Udaipur, January 4, 2025: According to a directive in the Canadian Gazette, the Canadian federal government will not accept new parent and grandparent permanent residency sponsorship applications.

The purpose of this temporary restriction, as per the government, is to clear the existing backlog of applications before beginning to accept new ones. As per the order, other immigarion streams have also paused accepting new applications in order to address a similar backlog issue.

Immigration, Refugees and Citizenship Canada (IRCC) has announced that throughout 2025, the department will only process family sponsorship applications made under the Parents and Grandparents Program that were submitted in 2024. As per the plan to admit nearly 24,000 people through parent and grandparent scheme, there will be an overall decrease. A maximum of 15,000 made in the past year will be processed through the family reunification program. The average processing time for such an sponsorship application is 24 months as per the authorities.

Canadian citizens and PR holders who need to have their parents and grandparents visit them for extended periods can sponsor them through a Super Visa, which allows visits for up to 5 years at a time.

Source: Media Reports