A parent who has settled in Brampton and is waiting to bring a child over often has a single date on their mind: the child’s twenty-second birthday. It is a sensible worry, and it is only part of the picture. Whether a child can be sponsored can also turn on a form you filled out years ago, a custody arrangement with a former partner abroad, or whether the child has quietly married.
Most of these applications are less demanding than parents fear. There is usually no income test. The sponsor’s long-term promise is significant, however, and a small number of errors can do permanent damage. Parents are better off finding those points before they fill out a single page.
What follows is general information, not legal advice about your family. Immigration, Refugees and Citizenship Canada (IRCC) updates its forms and instructions regularly, so confirm the requirements in force on the day you apply. Applicants living in Quebec should note that Quebec has its own requirements, and those are not covered here.
Who Counts as a Dependent Child
A child generally qualifies in one of two ways. The first is age: the child is under 22 and does not have a spouse or common-law partner. The second is dependency: the child is 22 or older, has depended on a parent for financial support since before turning 22, and cannot support themselves financially because of a mental or physical condition.
The age is locked in on the day IRCC receives a complete application. This matters a great deal. A child who is 21 when a complete package arrives remains under the age limit even if the application takes well over a year and the child turns 22 along the way. A package returned as incomplete may not protect the date, so a rushed application filed weeks before a birthday can be riskier than it seems. If a birthday is close, plan backward from it and leave time for the document checklist, signatures, and photographs.
Age is the only factor that gets frozen. The other conditions must remain true through processing. A 20-year-old who marries or enters a common-law relationship before the process ends stops meeting the definition. Tell IRCC promptly about any change in the child’s situation, and make sure the child understands what is at stake before any wedding planning begins.
For an older child relying on the second branch, expect to show both parts: a medical or psychological condition that prevents self-support, and a history of financial dependence on you. Letters from treating physicians, records of schooling or care, and proof of money you have sent over the years are the kinds of records that tend to help. A diagnosis alone does not answer whether the person can financially support themselves.
Who Can Sponsor
You must be at least 18, and be a Canadian citizen, a permanent resident, or a person registered under the Indian Act. You must live in Canada. A citizen living abroad can sponsor by showing that they will live here when the child becomes a permanent resident, but a permanent resident living abroad cannot.
You may be ineligible if you are in prison, subject to a removal order, or an undischarged bankrupt. The same goes if you are behind on an immigration loan, a performance bond, or court-ordered child support or alimony, or if you failed to provide support you promised under an earlier sponsorship. Receiving social assistance for a reason other than disability is also a bar, as are certain convictions for violent or sexual offences or offences that caused bodily harm to a relative. Some of these can be fixed. A support arrears balance with the Family Responsibility Office, for example, can be cleared and documented before you file.
People often assume they will have to prove a high salary. In most cases they will not. Generally there is no income requirement to sponsor a dependent child. The exception arises when that child has one or more dependent children of their own. In that situation you must meet a minimum income, and the Financial Evaluation Form (IMM 1283) sets out the calculation.
A low income does not mean finances are irrelevant. An officer must still be satisfied that you qualify and intend to meet your undertaking, and receiving social assistance is a separate bar, as noted above. Think of the absence of an income test as removing one hurdle, not as removing your obligation.
What You Are Promising
Sponsoring a child means signing an undertaking to provide for the child’s basic needs, and it runs well past the day of arrival. Outside Quebec, the length depends on the child’s age:
- For a child under 22 when they become a permanent resident: 10 years, or until the child turns 25, whichever comes first.
- For a dependent child who is 22 or older: 3 years from the day they become a permanent resident.
So a hypothetical 8-year-old would keep you bound until 18, while a 19-year-old’s undertaking would end at 25. Basic needs include food, clothing, shelter, and health-related costs that public programs do not cover. If the child later receives social assistance during that period, the government can look to you for repayment, and the debt can stop you from sponsoring anyone else. A teenager who moves out after a family dispute and applies for Ontario Works is a realistic example, and the undertaking generally carries on regardless of how the relationship turns out.
The Trap of the Undeclared Child
Of all the risks in this area, this one causes the most heartbreak. When a person immigrates to Canada, they must declare all family members, including children who are not coming along. Every one of those children must also be examined. If you left a child off your own permanent residence application, and the child was not examined, the regulations can exclude that child from the family class later. The relevant provision, paragraph 117(9)(d) of the Immigration and Refugee Protection Regulations, is commonly known as the excluded family member rule.
