Family Sponsorship from Mexico

Parents and grandparents: there is no intake

Taking this first because it is the most common disappointment. **There is no open intake under the Parents and Grandparents Program.** No new interest-to-sponsor forms are being accepted and no new invitations to apply are being issued.

Sources differ on when the pause began — some date it to 1 January 2026, others cite a canada.ca notice of 15 July 2026 — but they agree on the current position, and no reopening date has been announced. Applications already filed continue to be processed.

The practical alternative is the **super visa**, which allows extended stays rather than permanent residence. Note that a super visa is a temporary resident document, so the visa requirement discussed below applies to it.

If your plan was to bring parents from Mexico, the honest answer today is a super visa and a longer horizon for permanent residence.

Your concubinato is not what IRCC is testing

This is the most common category error we see from Mexican couples, and it runs in both directions.

**Canada's common-law test is factual, not documentary.** A common-law partner is someone who has lived with you in a conjugal relationship for **at least twelve consecutive months.** That is the test. It asks what you did, not what your relationship is called or registered as.

Two consequences, and most couples only anticipate one of them:

• **Holding a concubinato does not by itself make you common-law partners for Canadian purposes.** If you have a Mexican registration but have not completed twelve continuous months of cohabitation, you may not meet the test despite holding a document that looks dispositive.
• **Not holding one does not disqualify you.** If you have genuinely lived together for twelve continuous months, you may qualify whether or not your relationship was ever registered anywhere in Mexico.

Concubinato in Mexico is regulated at state level and its requirements differ between states. We were not able to confirm how IRCC treats a particular state's concubinato documentation specifically, and we are not going to guess. What we can tell you is where the burden actually sits: **on evidence of cohabitation.** A registration, where you have one, is useful evidence. It is not a substitute for the twelve months.

One point in your favour that couples often miss: official guidance indicates that partners who have spent periods living apart can still qualify, provided they can show convincingly that the common-law relationship was maintained during that separation. A posting abroad or a period of work in another city does not automatically end your status.

Spouse, common-law or conjugal partner

Three categories, not freely interchangeable. Each has conditions, and choosing wrongly is a frequent refusal ground.

**Spouse.** You are legally married, and for a marriage celebrated outside Canada it must generally be valid both where it was celebrated and under Canadian law. For most Mexican marriages, properly registered with the Registro Civil, this is straightforward — which is worth saying, because it is not straightforward everywhere.

**Common-law partner.** Twelve consecutive months of cohabitation, as above.

**Conjugal partner.** For couples in a committed relationship of at least a year who are genuinely prevented from marrying or from cohabiting. The partner must be outside Canada, so there is no inland option. Be careful with this category: if marriage or a year of cohabitation was realistically available to you, officers generally expect a spousal or common-law application instead, and claiming conjugal status without a genuine, documented barrier is a frequent refusal ground. For most Mexican couples — who can marry in Mexico and can usually live together there — the conjugal route will not be the right one.

On a related point worth stating plainly: Canadian immigration law recognises same-sex spouses, common-law partners and conjugal partners for sponsorship, including in circumstances where a couple's relationship would not be recognised in their country of origin.

Visiting while your application is pending

This is the complication specific to Mexican applicants now, and it did not exist during the visa-free period.

Since **29 February 2024**, most Mexican citizens need a visa to enter Canada. The narrower eTA route requires flying and either a valid United States non-immigrant visa or a Canadian visitor visa held within the past ten years — and arriving by land or sea requires a visa regardless.

So a sponsored partner who wants to visit while the permanent residence application is processing must generally apply for a temporary resident visa, and that application is assessed on whether you will leave Canada at the end of your authorised stay.

Having a pending sponsorship application is not, by itself, a bar. Canadian law accommodates **dual intent** — holding both a genuine temporary purpose and an intention to immigrate. But the two applications sit awkwardly together, and a visitor application must still satisfy an officer on its own terms.

Two practical points. Apply for the visa on its own merits and be straightforward about the pending sponsorship rather than omitting it; inconsistency between your applications causes more problems than the pending application ever does. And **if you hold a valid US non-immigrant visa, check whether the eTA route is open to you**, because for many Mexican applicants that is a materially faster and cheaper way to visit.

Your Mexican documents

**Civil records.** Expect to supply actas from the Registro Civil — acta de nacimiento for each applicant and dependent, acta de matrimonio where you are married. Request recent copies rather than submitting an acta issued years ago.

**Apostille, not consular legalisation.** Mexico is a party to the Hague Apostille Convention, so Mexican public documents are authenticated by apostille. Which authority issues it depends on whether the document is federal or state-issued.

**Previous marriages.** If either of you was married before, you will need the documentation ending that marriage — a divorce decree or death certificate — and it needs to be final. An incomplete divorce is a genuine obstacle rather than a formality, and it is a situation where the conjugal category sometimes becomes relevant.

**Translation.** Anything not in English or French needs a certified translation meeting IRCC's requirements for who may translate and how it is certified. A translation prepared for a Mexican procedure does not automatically satisfy them.

**Evidence of the relationship.** Keep the ordinary trail rather than assembling one later: messages across the whole relationship rather than a curated selection, travel records and passport stamps for each visit, photographs with other people and over time, shared leases, joint accounts or money transferred, and letters from family who can speak to the relationship directly. Mexican weddings and family life involve relatives extensively, and that is useful evidence.

A note on accuracy

The start date of the parents and grandparents pause is reported inconsistently and is flagged above rather than resolved. We have deliberately not stated how IRCC treats Mexican concubinato documentation, because we could not verify it; the twelve-month cohabitation test and the provision for periods spent apart come from official guidance. Visa and eTA eligibility for Mexican citizens changed on 29 February 2024 and is dated here for that reason. Verify current requirements on canada.ca before acting.

This is general information, not legal advice, and category selection is an area where general information is genuinely insufficient. Which category fits your relationship depends on facts requiring individual assessment by a licensed representative — Mila Lugovska, RCIC R515234, member in good standing of the College of Immigration and Citizenship Consultants. Consultations are held in Spanish, English, French, Arabic, Russian and Ukrainian.