Parent and grandparent sponsorship is not open to anyone new at present. The Parents and Grandparents Program is paused, the department is not taking interest to sponsor forms, and its own page names the super visa as the alternative.
About this work
Three years, and all three of them. The sponsor has to have met the income threshold for each of the three tax years before the date of the application, proved by the notice of assessment issued by the Canada Revenue Agency for each year. One strong year does not carry two weak ones.
That is the sharpest difference from the super visa, where a single year is enough and the host may use either of the two years before the application. A family that cannot reach the sponsorship threshold across three consecutive years may still comfortably meet the super visa requirement, which is one of the reasons the two routes are not interchangeable.
A spouse or common-law partner may co-sign and add their income. Co-signing is not a formality: the co-signer takes on the same undertaking and the same liability for the full period.
For the most recent intake the thresholds published for the 2024 tax year ran from $47,549 for a family of two to $101,075 at seven, with $10,291 for each further person, and separate lower figures applied to the 2023 and 2022 tax years. Those figures belong to that intake. A new intake will publish its own, so they are worth reading rather than assuming.
Where the programme stands
Immigration, Refugees and Citizenship Canada states that it has paused this programme, and that it will not accept new interest to sponsor forms or invite potential sponsors to apply until further notice. No date has been given for it reopening.
The interest to sponsor form is the door into this programme, and it is shut. There is no queue to join, no pool to enter, and no application that can be filed now to hold a place. Anybody being invited to pay for help joining the pool is being sold something that does not currently exist.
The pause stopped intake. It did not cancel the inventory. A sponsorship filed before the pause is still being processed, and the requirements below are the ones it is assessed against.
IRCC's page points parents and grandparents to the super visa, which allows stays of up to five years at a time on a visa valid for up to ten years. It is a visitor status rather than residence, and for most families asking about this now it is the only route that is actually open.
When intake resumes it has historically run on short notice with a fixed window to respond. The income test looks backwards at three tax years, so a sponsor who wants to be ready cannot assemble it after an invitation arrives. That part is worth getting right now.
Side by side
6 points of difference
These are the two ways to bring a parent or grandparent to Canada, and only one of them is open. They are different in kind: one is permanent residence with a two decade financial commitment attached, the other is a long stay visitor visa.
Before the meeting
6 things to bring
Bring what you have and say what is missing. A meeting with the papers in front of it settles in one sitting what two telephone calls will not.
Our approach
The same four steps on every matter, whether it is a refusal at the Federal Court or a ticket at the Provincial Offences court.
Book a consultationWe take the full history and read the documents before offering an opinion. Most bad advice comes from acting on half the facts.
You get a candid read on strength, timeline and cost, including when the honest answer is that you do not need to hire anyone.
We prepare the application, the defence or the appeal properly the first time, because fixing a weak record later is harder and dearer.
You hear from us at each stage, and you hear what a wait actually means rather than a date chosen to sound better.
Reported decisions
7 allowed of 22 reported since 2023
Public judgments of the Federal Court with Kapil Rathod as counsel of record, each checkable by citation on the court's own site. The rest were dismissed and are listed with these ones.
Super visa, parents and grandparents
2026 FC 99Docket IMM-23381-24
Application allowedWork permit, Temporary Foreign Worker Program
2026 FC 105Docket IMM-18690-24
Application allowedTemporary resident visa
2026 FC 805Docket IMM-20802-24
Application allowedPermanent residence, Express Entry
2025 FC 275Docket IMM-1797-24
Application allowedWork permit, job offer
2024 FC 1928Docket IMM-6445-23
Application allowedStudy permit
2024 FC 1487Docket IMM-3700-23
Application allowedTemporary resident visa
2024 FC 1453Docket IMM-10337-23
Application allowedUpdates
2 notes
Dated notes on the rule changes that reach this work. Each records what moved and when it took effect; this page carries the position now.
In force 31 March 2026
Two alternatives were added to how a host proves income, and one of them lets the visiting parent's own income count toward the total.
