step 2: Obtain the application package found on the government website; it includes a guide, with instructions and forms as well as a checklist that will help you complete the process correctly
Step 3: Pay all required application fees online (application fees, right of permanent residence fees, biometric fees)
Step 4: Complete and sign all required forms
Step 5: Send your application to the right visa office and mailing address in Canada by following the instructions provided in the guide you downloaded
Step 6: While the application is under review, you may be asked to submit additional supporting documents
Applications for this sponsorship pathway will need to be submitted to a specific mailing address identified by IRCC (provided in the guide mentioned in step one above) and they typically take approximately 12 months to process.
The general expectation is that applicants in this sponsorship stream will remain in Canada during application processing. Should this not be possible for the foreign national applicant, outland spousal and common-law partner sponsorship may be a better option.
Sponsor your family for Canadian immigration
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