Reuniting families is Canada’s top immigration priority. Mercan delivers expert service to reunite you with your family and children. Our experience in processing family applications for the past 25 years will help make the process easy and efficient for you.

You can sponsor a spouse, common-law or conjugal partner, or dependent children if you are a Canadian citizen or a permanent resident of Canada. You can apply as a sponsor if your spouse, common-law or conjugal partner, or accompanying dependent children live with you in Canada. You can also apply as a sponsor if your spouse, common-law or conjugal partner or dependent children live outside Canada. There is no income requirement to sponsor your spouse and dependent children.

To sponsor, you must …

- be 18 years of age or older,
- be a Canadian citizen, Registered Indian or permanent resident,
- be sponsoring a member of the Family Class,
- live in Canada or provide evidence, if you are a Canadian citizen living outside of Canada, that you will live in Canada once the person you are sponsoring becomes a permanent resident.
- sign an agreement with your spouse or common-law partner confirming that each of you understands your obligations and responsibilities,
- sign an undertaking promising to provide for your spouse or common-law partner’s basic requirements and, if applicable, those of his or her dependent children,
- prove that you have sufficient income to provide basic requirements for your spouse or common-law partner’s dependent children. To do this, you must provide documents showing your financial resources for the past 12 months. This requirement applies only when dependent children who have dependent children of their own are included on the application.

After Sponsorship

Permanent residence granted under the Spousal Sponsorship program carries certain conditions that must be met:
- The sponsor is financially responsible for the person sponsored for three years after the sponsored person becomes a permanent resident.
- Individuals who come to Canada as spouses are themselves barred from sponsoring a spouse in turn for five years after receiving Canadian permanent residence.

To find out how much you need to pay when submitting your application, use the fee table below.

Residents of Quebec

If you’re a resident of Quebec, you’ll need to pay another processing fee to the province of Quebec when you apply to Quebec.

The required fees levied by the Québec government to process an undertaking application are as follows:

The required fees must be paid in full, in Canadian currency only, by you or by a third party, when the application is dropped off or mailed. These required fees are not refundable, even if your application is refused.

Minimum Necessary Income

Refer to the low income cut-off table (Table 1) and go down the column until you come to the line that matches the number of people as determined in your application. This is the amount of income you must have to sponsor your relatives.

Quebec residents should refer to MIDI’s Financial Capacity Evaluation (Table 2) to determine if they have the financial ability to meet Quebec’s sponsorship requirements.

Federal Income Scales

The following table applies to all provinces except Quebec.

*Low Income Cut-Off (LICO): Specifically, the threshold is defined as the income below which a family is likely to spend 20 percentage points more of its income on food, shelter, and clothing than the average family.

Quebec Residents Financial Capacity Evaluation

You must demonstrate that you have had sufficient financial resources at your disposal over the past twelve months and that you will continue to have those resources available to you for the duration of the undertaking. The evaluation takes the following elements into account:

- Your income and that of your spouse, if he or she signs the sponsorship agreement with you
- The income required to meet the basic needs of your family unit
- The income required to meet the basic needs of the person you wish to sponsor and, if applicable, his or her family members, whether they accompany the sponsored person or not
- If you have already sponsored someone and your undertaking is still valid, the basic needs of the persons covered by the previous undertaking

The total gross annual income required for the sponsor represents the SUM of the income established in Table 2 and the income established in Table 3. These incomes are indexed each year.


Note: Amounts are in effect from January 1 to December 31, 2020.

Table 2

Table 3

Interested candidates: Find out whether you qualify for Canada by completing our free on-line evaluation. We will provide you with our evaluation within 1-2 business days.