Spousal sponsorship checklist: documents and forms
This spousal sponsorship checklist covers every form, every category of evidence, and the mistakes that get packages returned, because the commonest reason a package comes back is a missing form or signature rather than a weak relationship.
Key takeaways
A spousal sponsorship package is a single submission containing the sponsor's application and the partner's permanent residence application. The core forms are IMM 1344 for the sponsor, IMM 0008, IMM 5669 and IMM 5406 for the applicant, IMM 5532 for both, and IMM 5409 for common-law couples only. IMM 5533 is the document checklist IRCC uses to judge completeness, and packages missing listed items are returned unprocessed rather than refused. Relationship evidence should span several categories and show development over time rather than volume in one category. Documents not in English or French require certified translation. Most returns are caused by a missing form or signature, not by a weak relationship.
- IMM 5533 is the checklist completeness is judged against; work it line by line.
- IMM 5532 is for everyone; IMM 5409 only for common-law couples.
- A returned package is not a refusal, but it costs months against a long queue.
- Relationship evidence works by breadth and consistency, not volume.
- Download current form versions each time; old versions cause returns.
Before you assemble the package: confirm you can sponsor
A checklist only matters once you know you are actually eligible to use it. You must be at least 18, and a Canadian citizen, a permanent resident living in Canada, or a person registered under the Indian Act. A citizen living abroad can sponsor if they show they will live in Canada once their partner becomes a permanent resident. A handful of situations create a bar: being in default on a previous sponsorship undertaking or an immigration loan, or having been sponsored yourself as a spouse or partner and become a permanent resident less than five years ago. Our full spousal sponsorship guide sets out the complete eligibility list; confirm it before you spend evenings gathering documents for a package that cannot yet be filed.
The spousal sponsorship checklist: forms and who completes each one
| Form | What it is | Who completes it |
|---|---|---|
| IMM 1344 | Application to Sponsor, Sponsorship Agreement and Undertaking | The sponsor, and a co-signer if there is one |
| IMM 0008 | Generic Application Form for Canada | The sponsored partner (the principal applicant) |
| IMM 5669 | Schedule A: Background / Declaration | The sponsored partner |
| IMM 5406 | Additional Family Information | The sponsored partner, and sometimes the sponsor |
| IMM 5532 | Relationship Information and Sponsorship Evaluation | Both partners, answering separately |
| IMM 5409 | Statutory Declaration of Common-Law Union | Common-law couples only, sworn before a commissioner |
| IMM 5476 | Use of a Representative | Both, only if you use a representative |
| IMM 5533 | Document Checklist | The index for the whole package; include it |
The single most common reason packages come back
IMM 1344 is not just paperwork. Signing it creates your undertaking, typically three years for a spouse, common-law or conjugal partner, during which you are responsible for their basic needs. A co-signer, where one is named, shares that undertaking with you. Settle the undertaking length in your own mind before you sign; it survives a later separation or divorce.
Proof of your status as sponsor
You must show you are eligible to sponsor. A Canadian citizen provides a citizenship certificate, a Canadian passport or a provincial birth certificate. A permanent resident provides both sides of the PR card, or the record of landing. A person registered under the Indian Act provides their registration document. If you are a citizen living abroad, you also need to show you will live in Canada when your partner becomes a permanent resident.
Proof of the relationship type
| If you are | You provide | Watch out for |
|---|---|---|
| Married | Marriage certificate, and proof the marriage is legally valid where it took place and under Canadian law | Proxy, telephone and internet marriages are generally not recognised for immigration purposes |
| Common-law | IMM 5409 plus proof of at least 12 continuous months living together | The cohabitation start date must match across IMM 5409, IMM 5532 and your evidence |
| Conjugal | Evidence of the relationship and of the barrier preventing marriage or cohabitation | This category is narrow and often misapplied; the barrier must be genuine and documented |
The conjugal partner category is the narrowest of the three, for couples who genuinely cannot marry or live together, a documented immigration, legal or safety barrier, rather than one they have simply chosen not to clear. Officers scrutinise it closely, so the barrier has to be real and evidenced, not asserted.
