Parent and Grandparent Sponsorship in Canada: Program Paused for 2026

On This Page, You Will Find:

• IRCC paused the Parents and Grandparents Program on July 15, 2026
• What the pause means for applications already in the system
• Who can sponsor a parent or grandparent
• Who cannot sponsor
• The income requirement for sponsors
• The undertaking: 20 years, or 10 years in Quebec
• Processing times and the current inventory
• The super visa remains open
• What families can do while intake is paused
• Frequently asked questions

Parent and grandparent sponsorship is the permanent residence stream that lets Canadian citizens, permanent residents and persons registered under the Indian Act bring their parents and grandparents to Canada for good. It is the most oversubscribed program in the family class, and as of the summer of 2026 it is closed to new entrants.

On July 15, 2026, Immigration, Refugees and Citizenship Canada (IRCC) paused intake of new applications under the Parents and Grandparents Program (PGP). The department is still processing the applications it already holds, but no one new can join the queue. This page sets out the current status, the eligibility and financial rules that still govern applications in progress, and the temporary route that remains available.

IRCC paused the Parents and Grandparents Program on July 15, 2026

IRCC announced the pause in a notice titled Canada takes steps to responsibly manage the Parents and Grandparents Program. The department will not accept new interest to sponsor forms and will not invite potential sponsors to apply until further notice. The PGP landing page on canada.ca now carries a status marker reading simply “Paused.”

The pause was foreshadowed by Ministerial Instructions 89 (MI89), which came into force on January 1, 2026. MI89 states that as of that date no new permanent residence applications from parents or grandparents of a sponsor, and no sponsorship applications made in relation to them, are to be received for processing until further instructions are issued. The same instructions gave IRCC authority to accept up to 10,000 applications from the 2025 intake into processing during 2026.

The reason is straightforward arithmetic. IRCC has said repeatedly that the number of people who want to sponsor their parents and grandparents significantly exceeds the admission space available under the Immigration Levels Plan. Rather than keep adding to a backlog it cannot clear, the department has stopped taking new files.

What the pause means for applications already in the system

If your application was received before the pause, it is unaffected. IRCC has confirmed it will keep processing existing applications and expects to admit up to 15,000 people as permanent residents through the PGP in 2026, in line with the 2026–2028 Immigration Levels Plan. The plan holds the parents and grandparents target at 15,000 for 2027 and 2028 as well, within a family class total of 84,000 in 2026 falling to 81,000 in each of the following two years.

The last intake ran in July 2025, when IRCC drew on the remaining pool of interest to sponsor forms submitted in 2020. Over roughly two weeks the department issued 17,860 invitations to apply, aiming to receive 10,000 complete applications. Those files entered the processing queue and are being decided against annual admission targets.

IRCC has not published a date for the next intake. Its stated position is that details will be posted on its website and social media channels when they are available.

Who can sponsor a parent or grandparent

The eligibility rules have not changed because of the pause. They will apply whenever intake reopens. To sponsor your biological or adopted parents and grandparents, you must:

• have been invited to apply by IRCC
• be at least 18 years old
• live in Canada, with your primary residential address in Canada when you submit the application and until a decision is made
• be a Canadian citizen, a permanent resident of Canada, or a person registered in Canada as an Indian under the Indian Act
• have enough money to support the people you want to sponsor, proven through your income
• meet all other requirements under the Immigration and Refugee Protection Act and its regulations

You must also sign an undertaking. If you do not meet the income requirement on your own, a spouse or common-law partner can co-sign the application so your incomes are combined.

Quebec residents face an extra step. If IRCC approves the sponsorship, you will then be asked to submit an undertaking application to the Quebec immigration ministry and to meet Quebec’s own sponsorship conditions. Do not send anything to Quebec before IRCC tells you to; Quebec will not process an application submitted early.

Who cannot sponsor

IRCC lists specific bars to sponsorship. You may not be eligible if you:

• are in jail, prison or a penitentiary
• have not repaid an immigration loan, a performance bond, or court-ordered family support such as alimony or child support
• defaulted on a previous sponsorship undertaking by failing to provide the financial support you agreed to
• declared bankruptcy and have not been discharged
• receive social assistance for a reason other than a disability
• were convicted of a violent criminal offence, any offence against a relative, or any sexual offence, inside or outside Canada
• are subject to a removal order and cannot legally remain in Canada

Several of these bars – the unpaid debts, the previous default and the undischarged bankruptcy – do not apply to residents of Quebec, who are assessed against Quebec’s sponsorship conditions instead. IRCC also notes there may be other reasons a person is ineligible, and says it will explain the reason if it refuses.

