IMM 5409: Statutory Declaration of Common-Law Union

What is the IMM 5409 statutory declaration of common-law union?

The IMM 5409 statutory declaration of common-law union is a one-page IRCC form on which you and your partner declare, under oath, that you are common-law partners. In Canadian immigration, common-law means you have cohabited continuously in a conjugal relationship for at least 12 months. The form records both partners' details and the period and address of your cohabitation, and it carries legal weight because it is sworn before an authorised official. IMM 5409 is the only IRCC form that turns a common-law relationship into a sworn legal statement, which is why it sits at the heart of a common-law partner sponsorship when you are not legally married.

Who needs to complete IMM 5409?

You complete IMM 5409 whenever your application to IRCC relies on a common-law relationship rather than a marriage, which most often means one partner is sponsoring the other for permanent residence as a common-law partner. It is one form inside a larger package rather than a standalone application.

• Common-law partner sponsorship: you file IMM 5409 to confirm the relationship qualifies as common-law when you sponsor a partner for permanent residence.
• An accompanying family member: you file IMM 5409 when you add a common-law partner to another application, such as a work or study permit.
• Any other application asking you to declare a partnership: you file IMM 5409 wherever IRCC asks you to declare a common-law union under oath.

Our spousal sponsorship document checklist sets out every other form and document IRCC expects alongside it.

If you are still working out whether you can sponsor at all, our free spousal sponsorship eligibility checker covers the sponsor rules and the three relationship categories in a few minutes.

What counts as a common-law relationship on IMM 5409?

On IMM 5409, a common-law relationship means you have lived together continuously for at least 12 months in a conjugal relationship. That 12-month threshold is the single fact the form exists to establish. The declaration on IMM 5409 states this, but IRCC also expects supporting evidence that you genuinely share a life. Short, temporary absences for work, study or family reasons do not normally break the 12 months, as long as the relationship continued and you intended to keep living together.

Build your evidence file around four categories of document.

• Shared residence: a lease, mortgage or purchase agreement in both names, or other proof that you and your partner have lived at the same address.
• Financial interdependence: joint bank accounts, shared utility and phone bills, and any other evidence that you run your finances together.
• Matching identification: government or official identification for each partner showing the same civic address over the period you are claiming.
• Presenting as a couple: beneficiary designations naming each other, photographs spread across the period, and similar proof that you hold yourselves out as partners.

Where to download the current IMM 5409 form

IRCC publishes IMM 5409 as a free fillable PDF titled Statutory Declaration of Common-Law Union [IMM 5409], last revised in January 2023, with the revision date printed in the bottom corner of every page so you can confirm you have the current version before you fill anything in. One form covers both partners: you do not complete one each, and IMM 5409E is simply IRCC's file name for the English version of the same form.

You can download IMM 5409 (PDF) from IRCC directly. Open and complete it in Adobe Reader rather than a browser tab or a phone, because the fields and the built-in Validate check may not work correctly anywhere else.

Unlike most IMM forms, IMM 5409 does not generate a barcode when you validate it, so IRCC has no scannable way to confirm which version you filed; it identifies the form purely by the number and date printed on the page. That is exactly what a third-party copy, a version saved from an earlier application, or a form downloaded from a notary's or immigration blog's website can get wrong. Download it fresh from canada.ca for every application rather than reusing an old copy, even one that worked before.

How to fill out and sign IMM 5409

To complete IMM 5409, you enter both partners' full names, dates of birth and the address where you have lived together, state the date your cohabitation began, and then both sign the form in front of a notary public or commissioner of oaths who completes the declaration section. The form is short; getting it sworn correctly is what makes it valid.

1. 01

   Enter both partners' details

   Full names, dates of birth, and the address or addresses where you have lived together as a couple.

2. 02

   State the cohabitation period

   The date you began living together, confirming at least 12 continuous months of cohabitation in a conjugal relationship.

3. 03

   Sign before an authorised official

   Both partners sign in front of a notary public or commissioner of oaths, who completes the declaration section confirming the statement was sworn before them.

IMM 5409 field by field: from your details to the commissioner's signature

IRCC does not lay IMM 5409 out as separate numbered sections; it is one page built from five numbered questions that run in a fixed order. Read as a walkthrough, they fall into four parts, and most returns trace back to a mismatch in one of the first two.