Relationship evidence: breadth beats volume
This is the heart of the application. Officers assess two separate questions: whether the relationship is genuine, and whether it was entered into primarily to gain an immigration status or privilege. A relationship can be entirely genuine even if immigration was part of the original conversation, so the two questions get weighed separately rather than one standing in for the other. In practice, officers look for a consistent story told from several independent directions and developing over time.
| Category | Strong examples |
|---|---|
| Joint finances | Shared accounts, joint bills or utilities, a lease or mortgage in both names, beneficiary designations, shared insurance |
| Cohabitation | Tenancy agreements, mail to the same address over time, driving licences, government correspondence |
| Communication | Messages and call logs spanning months and years, not a single dense week |
| Time together | Photographs across different occasions and years, travel itineraries, boarding passes, passport stamps |
| Recognition by others | Letters from family and friends who know you both, wedding or engagement evidence, social media over time |
| Plans and commitments | Wills, insurance, joint purchases, evidence of plans made together |
Our proof of relationship guide goes deeper on what persuades and what does not.
As an illustration rather than a target to copy exactly, a well-built file might include twelve months of bank statements showing shared expenses, three years of message logs sampled at intervals rather than every message, boarding passes from three or four trips together, and half a dozen letters from family and friends, spread across finances, communication, time together and recognition rather than two hundred near-identical photographs and nothing else.
Identity, background and admissibility
- 01
Identity and civil documents
Passports and travel documents, birth certificates, and any divorce certificates or death certificates ending previous marriages. Certified translations for anything not in English or French.
- 02
Police certificates
From every country where your partner has lived for six months or more since turning 18. These take time to obtain in some countries, so start early. If a country genuinely will not issue one, our guide on how to explain a missing document to IRCC covers the accepted way to fill the gap.
- 03
Immigration medical examination
With an IRCC panel physician. Many applicants do it upfront to avoid a later request; it has a validity period, so time it sensibly.
- 04
Photographs and biometrics
Photographs to IRCC's specification, and biometrics when the instruction letter arrives, at $85 per person or $170 per family.
- 05
Fees
$1,260 for a spouse or partner including the Right of Permanent Residence Fee, or $660 without it, plus $180 per dependent child. See the full fee table.
Where the checklist calls for a certified true copy rather than an original, a lawyer, notary, commissioner of oaths or a person in an approved profession compares the copy to the original and signs and dates it as a true copy. Keep your own originals where you can; IRCC generally has no way to return documents it receives, and a lost original is far harder to replace than a lost photocopy.
A concrete example. A couple with no dependent children pays $1,260 in core government fees, the $85 sponsorship fee, $575 processing fee and $600 Right of Permanent Residence Fee, plus one set of biometrics at $85, a typical total of $1,345 before police certificates, medicals and translations, which are paid separately to third parties. Add one dependent child and the government fee rises by $180, plus that child's own medical exam and, once they turn 18, their own police certificates.
Photos, translations and file naming
The mechanical requirements are where careful applicants still lose weeks, because none of them are difficult and all of them are easy to get slightly wrong.
| Requirement | What IRCC expects | Where it goes wrong |
|---|---|---|
| Photographs | To IRCC's published specification, taken recently, with the photographer's details and date where asked | Using a passport photo from three years ago, or the wrong dimensions |
| Translations | Certified translation plus the original or a certified copy; an affidavit from the translator if they are not certified | Translating your own documents, or having a relative do it, which is not accepted |
| Scans | Clear, complete, high-resolution, every page including blank reverse sides where the form asks | Cropped edges, phone photos at an angle, missing the back of a PR card |
| File names | Clear names an officer can navigate, within the portal's size limits | Twenty files called scan1.pdf, or a single 400-page merged file |
| Signatures | Signed where indicated, by the right person, dated correctly | One missing signature returns the whole package |
| Form validation | Fillable PDFs completed in Adobe Reader and validated, so the barcode page IRCC's system reads is present | Completing a fillable PDF in a browser, or printing before validating, so the barcode page is missing |
Most of the sponsor and applicant forms are fillable PDFs, not web pages, and IRCC's system reads them from the barcode page a validated form generates. Open each one in Adobe Reader, complete every field, then use the built-in validate button before you print or upload it. A form finished inside a browser, or printed before that step, is missing its barcode page and is treated as incomplete however carefully the rest of it was filled in.
