i live in slovakia and want to sponsor my girlfriend

[ytzmarlon]

Hello,

I started dating my girlfriend while she was on vacation in toronto starting from October 2014. She was first in toronto for 6 months, after I went to visit her in Slovakia for 10 days. A couple months later she returned to toronto to study english at a language school. Her total time in Canada 1 year. During her second stretch, her school recommended she apply for a visa to study and work at the school for a year. She was rejected twice.

I then moved to slovakia on december 2015 to continue our relationship on a one year visa. We have been living together ever since, I work in IT for a top 20 fortune 500 company. My visa is set to expire in december 2016. We want to remain together, and are thinking of moving to toronto where we both have family.

What are our options, I was looking into sponsoring her as common law, but am not aware of the waiting periods and restrictions. Any guidance will be greatly appreciated!

A million thanks, Marlon and Greta

 

[screech339]

Hello,

I started dating my girlfriend while she was on vacation in toronto starting from October 2014. She was first in toronto for 6 months, after I went to visit her in Slovakia for 10 days. A couple months later she returned to toronto to study english at a language school. Her total time in Canada 1 year. During her second stretch, her school recommended she apply for a visa to study and work at the school for a year. She was rejected twice.

I then moved to slovakia on december 2015 to continue our relationship on a one year visa. We have been living together ever since, I work in IT for a top 20 fortune 500 company. My visa is set to expire in december 2016. We want to remain together, and are thinking of moving to toronto where we both have family.

What are our options, I was looking into sponsoring her as common law, but am not aware of the waiting periods and restrictions. Any guidance will be greatly appreciated!

A million thanks, Marlon and Greta

The only rule to qualifying for common law status is living together for 1 full year with no breaks / separation in between. You would have to provide proofs of you and your gf of physically living together for 1 year.

If you are Canadian, you can apply while you are in Slovakia and move back to Canada when you are ready to go back. However if you are PR, you cannot submit an PR spousal application until you are back in Canada. PR are to remain in Canada for the duration of PR application process.