How to Sponsor Your Parents to Canada: PGP Eligibility, Lottery, and What to Expect

Most people who try to sponsor their parents through Canada's Parents and Grandparents Program don't fail because they weren't eligible — they fail because they weren't ready when their name was called. The application window is 60 days. Documents from abroad take six to ten weeks to arrive. The math doesn't work unless you start preparing long before the invitation lands.

Here's what the program actually looks like from the inside.

Who Can Sponsor: Eligibility Basics

Both Canadian citizens and permanent residents can sponsor their parents and grandparents for permanent residency under the PGP. The sponsor must be at least 18 years old and live in Canada at the time of application.

The relationship being sponsored is strictly biological or adoptive — you're sponsoring your own parents or grandparents, not your spouse's parents (though a spouse can serve as a co-signer on your application to help meet income requirements).

If you're a permanent resident, you also need to confirm you intend to live in Canada once the parents land. Sponsors currently living abroad cannot apply.

One critical constraint that often catches people off guard: you cannot currently be in default on a previous family sponsorship undertaking. If you sponsored a spouse years ago and that undertaking is still active, it affects your family size calculation for income purposes — it doesn't disqualify you, but it raises the bar.

How the Lottery Works

The PGP is not a first-come, first-served program. It operates through a randomized lottery called the "Interest to Sponsor" (ITS) system.

When IRCC opens a new intake window, eligible sponsors submit a short form expressing interest. IRCC then conducts a random draw from that pool to select sponsors who will be invited to submit a full application. The number of invitations depends on the annual target set in the Immigration Levels Plan.

The 2025 intake issued 17,860 invitations from the 2020 pool (the last time IRCC accepted new ITS forms) with a target of 10,000 completed applications. As of early 2026, approximately 72,000 forms from that 2020 pool remain undrawn. IRCC has announced no new ITS intake for 2026 — the program is focused on clearing existing inventory rather than accepting new candidates.

This means if you became a permanent resident after 2020 and never submitted an ITS form, you are currently not in any pool. You cannot enter the lottery because the lottery is not open. Your best path right now is the Super Visa (a long-stay temporary visa covered separately) while monitoring IRCC announcements for when a new ITS window opens.

The Income Requirement: The Number That Trips Most People

Meeting the income threshold is the most common reason sponsors fail after winning the lottery. The requirement is the Low Income Cut-Off (LICO) plus 30%, assessed across three consecutive tax years.

For the 2025 intake, IRCC reviewed tax years 2022, 2023, and 2024. The threshold scales with family size — and "family size" includes everyone you're currently responsible for, including:

• Yourself
• Your spouse or common-law partner
• Your dependent children
• Anyone you previously sponsored whose undertaking is still active
• The parents or grandparents you intend to sponsor

For a family of four (a sponsor, spouse, and two children) sponsoring two parents, the family size is six. The 2024 LICO+30% threshold for six persons was $90,784.

The primary income document is your Notice of Assessment (NOA) from the Canada Revenue Agency. IRCC prefers that sponsors provide their Social Insurance Number on form IMM 5768 so the department can pull tax data directly — this reduces errors that lead to returned applications.

If your income alone doesn't meet the threshold, a spouse or common-law partner can co-sign. Their income gets added to yours, but they must then be counted in the family size for all three assessment years, which raises the threshold too. Whether co-signing helps depends on the math in your specific situation.

The 60-Day Submission Window

When you receive an Invitation to Apply (ITA), you have exactly 60 days to submit a complete application package. Not "substantially complete" — complete. Missing a digital signature on a PDF, an outdated police certificate, or an unsigned form triggers a completeness check failure and your invitation is forfeited.

The application is split into two parts, both submitted through the IRCC Permanent Residence Portal:

Sponsorship side (the Canadian host):

• IMM 5771 — Document Checklist
• IMM 1344 — Sponsorship Agreement and Undertaking
• IMM 5768 — Financial Evaluation
• IMM 5409 — Declaration of Common-Law Union (if applicable)

Principal applicant side (the parents):

• IMM 0008 — Generic Application Form
• IMM 5669 — Schedule A, Background Declaration (full history since age 18, no gaps)
• IMM 5406 — Additional Family Information
• IMM 5562 — Travel History (10 years)

Police certificates from every country where the parent has lived for six or more months since age 18 are mandatory. For a 60-year-old applicant, that history might span three or four countries. Police certificates from India, for example, typically take four to eight weeks. Requesting them before you even receive an ITA is not paranoid — it's the only way to be ready.

What Happens After You Apply

Once your package passes the completeness check, IRCC issues an Acknowledgment of Receipt (AOR). From there, the sponsor's eligibility is assessed first. Once approved, the file transfers to a visa office to assess the parents — this stage includes medical exams, biometrics, and requests for updated documents.

As of early 2026, processing times for the rest of Canada run 34 to 40 months from submission. Quebec is longer: 46 to 48 months. Both figures reflect the current inventory of approximately 46,600 applicants across Canada, with Quebec handling around 11,700 files.

These timelines mean the parents won't land as permanent residents for three to four years after you submit. For families who can't wait that long, the Super Visa provides a bridge — it allows long-term temporary stays (up to five years per entry) while a PGP application is in progress.

The Long Commitment

Winning the lottery and submitting a perfect application is only the beginning of the financial commitment. Once your parents land, you're legally responsible for their food, shelter, clothing, and non-insured health costs for 20 years under federal law. In Quebec, the undertaking period is 10 years.

This obligation doesn't disappear if your financial circumstances change, if your relationship with your parents changes, or if you separate from a co-signing spouse. Understanding the full scope of what you're signing is essential before you begin.

The Canada Parent/Grandparent Sponsorship Guide covers the income calculation worksheets, document blueprints for high-demand countries, and the pre-lottery readiness plan in detail — including exactly which documents to gather before an ITA is ever issued.

The Bottom Line

Canada's PGP lottery gives roughly 10,000 to 15,000 families per year the chance to sponsor their parents for permanent residency. The selection is random, but the outcome is not — sponsors who prepare before their number is called submit clean applications. Those who scramble after getting an invitation often waste it on correctable errors.

If the lottery isn't currently open, the Super Visa is your immediate option. If you're in the pool, use the waiting time to get your finances documented, your documents staged, and your family size calculation verified. That preparation is what turns a lottery win into a permanent resident landing.

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