Do not translate your own documents
When you cannot get a required document
Not every document is obtainable on the timeline IRCC expects, and officers know this. What matters is that the gap is explained rather than left silent.
| If you cannot get | What IRCC generally accepts instead |
|---|---|
| A police certificate from a specific country | A letter of explanation describing what you tried and why, plus any partial documentation that country will issue |
| An original marriage or birth certificate | A certified true copy from the issuing registry, or a formal replacement extract where the original is lost |
| A certified translator locally | A qualified translator's work accompanied by their own signed affidavit, sworn before a commissioner of oaths |
| Strong evidence in one category, such as no joint lease | A wider spread of weaker evidence across several other categories rather than one thin file |
A letter of explanation is not an excuse; it is evidence in its own right when it is specific, dated and consistent with everything else in the package. Vague or generic wording does the opposite of its intended job, and a pattern of unexplained gaps is read very differently from one gap that is properly accounted for.
What changes between inland and outland
The core package is the same for both routes, and the differences are smaller than most people expect. What changes is the supporting material around status and where things are processed.
| Inland (in Canada) | Outland | |
|---|---|---|
| Partner's status documents | Proof of valid temporary status in Canada, or an explanation if out of status under the public policy | Not applicable in the same way; the partner is assessed from abroad |
| Spousal open work permit | Can be applied for with the sponsorship package; see our spousal open work permit guide | Not available through this route |
| Police certificates | From every country lived in six months or more since 18, including Canada | Same requirement |
| Where it is processed | In Canada | Through an IRCC visa office |
| Published processing time | About 26 months, outside Quebec | About 18 months |
If you have not chosen a route yet, our inland vs outland guide sets out the trade-offs, our dedicated guides to inland spousal sponsorship and outland spousal sponsorship cover each route in full, and whether your partner can leave Canada while you wait often decides it.
Including dependent children
Dependent children can be included on the same application, and each one adds documents rather than a separate application. You need the child's birth certificate and passport, proof of the relationship, and, where the other parent is not travelling, evidence of custody or written consent. Children over 18 who qualify as dependants because of a condition that began before 22 need supporting medical evidence.
Each accompanying child is $180 in government fees, needs their own medical exam, and needs police certificates once they turn 18. The commonest error is a custody or consent gap for a child whose other parent is not part of the application, which stops a file cleanly.
Declare every family member, not only the ones coming with you
When names do not match across documents
This causes more delay than almost anything else in the identity category. A name spelled one way on a passport, another way on a birth certificate, and a third way on a marriage certificate, often just a transliteration difference from a language that does not map cleanly onto the Latin alphabet, reads to an officer as a discrepancy rather than a spelling variant. The fix is not to change your documents to match; it is to explain the variant clearly, ideally with a short letter of explanation and, where one exists, an official document that shows the same variants side by side, such as a national ID card. We check every name across every document in a package before it goes anywhere near IRCC, because catching it here costs an afternoon, catching it after a procedural fairness letter costs months.
What happens after you submit
- 01
Acknowledgement of receipt
IRCC confirms the application is complete and in the queue. If instead the package is returned, it was judged incomplete against IMM 5533 and nothing has been assessed.
- 02
Biometrics request
Usually issued after the acknowledgement. Your partner has a deadline to attend a collection point, and missing it delays the file.
