Drunkarchaeologist

Hi all, just wondering if anyone has submitted a Spousal Sponsorship recently? We sent ours off to Canada at the beginning of April and I know they received it on the 5th of April as someone signed for it as I had a tracked delivery. Was just wondering what sort of timescale it will be till we hear something back as we have heard absolutely nothing, I understand there's a huge backlog, just be nice to hear some other people's experiences.

Cheers
Drunkarchaeologist

Sunnybrae

Hi, my timescale went like this...
Nov 2020 - submitted outland spousal sponsorship application
June 2021 - application returned by mail (3 months in the post so they did look at it in March 2021) as I forgot to send a document
Sept 2021 - resubmitted application
Dec 2021 - Biometrics done in London
Jan 2022 - medical done
Feb 2022 - COPR received
Oct 2022 - flights booked to do soft landing

Patience is the name of the game, nothing happens for months and then they give you bugger all time to get biometrics done in a small time frame window, I had to fly down to London as its the only place in the UK to get biometrics done but I got my medical done in Scotland where I live.

Drunkarchaeologist

Thanks for this, really helps to see someone else's experience who has submitted recently. I just assumed we would have received an email like "we have your application and have started processing it". Hopefully we'll hear something soon I hope, as my fiancèe (who is Canadian) is getting quite homesick and the whole not knowing about it then hearing about 23 month processing times is really getting to her.

Cheers
Drunkarchaeologist

christmasoompa

Just FYI, the first you hear may be Sponsor Approval, don't expect an email confirming receipt as it's possible you won't receive one. Hopefully you know it's got there safely via tracking though.

Also, bear in mind that those who applied recently and their timelines may not be relevant unless they applied since the Ukraine policy was implemented (i.e. Sunnybrae above, who had PR before that).

Drunkarchaeologist

This is also very true, understand there will be more of a backlog due to Ukraine. Well just gonna have to sit and wait I guess then hopefully we'll get a nice surprise at some point and be informed of whats happening

Cheers
Drunkarchaeologist

christmasoompa

My guess (it really is just a guess though!) is that it won't be as long as the current processing times quoted, I think that time will come down. Fingers crossed anyway……..

Robert M

Hi all, This is our first post on this forum. I am sponsoring my wife for PR. The timescale has been:

23-08-2022 Application submitted
19-10-2022 Spousal sponsorship approved
27-10-2022 Biometrics and Medical completed
03-05-2023 Background verification completed
03-05-2023 Eligibility completed
04-05-2023 Email letter from IRCC requesting that we send the London office a new passport, within 30 days (my wife's passport used with the application had less than 6 months validity by this stage)
19-05-2023 Scanned copy of new passport submitted via IRCC secure account
13-06-2023 Email from IRCC requesting several things: (i) Upload to "your online account" a copy of email letter and an updated "Appendix A - Updated Information Chart"; (ii) Upload to "your online account" a photocopy of passport. There was no way to upload these documents to the IRCC secure account - we managed to send these attached to an IRCC message form,d this was acknowledged by email from IRCC on 18-07-2023 as having been added to the application. We were also required to send 2 photos to VFS Global. All within 30 days. All documents were submitted 03-07-2023.
06-07-2023 Email from VFS Global requesting photo of biometrics sticker (applied to back of passport) and payment for CoPR documents to be returned by DHL courier
07-07-2023 Email from VFS Global confirming "Your application ... has been dispatched to the IRCC Office on Friday July 7 2023 for processing."
18-07-2023 Email from IRCC acknowledging that the documents uploaded using the IRCC message form on 03-07-2023 were received

My concern is that my wife's IRCC Application Status Tracker has not been updated since 19 July 2023 (one day after the last email from IRCC confirming receipt of the uploaded documents). The Application status still says "In progress". Oddly, there is a COPR document number, even though this has not been issued.

