Spousal Sponsorship
Spouse and Common-Law spousal sponsorship applications are the heart of our business. While we take pride in all the application categories we practice, there is something special about helping separated couples reunite in Canada.
Contact us today to help you determine which application stream best fits your situation!
Spouse or Common-Law Partner Sponsorship for Permanent Residence
At Castlewell Canadian Immigration Services, we have helped hundreds of couples navigate the spouse and common-law sponsorship process. Whether you and your loved one are already together in Canada, are both overseas, or are separated on different sides of the border, CCIS can guide you through the many hurdles of the Permanent Residence process. We can also help you decide which filing stream is the right one for your situation and help you manage border crossings as the spouse or common-law partner of a Canadian Citizen or Permanent Resident. Our consultants possess extensive experience in all facets of the spouse and common-law partner sponsorship process. In fact, our consultants have taught Spouse and Common-Law Sponsorship Immigration courses for the most prestigious Canadian Immigration Law programs at Canada’s top universities.
With the experience of hundreds of applications under our belt, we can see the issues, red flags and pitfalls that the average immigration representative might not catch. Let us help you have a smooth and successful immigration process so you and your partner can start your lives together in Canada.
Call or email us to see how CCIS can help you sponsor your spouse or partner for Permanent Residence in Canada.
Obtaining Canadian Permanent Residence for your spouse or common-law partner can be a complex and time-consuming process, but it is a crucial step in building a life together in Canada. Whether you are a Permanent Resident or citizen of Canada, there are several steps you will need to take in order to successfully apply for permanent residence for your spouse or partner.
First, it is important to ensure that you are eligible to sponsor your spouse or common-law partner for permanent residence. In order to do so, you must be at least 18 years of age, a Canadian citizen or permanent resident, and able to demonstrate that you have sufficient financial resources to support your spouse or partner and any accompanying children or other dependents. There are numerous factors that go into assessing a sponsor’s eligibility, including where the sponsor is located, whether they have sponsored someone else in the past, or been recently sponsored themselves, and whether they have any significant criminal history.
The person that you are sponsoring – the applicant – must also meet a number of eligibility requirements, including having nothing in their past that could render them inadmissible to Canada, including criminal records or physical or mental disorders that would cause them to be a threat to the health or safety of Canadians. Note that simply having a chronic, or even a terminal medical condition would not render a spouse or common-law partner inadmissible because unlike other streams of immigration, such as economic streams under the Express Entry system, spouses and common-law partners are not subject to inadmissibility due to causing “excessive demand” on Canada’s healthcare system. So, in short, Canada does not refuse couples because they are sick, even if they are seriously ill, unless it is something that can threaten the safety and health of Canadians.
You will need to provide evidence that you meet the definition of being a member of the “Family Class” (i.e. you are in a legally recognized marriage or have lived together in a serious committed relationship for 12+ months) and your relationship is genuine and does not fall under one of the criteria for “excluded relationships” (i.e. relationships that are underaged, involve bigamy or polygamy, are a relationship of convenience entered into for the purpose of obtaining Permanent Residence, among others).
You will also need to provide evidence of your relationship with your spouse, such as a marriage certificate or proof of common-law status (defined as 12+ consecutive months of cohabitation in a conjugal or “marriage-like” relationship), and evidence of having a genuine relationship.
Once you have determined that you are eligible to sponsor your spouse, the next step is to gather all of the necessary documentation. This includes proof of identity, such as a passports and birth certificates, as well as documentation evidencing your relationship, such as documents proving your history of cohabitation, relationship photographs and support letters from family and friends demonstrating your commitment to each other. As the sponsor you will also need to provide evidence of your financial resources, such as a confirmation of employment letter, recent tax return, and any other available documents showing your ability to financially support your spouse or partner as they settle in Canada. Note that there is no specific minimum income requirement or even a requirement to be employed to sponsor. IRCC just needs to be satisfied that the person you are sponsoring will not end up on government social assistance once they arrive in Canada. Technically, IRCC is supposed to only consider the financial resources of the sponsor, but in reality, they will take other sources into account. For example, we have had many cases where the sponsor was a stay-at-home parent, or full-time student while the applicant was the main or even sole income earner. We have also had cases where both the applicant and the sponsor were recent university graduates with little income of their own. In such cases we have successfully presented evidence of support from the sponsor’s parents pledging that they are committed to supporting the couple until they establish themselves in Canada.