- 03
Medical exam
Either done upfront or requested. It has a validity period, so on a long file it can expire and be requested again.
- 04
Requests for more documents
Respond within the deadline given. If a procedural fairness letter arrives, it means an officer has a specific concern; that is the moment to get advice rather than replying quickly.
- 05
Report any change right away
A change of address, a new job, a pregnancy, a relationship breakdown, anything that differs from what you told IRCC, gets reported to your file as it happens, not saved for the next update request. A change you do not report and an officer later finds out about is a bigger problem than the change itself.
- 06
Decision
If approved, your partner receives confirmation of permanent residence. If refused, our guide to a refused spousal sponsorship covers reading the GCMS notes and choosing between appealing and reapplying.
The mistakes that return packages
Almost every returned application we see comes from the same short list, and all of it is avoidable in an afternoon.
| Mistake | Why it matters | The fix |
|---|---|---|
| A missing signature | The commonest single cause of a return | Check every signature block on every form before submitting, including the co-signer's |
| An old form version | IRCC updates forms; an outdated version can be rejected | Download every form fresh from canada.ca on the day you submit |
| Dates that do not match | Cohabitation dates that differ across IMM 5409, IMM 5532 and the evidence read as a credibility problem | Fix one timeline first, then complete every form from it |
| Uncertified translations | Not accepted, whatever the quality | Use a certified translator, or get the affidavit |
| Evidence in one category only | A folder of photographs does not answer the questions an officer asks | Spread evidence across finances, cohabitation, communication and recognition by others |
| Missing a police certificate | Any country lived in for six months or more since 18 counts, and some take months to obtain | List every country early and start the slow ones first |
| An undeclared family member | Read as non-disclosure, a much bigger problem than an incomplete form | List every family member on IMM 0008 and IMM 5669, whether or not they form part of this application |
How Wild Mountain Immigration helps
Spousal sponsorship is the work this practice does most. We build the package against the current checklist, make sure the forms are internally consistent, and choose the relationship evidence that answers the questions an officer will actually ask rather than filling a folder. Where a couple is common-law, we make sure the dates on IMM 5409, IMM 5532 and the evidence all tell the same story, because mismatches there are read as a credibility problem.
Before a package leaves this office, we go through it against five things:
- 01
Every date lines up
Cohabitation start dates, the relationship timeline and every form's answers, cross-checked against each other and against the evidence, because a mismatch reads as a credibility problem long before an officer reaches the photographs.
- 02
Evidence spread across categories
We look at what is missing, not just what is there. A file heavy in one category and thin in four others gets built out before it goes anywhere near IRCC.
- 03
Current form versions and validated PDFs
Every form downloaded fresh from canada.ca, and every fillable PDF validated so the barcode page IRCC's system reads is actually present.
- 04
Every signature and co-signer accounted for
The single most common cause of a returned package, checked line by line before submission.
- 05
A fee calculation that matches your family
Dependent children, biometrics and the Right of Permanent Residence Fee added up correctly, so the payment itself is never the reason for a delay.
No consultant can guarantee an outcome, and only IRCC decides. What a careful pass through this spousal sponsorship checklist removes is the avoidable delay: the returned package, the mismatched date, the missing signature, before it costs you months rather than an afternoon. Spousal sponsorship enquiries get a free first call.
Frequently asked questions
What documents do I need for spousal sponsorship?
A complete package has four parts. The sponsorship forms completed by you as the sponsor, principally IMM 1344. The permanent residence forms completed by your partner, principally IMM 0008, IMM 5669 and IMM 5406. The relationship forms completed by both of you, IMM 5532 and, for common-law couples, IMM 5409. And the evidence: proof of your status as sponsor, proof of the relationship type, relationship evidence across several categories, identity and civil documents, police certificates and the immigration medical. IMM 5533 is the official document checklist that indexes all of it, and IRCC returns packages that are incomplete against it.
What is IMM 5533?
