Canada to send invitations to apply for Parents and Grandparents PR pathway in 2025

In a significant move for family reunification, Canada's immigration department announced on March 7, 2025, that it will invite some Canadians and permanent residents to apply to sponsor their parents and grandparents for permanent residency in the upcoming year. In January this year, Immigration, Refugees and Citizenship Canada (IRCC) had announced that they would be sending no new invitations under the Parents and Grandparents Program (PGP) this year, and would instead only be processing applications submitted in the 2024 intake.

This year Canada intends to accept up to 10,000 complete applications for sponsorship under the PGP Program. "Given there remains a number of interest to sponsor forms in the pool from 2020, IRCC plans to send invitations to apply to randomly selected potential sponsors from that pool instead of accepting new forms. This is the same approach taken for the intakes conducted from 2020 to 2024," said IRCC in a statement.

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This new announcement means that foreign nationals who have submitted an interest to sponsor form under the PGP in 2020 could receive an invitation to apply in 2025. The Canadian government did not announce when they would send the invitations, but promised to release more details in the coming months.

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Canada uses a lottery system to randomly select potential sponsors from the PGP pool. Thus far, all invitations for the current PGP program have been sent to those who submitted interest to sponsor forms in the 2020 intake. Intake for the PGP has not yet re-opened. Canadian citizens and foreign nationals who have not been able to sponsor their parents and grandparents under the PGP can take advantage of the super visa program to sponsor their relatives to visit them in Canada for extended periods.

What is Parents and Grandparents Program?

The Parents and Grandparents Program (PGP) is a family reunification pathway to permanent residence. It allows Canadian citizens, permanent residents, and registered Indians to sponsor their parents and grandparents for Canadian permanent residency. To be eligible the sponsoring person must meet minimum income requirements, in addition to other criteria, and their relative(s) must be admissible to Canada.

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You cannot apply for the PGP directly. Those eligible to sponsor must submit an interest to sponsor form to the federal government, and then wait for an invitation to apply. Sponsors are selected randomly from the pool. When the PGP opened intake in 2020, it received a large number of interest to sponsor forms, and has not re-opened intake since then.

In each of the following years since 2020, the government has sent ITAs to people who submitted interest to sponsor forms in 2020 intake.