Part 1: your details and the relationship itself (Question 1)

Question 1 opens with your country and province or state of current residence, then both partners' full legal names exactly as they appear on your passports or travel documents. It then asks for the city, county, province or state, and country where you have been living together, how many continuous years you have been in a conjugal relationship, and the start date (and end date, if the relationship has ended) of that relationship. This block has to agree, word for word and date for date, with the cohabitation date on your other sponsorship forms and your evidence file. A relationship IRCC dates from one month on IMM 5409 and a different month on your lease or your sponsorship documents reads as inconsistent even when nothing is actually wrong.

Part 2: the evidence checklist (Questions 1A to 4)

After Question 1, the form becomes a short checklist rather than free text. You confirm, by checking boxes, whether you and your partner have a jointly signed lease, mortgage or purchase agreement for a shared residence; joint ownership of property other than that residence; a joint bank, trust, credit union or charge card account; and whether you have declared the common-law union on a Canadian income tax return. Two further questions ask whether either of you names the other as a life insurance beneficiary. If you answer no across all of those, Question 4 asks you to describe whatever other documentary evidence you do have. Checking no to everything without a strong Question 4 answer is one of the quieter ways a common-law file reads as thin to a case officer.

Part 3: the solemn declaration (Question 5, opening lines)

Question 5 is the declaration itself: both partners' names again, and the city, county, province or state, and country where you are signing. This is the point where the form stops being a questionnaire and becomes a statutory declaration, a sworn legal statement, which is why a false answer here carries legal weight beyond simply weakening the application.

Part 4: signatures and the commissioner's jurat (Question 5, closing lines)

The last lines are the signature block: the date, the handwritten signature of each declarant, and the name, title and signature of the person who administered the declaration. IRCC's own instructions for the form are explicit that it must be completed and signed with handwritten signatures; a typed or electronic signature is not accepted, and you should not sign it before you are in front of the official.

Expect to pay the notary's or commissioner's own fee for administering the oath, and check the spousal sponsorship document checklist for where the signed declaration sits in the wider package. The same form is used when you add a common-law partner to a work or study permit application or a permanent residence application.

Signing IMM 5409 when you and your partner are apart

IMM 5409 is built to be sworn by both partners before one official at the same time and place: Question 5 carries a single "declared before me at" line and one signature for the administering commissioner, and IRCC has published no exception for couples who cannot be together. The safest reading of the form is that both signatures and the single jurat belong on one document.

That answer matters because a spousal or common-law sponsorship often runs for the better part of a year, and it is common for one partner to still be overseas, or for the two of you to be working in different provinces, while the file is being built.

In practice, couples who cannot be in the same city handle this one of two ways. The most straightforward is waiting until you are next together, even briefly, and signing IMM 5409 as one joint declaration at that visit. Where that is not realistic, some notaries and commissioners now offer remote commissioning, appearing with both partners by video link rather than in person, under the remote notarization rules a growing number of provinces and other jurisdictions now allow. Whether that is available, and whether a given notary is licensed to do it across a provincial or national border, depends on where each of you is, so confirm this with the commissioner directly before relying on it. If you do arrange a remote session, build it around your calendars rather than treating it as an afterthought: both partners need a stable video connection, valid photo identification the notary can verify on screen, and enough time in one sitting to complete the full declaration together, since a session that has to be split across two calls defeats the point of a single joint jurat.

What we do not recommend is each partner signing a separate copy of IMM 5409 before two different commissioners on two different dates. It is not how the form is built, it produces two declarations instead of one, and even a small mismatch in the declared date or location between them is the kind of inconsistency a case officer notices. If waiting or arranging a joint remote signing is not workable for your timeline, talk to us before you sign; there is usually a way to sequence the application that does not force a choice between filing late and filing a declaration that does not hold together.

Evidence to file alongside IMM 5409

IRCC weighs IMM 5409 against a documentary evidence file that has to tell the same story, and three categories carry the most weight: proof that you shared a residence, proof that your finances and legal affairs were interdependent, and proof that you presented yourselves publicly as a couple. The declaration on its own is a claim, not proof.

Proof of shared residence

The same civic address on both partners' identification, driver's licences and mail; a joint lease, mortgage or purchase agreement; and utility, phone or internet bills in both names at that address. What matters most is that this evidence spans the full period you are claiming, not just the weeks around when you filed. A handful of documents from the last two months and nothing from the year before them is a common reason IRCC asks for more.

Financial and legal interdependence

Joint bank, credit or loan accounts; life insurance or beneficiary designations naming each other; income tax returns that declare your common-law status, which should match Question 1D on IMM 5409 directly; and wills or powers of attorney naming your partner. These documents are harder to fabricate on short notice, which is part of why IRCC weighs them heavily.