The income requirement for sponsors

Sponsors must show they can support everyone they will be financially responsible for, including themselves. IRCC calls this the family size, and it must be counted year by year, adding each person in the year they joined your family.

You must meet the income threshold in each of the three tax years before the date you apply. This is stricter than most other family class sponsorships. The thresholds are set at the minimum necessary income plus 30 per cent, derived from Statistics Canada’s low income cut-off, which is why the parent and grandparent bar sits noticeably above the figure used for a spouse.

The most recent published table, for the 2025 intake, assessed sponsors on tax years 2024, 2023 and 2022. A sponsor with a family size of four needed $70,972 in 2024, $66,466 in 2023 and $64,306 in 2022. For a family of two the figures were $47,549, $44,530 and $43,082. Each additional person beyond seven added roughly $10,000 per year. A fresh table will be published when intake resumes.

Proof is documentary and inflexible: a notice of assessment from the Canada Revenue Agency for each of the three tax years. You can either give IRCC permission to pull the assessments directly from the CRA on form IMM 5768, or submit paper copies with form IMM 5748. A sponsor or co-signer who does not supply three years of notices of assessment does not meet the requirement. Sponsors living in Quebec are assessed on income by the Quebec ministry, not by IRCC.

The undertaking: 20 years, or 10 years in Quebec

The undertaking is the most consequential thing a sponsor signs. For parents and grandparents the undertaking period is 20 years. In Quebec it is 10 years. The clock starts the day the sponsored person becomes a permanent resident.

During that period you commit to providing the basic needs of the people you sponsor – food, clothing, shelter and everyday living costs, plus dental care, eye care and other health needs not covered by public health insurance. You also commit that they will not need to claim social assistance. If they do claim it, you must repay the amount, and you cannot sponsor anyone else until you have.

Once the sponsored person lands, there is no way to cancel or shorten the undertaking. It survives the sponsored person becoming a Canadian citizen, a breakdown in your relationship, a move to another province or country, and your own job loss or debt. A sponsorship can only be withdrawn before the sponsored person becomes a permanent resident.

Processing times and the current inventory

As of January 31, 2026, IRCC held roughly 48,400 parents and grandparents in its inventory outside Quebec and a further 12,100 destined to Quebec. Processing stood at 23 months for applications outside Quebec and 46 months for Quebec-destined applications.

The Quebec gap is structural rather than administrative. Quebec sets its own family class admission targets, and IRCC receives more Quebec-destined applications each year than those targets allow, producing a backlog the two governments are still working on. You can compare current figures against other streams on our family sponsorship processing times page and the wider Canada immigration processing times guide.

The super visa remains open

With permanent residence intake closed, the super visa is the practical route for families who want their parents and grandparents in Canada now. It is a multiple-entry temporary resident visa valid for up to 10 years, and it allows stays of up to five years at a time. Holders already in Canada can apply for two-year extensions without leaving. IRCC approves tens of thousands of super visa applications each year.

Applicants need a medical examination, private medical insurance from an approved provider covering health care, hospitalisation and repatriation for at least $100,000 and valid for at least one year from each entry, and a host child or grandchild in Canada who meets a minimum income requirement based on the low income cut-off for a community of 500,000 or more.

That income test changed on March 31, 2026, and the change made it easier to pass. A host and any co-signer may now meet or exceed the threshold in either one of the two taxation years preceding the application, rather than having to satisfy a single fixed year. Alternatively, a host whose total income in the year before the application reached at least 75 per cent of the minimum can have the applicant’s own income counted to make up the shortfall. Current thresholds are published on canada.ca and are updated as the low income cut-off is revised. Our super visa guide walks through the documents in detail.

What families can do while intake is paused

There is no mechanism to register interest in the PGP while it is paused, and no advantage to be gained by preparing an interest to sponsor form early – IRCC is not accepting them. The practical steps are narrower than the marketing around this program often suggests:

• Apply for a super visa if the parent or grandparent is admissible and you can meet the host income test.
• Keep your tax filings current. Whenever intake reopens, the three-year income test will look backwards at notices of assessment you cannot retroactively improve.
• Check whether the parent or grandparent qualifies under an economic or provincial stream in their own right.
• Watch canada.ca for the next set of Ministerial Instructions, which is where a reopening will be signalled first.

For a broader comparison of permanent and temporary routes, see our overview of options for bringing parents and grandparents to Canada in 2026 and our family sponsorship overview.

Frequently Asked Questions