There is no income requirement to sponsor a spouse or partner. What there is instead is a three-year financial undertaking, a genuineness assessment, and a choice between applying inside or outside Canada that changes your work rights and your appeal rights. Get that choice right first.
Our charges include applicable taxes. Disbursements are extra and billed at cost — itemized upfront, in writing, never hidden.
From $3,388.87 taxes included
A sponsor must be at least 18 and a Canadian citizen, a permanent resident, or a person registered under the Indian Act. You must show you will live in Canada when your spouse or partner becomes a permanent resident. A permanent resident cannot sponsor from outside Canada; a citizen can sponsor from abroad if they satisfy IRCC they will return.
Several bars apply. If you were yourself sponsored as a spouse or partner and became a permanent resident less than five years ago, you cannot sponsor. You also cannot sponsor if you are in default on a previous undertaking or an immigration loan, if you are receiving social assistance other than for a disability, or if you have certain convictions for offences causing bodily harm to family members.
On the other side, three relationships qualify. A spouse — legally married, with the marriage valid both where it took place and under Canadian law. A common-law partner — you have cohabited in a conjugal relationship for at least twelve continuous months. Or a conjugal partner — a genuine relationship of at least a year where an immigration, marital or similar barrier has made both cohabitation and marriage impossible.
An inland application, under the spouse or common-law partner in Canada class, requires your partner to be living with you in Canada with valid temporary status. Its big advantage is the open work permit: once IRCC issues the acknowledgement of receipt confirming the permanent residence application is in process, your partner can apply to work for any employer, and can extend that permit while the application continues.
Its disadvantage is appeal rights. If an inland application is refused, there is no appeal to the Immigration Appeal Division — only judicial review in the Federal Court, which is slower and reviews the officer's process rather than rehearing the case.
An outland application is processed by a visa office even if your partner is physically in Canada. It preserves the right to appeal a refusal to the Immigration Appeal Division within 30 days, and it does not tie your partner to staying in Canada. Which is better depends on where your partner is, whether they need to work, whether they need to travel, and how much refusal risk the file carries.
The Regulations allow an officer to refuse a relationship that is not genuine or that was entered into primarily to acquire status. This is the substance of most refusals. Officers look for a documented shared life: how you met, communication records over time, photographs across the relationship rather than from one event, joint finances or leases, travel to see each other, and evidence that both families know. Volume is not the point — consistency and chronology are.
The sponsor signs an undertaking to provide for the basic needs of the sponsored partner and their dependent children for three years from the day they become a permanent resident. It survives a separation, a divorce, or a change in your finances. If your partner receives social assistance during that period, the province can pursue you for it.
IRCC's cost for a principal applicant sponsored from abroad is $1,260, which includes the sponsorship fee, the processing fee and the right of permanent residence fee. Biometrics are $85 per person, to a family maximum of $170. Our fee is $3,388.87, taxes included.
No. Unlike parent and grandparent sponsorship, there is no low income cut-off test for sponsoring a spouse, common-law partner or conjugal partner. You do have to sign the three-year undertaking, and you cannot sponsor while receiving social assistance for a reason other than disability, or while in default on an earlier undertaking or immigration loan. But there is no income floor to clear.
If you apply inland and your partner is in Canada with valid temporary status, yes — they can apply for an open work permit and generally get it once IRCC has acknowledged receipt of the permanent residence application. That permit can be extended while the application is still in process. If you apply outland, there is no work permit attached to the sponsorship; your partner would need separate work authorisation.
Not by itself, and officers are not entitled to assume a short courtship means a bad-faith marriage. What matters is whether the evidence tells a coherent story: how you met, how the relationship developed, why you married when you did, and what your life looks like now. Cultural context, including arranged marriages, is recognised. Files fail on gaps and contradictions, not on timelines.
$3,388.87, taxes included. That covers assessing eligibility on both sides, advising on inland versus outland and the work permit and appeal consequences, preparing the sponsorship and permanent residence applications together, organising the relationship evidence properly, and responding to IRCC requests and interviews until a decision. IRCC's $1,260 and the $85 biometrics fee are paid separately to the government.
Open your file tonight — a licensed Ontario lawyer will confirm everything with you by tomorrow.