Evidence you present as a couple

Photos together across the period claimed, not concentrated in one trip or event; messages or call records showing ongoing contact, particularly across any periods you were apart; travel booked together; joint memberships or subscriptions; and, where relevant, wedding or engagement plans. Statements from friends or family can support the file but rarely carry it alone.

What a case officer actually checks is consistency: do the dates across IMM 5409, your other forms and your evidence line up, and does the evidence cover the whole 12 months rather than just the recent portion of it. We review a couple's evidence file against exactly those two questions before we let an application go out the door.

What happens after you submit IMM 5409

IMM 5409 is not approved or refused on its own. It travels inside your wider spousal or common-law sponsorship application as one piece of evidence among many, and IRCC assesses it together with your cohabitation proof, the rest of the sponsorship forms, and, for outland applications, any interview or follow-up document request, rather than issuing a separate decision on the declaration itself.

What can happen is that the declaration undermines the file around it. If the date or place on IMM 5409 does not match your evidence, your other forms, or what you tell an officer, that inconsistency becomes a reason to question the relationship claim as a whole, not just the one form. An officer who is not satisfied that the 12 months of cohabitation is genuine can request more evidence or, in some cases, refuse the sponsorship on genuineness grounds, so the declaration is only as strong as what backs it up.

Once IMM 5409 is filed with the rest of your package, processing follows the same track as any other spousal or common-law case. See our outland and inland guides for the stages each route goes through, and the processing times tool for current estimates on your route.

Common-law, married, or conjugal: which applies?

IRCC recognises three partner relationship types, and only common-law uses IMM 5409. Identifying the right one is the first step in any partner sponsorship.

If you could not live together for 12 months because of a real barrier such as immigration rules or marital status, you may fall under the conjugal partner category instead, which does not rely on IMM 5409. Getting this classification right at the outset avoids filing under the wrong stream.

Common mistakes with IMM 5409

Six mistakes account for most of the IMM 5409 problems we see, and every one of them is a documentation error rather than a genuine eligibility problem: signing in the wrong place, claiming the wrong period, using the wrong category, filing thin evidence, contradicting your other forms, or using an outdated copy of the form. A statutory declaration leaves no room for an officer to assume what you meant.

• Signing without an authorised official: both partners must sign in front of a notary public or commissioner of oaths, so signing at home before you arrive at their office invalidates the declaration.
• Claiming a short cohabitation period: common-law status requires 12 continuous months of cohabitation, and rounding a shorter period up to reach it is a misrepresentation on a sworn document.
• Using the wrong relationship category: a couple who cannot cohabit because of a genuine barrier belongs in the conjugal partner category, not on IMM 5409.
• Filing the declaration with thin evidence: IRCC treats a sworn statement that stands alone, without documents showing you lived together, as a weak claim rather than a proven one.
• Contradicting your other forms: the dates and addresses on IMM 5409 must match your other sponsorship forms and your proof of cohabitation exactly, because an officer reads any gap as a discrepancy.
• Reusing an outdated copy: download the form fresh from canada.ca for every application, because IMM 5409 generates no barcode and IRCC identifies the version purely from the date printed on the page.

Any one of these is fixable before you file. Caught after IRCC has already flagged an inconsistency, the same issue takes far longer to resolve and can cost you a request for more evidence or a delay measured in months rather than weeks.

How Wild Mountain Immigration helps

Getting the IMM 5409 statutory declaration of common-law union right is one of the foundations of a clean common-law sponsorship, and one couples often get wrong. Working under a licensed RCIC (CICC #R706497), our team confirms whether you qualify as common-law, married or conjugal, makes sure IMM 5409 is completed and sworn correctly, and helps you build a cohabitation evidence file that holds up. Before an application goes out, we check the same three things a case officer will: that the dates on IMM 5409 match every other form in the package, that the evidence file covers the full 12 months rather than just the recent portion, and that the signing arrangement, together in person or a properly arranged remote session, is one IRCC will accept without a follow-up request.

We then position the declaration within your wider spousal or common-law sponsorship so the whole application is consistent, and confirm you meet the sponsor eligibility requirements before you file. If you want a quick read on your situation, you can also check what you qualify for in minutes. We represent clients entirely online, and your consultation with a licensed RCIC is free.

IRCC updates its forms periodically, so we confirm the current version of the IMM 5409 statutory declaration of common-law union on canada.ca before any file goes out.