How to Sponsor Your Parents and Grandparents

The people you’re sponsoring will have to show their COPR and their permanent resident visa (if we issued one) to the border services officer or immigration officer in Canada before their documents expire.

Find out more about how your family members can prepare for arrival.

If we refuse your parents’ and grandparents’ permanent residence application

If we refuse their permanent residence application, we’ll let you know

• why we refused it
• how to appeal the decision

Track and update your application

During processing, track your application and make sure it’s up to date by

• checking the status of your application
• updating your address or other information, if necessary
• adding or changing your representative or getting access to your family’s information, if necessary
• withdrawing your application, if desired
• paying the right of permanent residence fee or requesting a refund

Check the status of your application

For sponsors
Sponsors can check the status of their application by using our online tool. You can do this after we start processing your application and send you a letter with your application number. This can also take several weeks or even months. Unfortunately, we can’t give an exact time because every case is different.

Our telephone and social media agents also won’t be able to tell you the date you’ll get the letter with your application number. They don’t have this information.

If you want to manage your parents’ and grandparents’ application for them

As the sponsor, if you want to check on your parents’ and/or grandparents’ application status, you must first request access to their information.

To protect their privacy, they need to give us their written consent before we’ll share any of their personal information with you, or give anyone access to their application information.

Find out how the people you’re sponsoring can give you access to their information.

You can ask for permission just to check their status, or you can ask to act as what we call a “representative” if you want to

• fill out and submit your parents’ and grandparents’ application for them
• communicate with us on their behalf

To become your parents’ and grandparents’ representative, complete, sign and save the form to appoint or change a representative and include it with your sponsorship application. The people you’re sponsoring must also sign the form.

If you’ve already submitted your sponsorship application, send it to us through our web form. Include your

• full name
• date of birth
• country of birth
• application number (if you know it)
• relative’s Client ID Number or Universal Client Identifier (UCI), if you know it

You can upload the form after you’ve completed all the required fields.

For the people being sponsored

The people you’re sponsoring can check their application in 2 ways. They can

• create an IRCC secure online account and link their application to it
  • This includes either a paper application or one submitted online through the permanent residence application portal.
  • They can do this only when we’ve started processing their application and we’ve sent them their application number.
• use the online tool, which is updated daily

Linking the parent and/or grandparent application to an online account

When we start processing your family members’ application, we’ll send them a letter with their application number.

It can take several weeks or even months to get this letter. Unfortunately, we can’t give an exact time because every case is different. Our telephone and social media agents also won’t be able to tell you the date when your family member(s) will get the letter.

After they get this letter, the principal applicant can link their application to their online account. This way, they can communicate with us quickly and securely and get updates and messages about their application online.

Find out how to create an online account and link an application.

You (the sponsor) can link their application for them if you’re managing your family members’ application and you’re designated as their representative.

See the top questions about linking your application.

If your processing time has passed
If the normal processing time for your application has passed, you can contact us using our web form.

Withdraw your sponsorship application

You can withdraw your sponsorship application at any time before the person you’re sponsoring becomes a permanent resident of Canada.

You may be able to get a refund if we haven’t started processing your application.

Use our web form to request the withdrawal of your sponsorship application.

In your request, include your

• full name
• date of birth
• country of birth
• application number (if you know it)
• relative’s Client ID Number or Universal Client Identifier (UCI), if you know it

Submit your right of permanent residence fee or request a refund

The right of permanent residence fee must be paid before the people you’re sponsoring can become permanent residents. If it wasn’t paid, we’ll contact the people you’re sponsoring to explain how they can pay the right of permanent residence fee online.