The consequences go further than a refusal. On an appeal, the Immigration Appeal Division generally cannot consider humanitarian factors unless it first finds the child is a member of the family class. Failing to declare someone may also put your own status at risk, because it can be treated as misrepresentation. People leave a child off for many reasons, often because of bad advice, a difficult family situation, or the belief that a child who lived with the other parent did not need to be listed. If this may have happened to you, pull your original application and get advice before you file anything. There may be other avenues, such as humanitarian and compassionate applications or temporary public policies where one is in effect, but these are fact-specific and cannot be counted on.
The rule also looks forward. Listing every child today, even one who is staying with a grandparent or former spouse, preserves that child’s possibility of being sponsored in future.
Custody and the Other Parent
A separated parent’s child may live thousands of kilometres from Brampton, and the other parent may have views. IRCC expects this situation to be dealt with on paper. When a minor is travelling without both parents, the non-accompanying parent typically completes a Separation Declaration for Minors (IMM 5604), signed by hand and supported by a copy of that parent’s photo ID. If the other parent cannot be found, or will not cooperate, you will generally need to include a written explanation along with whatever you have, such as a court order, a death certificate, or evidence of attempts to contact them.
A dispute over a child’s custody is not only an immigration matter. If you do not have the legal authority to remove your child from another country, sponsorship paperwork will not provide it, and taking a child without that authority can cause serious legal problems in both places. Where the child’s other parent lives in Canada or an order exists here, it may be worth seeing how Ontario’s parenting law applies. Our custody page explains some of that background. Foreign orders may need their own advice from a lawyer in the country concerned.
Proving Parentage
IRCC expects a birth certificate listing the parents or, for an adopted child, adoption documents. Records may be late-registered, unavailable, or written in a way that raises doubts, particularly if a birth was registered long after it occurred. In those situations an officer might ask for further evidence. DNA testing is sometimes suggested when documents are insufficient, and if you are asked, follow IRCC’s instructions closely about the accredited laboratories to use. Do not arrange your own test beforehand on the assumption that it will be accepted.
Adopted children follow a separate sponsorship package, and an adoption must meet specific requirements for the child to qualify. In general terms, an adoption needs to create a genuine parent-child relationship and not be done primarily to gain immigration status. Adoptions by relatives overseas raise this question often, so obtain advice before starting the process if you can.
Medical Exams and Other Checks
The child must complete a medical exam. So must other family members who are not citizens or permanent residents, even those not coming to Canada. Instructions usually give a short period, commonly 30 days, to complete the exam with a panel physician.
One point can be a real relief for families of children with disabilities or serious health conditions. Section 38 of the Immigration and Refugee Protection Act makes a person inadmissible if their condition might reasonably be expected to cause excessive demand on health or social services. That excessive demand ground does not apply to a foreign national found to be a member of the family class who is the child of a sponsor. A condition that poses a danger to public health or public safety is treated differently, so the exam still matters. If you have been told a child’s condition rules out sponsorship, ask for a proper review.
A child of 18 or older will also generally need police certificates, and children of any age can be examined on other admissibility grounds.
How the Process Runs
Dependent child sponsorships use the Family Class stream, processed outside Canada, even when the sponsor lives in Brampton. You apply as sponsor and the child applies for permanent residence as a linked application. Both are submitted together, and fees are listed on IRCC’s fee list. A dependent child does not pay the right of permanent residence fee, though the other government fees are payable.
Before you submit, go through this short list:
- Check that the child’s name, birth date, and parent names match across every document, and explain any differences in writing.
- Confirm the child’s current marital status and that of any child over 18.
- Use the guide and form versions currently posted by IRCC.
- Include translations where required, along with the translator’s affidavit where required.
- Compare the application against the personalized checklist for the country where the child lives.
A family moving home during processing should update IRCC immediately, since missed correspondence can be fatal to an application.
If the Application Is Refused
A refusal letter should not be the end of the conversation. In a family class application, the sponsor generally has a right of appeal to the Immigration Appeal Division, and there are short deadlines. If you withdraw an application instead of letting it go to decision, you may give up that appeal right, so think carefully before you accept any suggestion to withdraw. Appeal rights do have limits, such as for serious criminality.
Parents who have been separated from a child for years can feel enormous pressure to get this done quickly, and that pressure is exactly when mistakes get made. If you are unsure about a past form, a custody issue, or an older child’s dependency, our permanent residence page and contact page are good places to begin. A review cannot promise a particular decision, but it can spot a problem while there is still room to address it.