Because of the 1 year time limit on the Medical, the Application Status Tracker also states that the COPR Expiry Date is 28 October 2023 - which is just over 6 weeks away. Is it possibe that the application has fallen betwen the cracks? Is there any way of contacting IRCC with a reminder? What happens if the COPR decision is not made until very close to or after the 28 October date? Any advice that others on this forum could give us at ths stage would be very gratefully received!

Robert

LondontoVictoria

Hi there!
My Canadian wife is sponsoring me for residency and we are currently in London (so outland). We submitted our application mid-December. She was approved as a sponsor at the end of Jan and I did my biometrics yesterday (12th Feb).
Going through the thread here the most recent example stated a wait of 6 months to progress to the next step (background verification) which seems an incredibly long time to wait for any indication that it is progressing, meanwhile we are hoping to move our lives and kids to Canada this summer (eek).
Is anyone aware of any recent examples that would give an indication of the current timeline? And are some applications processed faster than others?
Thanks in advance for sharing your experiences and insights.

Robert M

Following my post above, my wife's COPR did arrive, but only one month before the year deadline from the medical. She then travelled to Canada for the soft landing, with 3 weeks to spare.

In our case, there was clearly a delay in the process of about 3 months. This must have been because my wife's UK passport had an expiry date which was before the end of the 1 year deadline following the medical, which required us to upload a scanned copy of the new UK passport to the IRCC secure account. When we got the COPR, we found out that my my wife's application was actually approved on 19 July 2023, but then nothing happened until the very end of September, when she was notified by email of the approval.

Even then, VFS Global sat on the approval paperwork for the COPR for a full week, not sending it out immediately as the automated emails said would happen. We had to email and telephone them, before they found the file and sorted it out.

It's imposible to know what when wrong in IRCC and VFS Global, except that issue of the new passport threw a spanner into the works. From the persepctive of a 'customer' it seems that their systems are held toegther with sticky tape and Blu Tack.

All in all, very stressful.

My recommendation would be, if the applicant's UK passport has less than 2 years remaining, then renew it before you begin the application process. You can apply to renew a UK passport at any time, regardless of its expiry date.

Robert

LondontoVictoria

Has anyone recently received been approved for spousal sponsorship via London?

I'm trying to get a sense of processing time as they seem to vary considerably depending on processing office. Thanks!

OakleyMatt

Hi Im currently going through this process. Ive been in the process since my application was submitted 15th September 2023, Im waiting for the VFS office to request my passport in London prior to hopefully receiving my COPR.

LondontoVictoria

Many thanks for the reply. Are you able to share a breakdown of your timeline?

We submitted mid-December.
Sponsor was approved in January.
Biometrics and medical completed in February.
Background checks and eligibility been In Progress since and no update yet. How long did it take for this?

Any insight would be much appreciated as trying to figure out when I can sell my house!

OakleyMatt

Hiya, just to give you a little more detail. I, Matt, am English. I currently live in the UK, Hampshire. I married Laura, who lives in British Columbia, April 2023. We have known each other since 1987 when we were in a romantic relationship when we met travelling abroad.

We are using a company, cipcanada, to help us with the paperwork, admin, documents and everything else basically.

We submitted my application September 2023. It was confirmed in November Laura was sets the Sponsorship eligibility requirements. December 2023 I had my bio metrics and medical done in London. All fine there.

The 2nd week of January 2024 we received notification I am eligible for ‘Pre arrival services’ from IRCC. This message is not an approval message, but it normally is a sign that the application is moving forward in a positive direction.

At that point cipcanada also notified us that it was at this stage with previous applicants that I would likely receive a request from VFS in London to send my post passport to them, which usually happens about a month before confirmation of permanent residency. I’m still waiting to hear about sending my passport to VFS. Bloody frustrating.

i have just sold my house, in principle. If the worse comes to the worse I’ll end up having to spend time in rented accommodation/hotel…..

Matt.

OakleyMatt

I’ll post a screenshot of my process from the IRCC portal

OakleyMatt