Bring Your Partner/Children to Canada

This program allows Canadian citizens and permanent residents to sponsor their spouse for Canadian permanent residency. In some cases, you do not need to be legally married in order to be eligible to sponsor your loved one to come to Canada. Canada recognizes common-law partnership if you have been continuously living together in a conjugal relationship for at least one year. Travel and brief periods apart will not affect your eligibility, as long as you can prove you have spent the majority of your time as common-law partners living in the same household. Providing relevant documents like a joint bank account proof, common residential address proof will bring more validity to your application.

About the process

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

Who is eligible to sponsor their spouse?

You can sponsor your spouse, partner or dependent child if:

• You’re at least 18 years old
• You’re a Canadian citizen, a permanent resident of Canada, or a person registered in Canada as an Indian under the Canadian Indian Act
  • If you’re a Canadian citizen living outside Canada, you must show that you plan to live in Canada when the persons you want to sponsor become permanent residents.
  • You can’t sponsor someone if you’re a permanent resident living outside Canada.
• You’re able to prove that you’re not receiving social assistance for reasons other than a disability
• you can provide for the basic needs of any persons you want to sponsor