Sponsor Your Spouse or Partner to Canada - Free CELPIP mock practice test samples Celpip.biz

You can Sponsor Your Spouse or common-law partner or conjugal partner to Canada for a permanent residency. All of these have different requirements for sponsoring your partner depending upon the type. For sponsoring the conjugal partner, Conjugal Sponsorship Visa is used.

A conjugal partner is not a spouse or common-law partner. A conjugal partner is a person with whom you are not married or have a common law partner relationship and also not able to live together due to certain reasons.

For applying for a Conjugal Sponsorship visa, the IRCC must approve the relationship as a conjugal relationship based on the criteria set by the IRCC. you are not required to get married to get sponsorship from your partner.

Two types of relationships between unmarried people are recognised by Canada: Common law partner and Conjugal partner. You can get sponsorship in either case.

Conjugal Partner relationship:

A relationship where two people live in a marriage-like relationship but without marriage. And the people should not have been able to live together for a minimum of one year due to certain reasons.

IRCC considers conjugal relationships as a category to get sponsorship from your partner after meeting certain criteria. It is an exception category where a Canadian permanent resident or citizen and their partner are unable to marry or live together for the past 12 months. So a conjugal partner is:

A person who is living outside of Canada.
A person who is not married and hasn’t claimed the status of common-law partner.
A person who is not able to live with his partner due to certain conditions for a minimum of the last 12 months.

They don’t fit in the spouse or common-law partner category. The IRCC consider the conjugal relationship based on following factors:

Both partners should have a mutual commitment which they should share in each other’s life.
They should not be involved in the other conjugal relationship at the same time. Their relationship should be exclusive.
They should have an exclusive intimate relationship.
There should be a dependency on emotional, social, physical and financial support.
They should have a long and permanent relationship.
Both should be recognised as a couple by other people, and they should also represent each other as a couple in front of others.
Either they have children together or are taking care of them together.

Sponsoring your Conjugal Partner:

Unlike other relationships between two people, conjugal relationships are not represented by a legal document. The conjugal partners must have cohabitation with each other for a time and then presently, they should be living apart due to certain reasons.

For a Conjugal Sponsorship Visa, the conjugal couple needs to show proof more than intimacy, like proof of joint property ownership, joint financial support, joint decision making and insurance policies. They need to provide the documents for co-dependencies similar to marriage.

You can Sponsor Your Spouse if:

You provide proof of a mutually dependent relationship which shows genuine intimacy and emotional attachments between the couple.
The relationship should be legitimate and at least 12 months old, with no chance to cohabit because of certain reasons like religion, culture or others.

If your partner meets the criteria and has all the required documents, you can apply for a Conjugal Sponsorship Visa.

In some cases, people also apply for their boyfriend’s or girlfriend’s visa under a conjugal sponsorship visa. As the conjugal partners can be of the same or opposite sex, you can apply for your partner’s visa if they meet the eligibility criteria for the same.

Requirements to sponsor your Conjugal partner:

In the case of sponsoring a conjugal partner, you are required to take care of their basic needs when they arrive in Canada. These needs include the everyday and health requirements for a minimum period of three years.

Also, make sure that your conjugal partner should require government assistance. An undertaking is signed by the sponsor for this. In case of the financial assistance required by your conjugal partner, you have to pay that full amount back to the government.

The undertaking signed by you has the financial obligations which you are required to fulfil even if your conjugal partner receives the citizenship. Also, in case of having a financial problem or your conjugal partner moves to another country, or you end your relationship with your partner, you are required to complete the financial obligations.

However, you don’t have to show the minimum income in case of a Conjugal sponsorship visa. You need to prove the conjugal relationship between you two.

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