Bringing Families Together: Navigating the Canada Parents and Grandparents Sponsorship Program (PGP) 2024

Immigration, Refugees and Citizenship Canada (IRCC) has announced the opening of the 2024 Parents and Grandparents Sponsorship (PGP) Program intake on May 21st, 2024. The program permits Canadian citizens and permanent residents to sponsor their parents and grandparents for permanent residency in Canada. Starting on May 21st, 2024, Immigration, Refugees, and Citizenship Canada (IRCC) will be contacting potential sponsors who have submitted an interest-to-sponsor form in 2020. A total of 35,700 individuals from the pool will be invited. This is an excellent opportunity for you to reunite with your loved ones through the Parents and Grandparents Sponsorship Program (PGP).

To ensure fairness for all potential sponsors who expressed their interest earlier, IRCC will randomly select individuals from the pool of submissions received in 2020 to send invitations to apply. This means that a new interest to sponsor form will not be opened. This approach has been used for the past three years.

If you haven’t received an invitation in the past three years after submitting an interest-to-sponsor form in 2020, please check the email address you provided. Invitations will be sent out over a two-week period starting May 21st.

Meeting the Financial Requirements

To be eligible to sponsor your parents or grandparents, you must meet specific criteria. These include:

  • Being a Canadian citizen, permanent resident or an Indian enrolled under the Canadian Indian Act.
  • Being at least 18 years old.
  • Meeting the minimum necessary income (MNI) based on your family size. This ensures you can financially support your sponsored family members. You’ll need to provide proof of income for the last three years.

For information on previous application intakes for the Parents and Grandparents Program, see the recently published intake report on Canada.ca websiteThe Parents and Grandparents Program: Intake Report 2014 to 2019

Those who are not invited to Canada this year but wish to reunite with their parents or grandparents can apply for a super visa. The super visa is a multiple-entry visa valid for up to 10 years. Recent improvements to the super visa program now allow super visa holders to stay in Canada for up to 5 years at a time and extend their visit by up to 2 years at a time without leaving the country.