In force 15 July 2026
Sponsorship processing continues for files already filed. What stopped is the front door: no new interest to sponsor forms, and no invitations.
Parent and grandparent sponsorship is closed to new sponsors for now, and the super visa is what the department itself points to.
Where it reopens, the income test looks backwards at three tax years, so the preparation cannot start when the invitation arrives.
Common questions
8 answered here
Written to be read once and acted on rather than to be rung about. Each answer is complete where the law allows a complete answer.
Twenty years, and there is no way out of it. Ten years in Quebec, which runs under a separate undertaking with the province. The period begins on the day the sponsored person becomes a permanent resident, not on the day the application was filed or approved.
What the sponsor promises is to support the people sponsored and to make sure they do not need social assistance. Where social assistance is paid, the sponsor repays it. That is a real debt and it is enforced.
The part that surprises people is what does not end it. Not divorce or a relationship breakdown. Not the sponsored person becoming a Canadian citizen. Not the sponsor losing their job or falling into debt. Not either party moving to another province or another country. Once the sponsored person is a permanent resident, the undertaking runs its full term regardless.
Withdrawal is possible, but only before permanent residence is granted. After that there is nothing to withdraw from. Twenty years is longer than a mortgage and longer than many marriages, and it is worth deciding on with that in mind rather than treating it as paperwork at the end of the form.
More people than most sponsors count, and getting it wrong is the most common way an income calculation fails. The count includes the sponsor, their spouse or partner, their dependent children, the parents or grandparents being sponsored and any of their dependants, and anybody the sponsor or co-signer has previously sponsored whose undertaking is still running.
That last category catches people. An undertaking signed years ago for a sibling or a former spouse is still counted while it runs, and it raises the threshold the sponsor now has to meet. It is not discretionary and it is visible to the department.
The same arithmetic applies to the super visa, which counts the host's household and the visiting parents together. A family that has worked out its size for one has usually done the work for the other.
The sponsor appeals, and the appeal goes to the Immigration Appeal Division under subsection 63(1) of the Act. That is a genuine appeal rather than a review: the Division can hear new evidence and substitute its own decision, which makes it a stronger remedy than judicial review in the Federal Court.
The appeal belongs to the sponsor, not to the parent abroad. It is filed in Canada, and the sponsor is the party. Families frequently assume the refused parent has to do something, and the person who actually has to act is the one already here.
Where the refusal was on the income, the appeal turns on the arithmetic and on whether the department counted the right years and the right people. Where it was on admissibility, medical or criminal, it becomes a different case entirely and the answer is on our inadmissibility page rather than this one.
No. The department has paused the programme and is not accepting interest to sponsor forms or issuing invitations until further notice. Anybody offering to put you into the pool today is describing something that is not open. The route that is available is the super visa, which gives visitor status for up to five years at a time.
No. A super visa is a visitor visa. It does not give permanent residence, it does not lead to citizenship, and it requires private medical insurance of at least $100,000. What it does give is long stays without the twenty year undertaking, and it is open now, which sponsorship is not.
No. Once the sponsored person becomes a permanent resident the undertaking cannot be cancelled or shortened. Divorce does not end it, the sponsored person becoming a Canadian citizen does not end it, losing your job does not end it, and moving away does not end it. Withdrawal is only possible before permanent residence is granted.
Three. The sponsor has to meet the threshold for each of the three tax years before the application, evidenced by a notice of assessment for each. The super visa is the one that works on a single year, which is why some families qualify for one and not the other.
You appeal, not them. A family class sponsorship refusal is appealed by the sponsor to the Immigration Appeal Division under subsection 63(1), from here. The Division can hear new evidence and replace the decision, so it is worth more than a judicial review, and the deadline is short enough that the refusal letter should be brought in rather than thought about.
Bring three years of notices of assessment and your household list. Parent and grandparent sponsorship is decided on those, and the super visa can be assessed from the same documents.
