Canada has paused new grandparent sponsorship intake under the Parents and Grandparents Program, closing the door on fresh interest to sponsor forms and invitations to apply until further notice. Canadian citizens and permanent residents who want to bring parents or grandparents for permanent residence will not get a new chance unless Canada reverses course.
Immigration, Refugees and Citizenship Canada said it will keep processing existing Parents and Grandparents Program applications already received. The department is still aiming to approve 15,000 applications for permanent residence in 2026, even as 50,900 PGP applications sit in inventory and the government plans to admit 15,000 PGP applicants per year through to 2028.
Canada and the 2020 intake
The pause lands on a program that has not taken new interest to sponsor forms since the 2020 intake. That intake drew 203,213 unique submissions during a three-week intake period, and the federal government then held annual invitation periods from 2020 through 2025 for people who had already entered that lottery.
Those invitation rounds were the only route back into the program for many sponsors. Each person invited could then submit an application to sponsor a parent or grandparent for Canadian permanent residence, but no new pool was opened after 2020.
Existing PGP applications
The immediate consequence is a split system: no new entries, but a continuing queue. Existing PGP applications remain in process while the department works through the 50,900-file inventory and keeps the 2026 admissions target at 15,000 applications for permanent residence.
For would-be sponsors, that means the path that once relied on an annual invitation cycle is now shut again. The government says potential sponsors who are shut out of the PGP should look to the super visa, which allows parents and grandparents to visit their hosting relatives in Canada for up to five years at a time and can be issued for up to 10 years in validity.
Quebec and processing times
The slowdown also sits against long waits already visible in the file. For applications submitted in July 2025, the expected remaining processing time was 18 months outside Quebec and 54 months in Quebec, showing how far the queue had already stretched before this new pause.
That gap matters because the government is pausing intake while it continues to process older files and maintain the same annual admissions goal through 2028. The next practical test is whether Canada keeps the door closed beyond this pause or eventually restores a route for new sponsors to enter the Parents and Grandparents Program.
