Categories: Spousal Sponsorship in Canada

I was Married Before Can I Sponsor My New Wife?

If your goal is to sponsor your wife you must first determine your eligibility to sponsor.

In order to be a sponsor, you must:

be 18 years of age or older,
be a Canadian citizen or permanent resident,
be sponsoring a member of the Spouse or Common law Partner in Canada Class,
live in Canada and continue to live in Canada after the sponsored person obtains permanent resident status,
sign an agreement with your spouse or common law partner confirming that each of you understands your obligations and responsibilities,
sign an undertaking promising to provide for your spouse or common law partner’s basic requirements and, if applicable, those of his or her dependent children,
prove that you have sufficient income to provide basic requirements for your spouse or common law partner’s dependent children.

If you meet these basic criteria you may be considered eligible to sponsor. You must consider when you are sponsoring and whether not you qualify as a member of the family class. If you have been married before, the previous marriage needs to be finalized before you can sponsor a new spouse. Further, you cannot sponsor if you yourself were previously sponsored as a spouse , common-law or conjugal partner and became a permanent resident of Canada less than 5 years prior to a new application.

One last thing to keep in mind is that if you marry and spouse before the ending of your previous one, this marriage is not considered valid in Canada and therefore you will not be able to sponsor this spouse. Basically the rule of thumb is that you cannot enter into a new legal marriage without first legally ending the previous one.