IMM 5533 is the document checklist for sponsoring a spouse, common-law or conjugal partner. It is not just guidance: it is the index IRCC uses to decide whether your package is complete, and a package missing items listed there can be returned to you unprocessed, which costs months. Download the current version from canada.ca each time, because checklists are updated and an old one may omit a newly required item. Work through it line by line and include it in the package.
What is the difference between IMM 5532 and IMM 5409?
IMM 5532 is the Relationship Information and Sponsorship Evaluation form, completed for every spousal or partner application regardless of relationship type. It asks both of you about how you met, how the relationship developed, your families' knowledge of it, and your plans. IMM 5409 is the Statutory Declaration of Common-Law Union, needed only if you are common-law rather than married, and it is sworn before a commissioner of oaths. Married couples submit a marriage certificate instead of IMM 5409.
How much relationship evidence should I include?
Enough to show the relationship from several independent directions and developing over time, but not so much that the story is buried. Officers are looking for consistency across categories, joint finances, cohabitation, communication, time spent together, and recognition by family and friends, rather than sheer volume in one category. Two hundred near-identical chat screenshots persuade less than a smaller, well-chosen set spanning several years and several categories. Quality and breadth beat weight.
Do I need police certificates and a medical exam?
Your partner generally needs police certificates from every country where they have lived for six months or more since the age of 18, and an immigration medical examination with an IRCC panel physician. You as the Canadian sponsor do not need either. Many applicants complete the medical upfront to avoid a later request, though IRCC will tell you if it wants one at a particular point. Both have validity periods, so timing matters if the application is long-running.
What happens if my application is returned as incomplete?
IRCC returns the whole package to you and you start again, which in practice costs several months against a queue already running about 26 months inland and 18 months outland as of September 2026. It is not a refusal and does not count against you, but it is the most avoidable delay in the whole process. The overwhelming majority of returns come from missing a form, missing a signature, or missing something listed on IMM 5533, all of which a careful pass through the checklist would catch.
Do documents need to be translated?
Any document not in English or French needs a translation by a certified translator, submitted with the original or a certified copy, plus an affidavit from the translator where they are not certified. Do not translate your own documents, and do not have a family member do it. This is a common and easily avoided cause of a document being rejected or a request for further information.
Can I submit the application online?
Spousal sponsorship applications are generally submitted through IRCC's online portal, which has replaced paper filing for most applicants. Online submission does not change what the package must contain: the same forms and the same evidence, uploaded rather than posted. Watch file size and format limits, name files clearly so an officer can find things, and keep a complete copy of everything you submit.
What background and security checks does IRCC do for spousal sponsorship?
IRCC checks both of you. Your partner goes through security, criminality and medical screening against the police certificates, biometrics and medical exam already in this checklist, alongside its own systems for prior immigration history. As the sponsor, IRCC checks that you are not in default on a previous undertaking or immigration loan, are not under a removal order, and are not barred by the five-year rule for having been sponsored yourself. None of this is a separate document you submit; it happens against what is already in the package, which is one more reason the package needs to be accurate.
Is the document checklist different for common-law sponsorship?
Mostly the same, with one addition. Common-law couples complete IMM 5409, the Statutory Declaration of Common-Law Union, sworn before a commissioner of oaths, and need to show at least 12 continuous months living together through documents such as leases, joint bills and mail to the same address. Married couples skip IMM 5409 and submit a marriage certificate instead. Every other form and evidence category on the common-law sponsorship checklist applies exactly the same way as it does for married couples.
Does the checklist differ for inland and outland spousal sponsorship?
The core package is identical. What changes is the supporting material around where your partner lives and is processed: an inland application needs proof of your partner's status in Canada and can include a spousal open work permit application, while an outland application is assessed from abroad through a visa office, with no work permit option through that route. The forms, the relationship evidence, and the identity and admissibility documents are the same checklist either way.
Have the package checked before you send it
A returned application costs months against a queue already running years. A licensed RCIC will review your forms and evidence against the current checklist.