Parents Sponsorship

Draw results for 2021 started being released via email on Sept 23, 2021

IRCC announced that it will issue 30,000 invitations via email starting on September 23, 2021, over a 2 week period, to individuals who entered the lottery draw in 2020. It appears that no new draw entries will be allowed in 2021. Only those individuals who entered the draw in 2020 will be invited. IRCC will use all draw entries they collected in 2020 to issue invitations to apply in Sept 2021.

Individuals wishing to enter the draw for the first time will have to wait until 2022 to enter, perhaps January or February.

Once an invitation is issued, individuals will have 60 days to submit a complete application to IRCC. It is extremely important to submit an complete application, otherwise, the application will not be accepted and it will be returned 4 months later. Individuals will lose their opportunity to sponsor on the issued invitation because the 60 day deadline window for submitting a complete application will have passed by the time the application is returned for being incomplete. These individuals will have to re-enter the draw again for the next year and be lucky enough to get another invitation to sponsor.

IRCC has also announced that the application submission will change from a paper based application to an electronic, online submission. All PR applications will now be submitted electronically to IRCC.

*IRCC has made a temporary public policy change with respect to the income requirement for 2020; instead of LICO + 30%, the MNI requirement for the 2020 year specifically, is just LICO (and not grossed up by 30%). This has been done in the spirit of recognizing that many individuals were affected financially by business closures and layoffs due to COVID-19. For income calculation for 2020 specifically, IRCC will also allow Employment Insurance to be counted as part of an individual's income.

To be eligible to sponsor:

• You must be a Canadian Citizen or Permanent Resident
• You must be 18 years of age or older
• You must meet or exceed the minimum necessary income (MNI) requirement for Family Sponsorship
• You must sign an undertaking agreement that commits you to provide financial support for your sponsored parents or grandparents and repay any provincial social assistance benefits paid to the sponsored family members for 20 years.
• If the sponsor lives in Quebec, an additional undertaking agreement must be signed

Sponsors must provide three Notices of Assessment from the CRA to IRCC to prove that they meet the minimum necessary income requirement.

If you do not qualify for Parental PR sponsorship because you do not meet the MNI for the 3 year period, you can apply for a Super Visa as the income required is only for 1 year and it is about 30% lower. Read more about Super Visa.

Minimum Necessary Income tables for 2020

*The below table is for all provinces except Quebec. A separate table is used for Quebec residents