Family Sponsorship Canada

Spousal Sponsorship & Dependent Children
Any Canadian citizen or permanent resident can sponsor his/her spouse, common law partner, conjugal partner or dependent children to live in Canada.

Following conditions must be met for sponsoring each category:
Spouse – Applicants must be legally married and 18 years old.

Common law Partner– Applicants must be at least 18 years in age. He/She must not be legally married but should have been living together for at least 12 consecutive months. The time spent away from each other should be short and temporary.

Conjugal partner– Applicants must be at least 18 years in age. He/She should not be legally married or in common law relationship but should have been in a relationship for at least 1 year. The conjugal partner lives outside Canada. It is required to prove that living together or getting married in conjugal law partner’s country is impossible.

Dependent Children– should be less than 22 years in age and should not have a spouse or common law partner. However, children above 22 years of age qualify as dependents if they need financial support because of mental or physical condition or if they have been dependent on their parent for financial support before they turned 22.

It is not easy to convince the visa officer to prove your relationship genuine. Providing a marriage certificate does not authenticate your spousal sponsorship application. There are a lot of technical specifications that are required to justify different kinds of relationships.