A spouse or common-law partner sponsorship application is a joint application, meaning that the Sponsor’s application to be approved as an eligible sponsor, and the Applicant’s application to be approved for Permanent Residence are included together in one application, which is filed online via an IRCC Permanent Residence application portal account. When working with CCIS, we will take care of preparing and uploading the entire application online based on the documents and information you provide us, and when everything is ready we will walk you through how to review and approve the application for filing.
The application will include all of the documentation you have gathered, as well as all the necessary forms and applicable government processing fees. With CCIS, you will always be able to see exactly what has been prepared, what is being uploaded on your behalf and have total control over what happens and when. CCIS is your guide, but you are always in the driver’s seat.
Once your sponsorship application has been submitted, it will be reviewed by Immigration Refugees and Citizenship Canada (IRCC) to determine whether the application is complete for processing and that you are eligible to sponsor your spouse for permanent residence. IRCC will then issue requests for the Applicant to complete an immigration medical examination with an IRCC-designated physician and complete a biometrics appointment. A biometrics appointment takes place either at a ServiceCanada location in Canada or a Visa Application Centre (VAC) abroad where you will provide your digital photo and fingerprints. They may also request any additional documents they deem necessary, though this is rare since at CCIS we make sure that the initial application is thorough and impeccably well-documented.
Many applicants believe that at some point IRCC will ask them to attend an interview where they are interrogated about their relationship. While this is possible, in our experience it is very rare. If IRCC is calling for an interview, it may mean that they have some reason to doubt the genuiness of your relationship. Again, in our extensive experience over hundreds or applications, this almost never happens because our applications are so thoroughly documented, we do our utmost to not give an immigration officer any reason to question the genuiness of relationship.
If you are seeking to sponsor your spouse or common-law partner for Canadian Permanent Residence and have any questions about the process, contact us so we can provide you with the guidance and support you need. Let the experienced Consultants at CCIS show you how we can guide you through the dizzying bureaucracy which is the spouse or common-law partner sponsorship process.
Frequently Asked Questions
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Are you regulated professional immigration consultants?Yes. You can verify that our consultants are registered members of the College of Immigration and Citizenship Consultants (CICC – the governing body that regulates Immigration Consultants in Canada) by going to the CICC website (https://college-ic.ca/protecting-the-public/find-an-immigration-consultant) and searching for the company name ‘Castlewell’.
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Why do you charge a fee for consultations?Consultations often involve a significant amount of correspondence, including meetings, calls, detailed emails and background research. We strive to provide comprehensive and tailored assessments of eligibility and strategy for our clients. When a potential client purchases a consultation, we also do not limit the consultation to just the hour purchased, but also answer email follow-up questions. All this takes time. Therefore, we must charge a fee to compensate for the time and expertise that goes into such assessments.
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What experience do you have?The Castlewell Immigration team possesses 17 years experience in the Canadian immigration industry, working in some of the largest and well-known immigration law firms in Canada. We have trained under many of the best immigration lawyers in the country and as such hold ourselves to the highest standard of quality and professional ethics.
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What are the benefits to using an authorized representative?Our team brings a detailed knowledge of immigration laws, policies and procedures to your application. While there are many people who have straightforward cases, and are able to file on their own, there are many who attempt and receive a refusal based on misinterpretation of immigration policy, or simply being unaware of rules and regulations. In addition, there are many people who prefer to save the time and effort and have a specialist prepare an application on their behalf. Picture it like preparing your taxes, a lot of people chose to file on their own, but there are also lots of reasons to have a qualified specialist help you out.
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I am not located close to your office. Do I need to be close by to work with you?No, geographic proximity is not necessary to work with us. In fact, in many cases we never meet our clients face-to-face as they are outside of Canada. We have serviced clients from all over the world destined for cities all across Canada. Often, even clients who are close by prefer to just work with us online. As long as you are comfortable with computers, telephone and email, working with us from anywhere in the world will be a breeze!
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Can you guarantee the success of my application?No. The decision to approve or refuse an application rests solely with the Canadian government. As such, it is not possible for us to ever guarantee an outcome, and any immigration representative that does is acting unethically. It is our policy to only take cases we believe have a very strong likelihood of success. If for any reason we believe that your case is not a strong one, we will tell you and let you decide if you still want to proceed knowing all the possible risks. Also, if we feel that your case requires services that we do not provide (for example we do not do refugee cases), we are happy to refer you to another service provider who may suit you better.