I am a Canadian citizen and I want to renew the PR card of my wife who was a PR before in Canada but her PR card expired as she barely stayed only 2 weeks during the 5 year period. We both got married outside Canada and we are currently working in the US and planning to return to Canada next year. I don't know if I can revive her existing PR status or if I should submit a new 'Spousal PR' application because her PR status was obtained (and expired) before I even met her. She became a PR in 2018 and her card expired in 2023 as she moved to US in 2018. I moved to US temporarily for work in 2023 and I met her and we got married in 2025. We never lived together (or even met) in Canada.
Just wanted to understand what our options are in this case as we have to go back to Canada in 2026 (my work Visa validity). Please advise. Thanks!
There are, basically, three "options" for her:"
-- wait until she travels to Canada and sees how it goes at the Port-of-Entry (PoE)
-- apply for a PR Travel Document, or
-- renounce her PR status and then, as a Foreign National (FN), make a family class application for PR sponsored by you
Only the last (renounce her status as a Canadian and in effect re-apply for PR) has a high probability of succeeding (near certain but for
stuff happens contingencies).
That is more or less the easier approach to describe (especially for anyone who cannot be bothered to explain what other options there are). That is a typical superficial forum response oriented to what will likely work for most, largely ignoring what might work better for some depending on their particular situation.
Here, for your particular situation, that could be the preferable approach given the other options do not have good odds of succeeding and have some significant drawbacks.
There may be reasons, nonetheless, to seriously consider the other two options, particularly the option to apply for a PR TD.
That gets a little complicated, too much information for many these days.
And many regular forum participants likely wonder why even consider the option to apply for a PR TD (doubting the viability of this option given that for a PR in the U.S. who is trying to keep PR status, this is not usually worth much consideration).
But if you and her want to make informed decisions, and are inclined to do-the-homework to figure out what is the better option (for the two of you in particular), rather than relying on the
easy answer based on what works for most (not all), there is plenty to consider . . .
Further Observations; The Long Read:
The key considerations in your decision-making include numerous personal factors that could affect how things go. The particular details in the individual case matter. What works for most, what is best for most, can be well shy of what will work best for some, or it can even be way off.
For example, just one example among many: I assume, in part based on what is likely, your spouse has not had even a minor criminal charge. But details like that can nonetheless be a very important consideration since a minor charge that would not affect a PR's status can make the individual inadmissible if they are a FN, which could preclude being eligible for sponsored PR. That is, as just one example of personal details that could make a big difference, a minor criminal charge might weigh in favour of making the effort to keep PR status rather than renouncing it and reverting to FN status.
One key factor is financial considerations and whether you can afford to obtain the assistance of a Canadian immigration lawyer (paid for advice, not a free consultation, and for sure not a consultant), at least for the purpose of reviewing the particular details of your situation, including viable options and respective considerations, to guide your decision-making.
Otherwise, if you are not interested in obtaining help from a lawyer, but want to more thoroughly consider your options, for the two of you in particular, then
before renouncing PR status at the least carefully review what is involved in pursuing a sponsored spouse PR application, including the eligibility requirements. The renouncing PR status part is very easy. But even though making the sponsored spouse application is usually easy enough to do without a lawyer's help, it is important to carefully review the eligibility requirements and other aspects of the process carefully before electing to go that route. Even though that was my route to becoming a Canadian, I have not personally been following matters involving FNs much, including sponsored PR applications. I am aware that for applications by FNs there may be some processing time troubles brewing, if not chaos (IRCC recently gave a
50 year processing timeline for some types of applications), and that there may be other reasons to approach this option carefully.
For example:
Canada now requires quite a lot more proof that you will be settling in Canada when sponsoring a spouse from abroad . . .
I do not know much about this, but I do know that the first step is to review IRCC's online information about the process, including instructions and the applicable forms. Once you have done that there are other parts of this forum more focused on immigration applications, including family class applications and immigrating from the U.S. to Canada in particular, where you can ask questions to get some help, first to decide for sure this is the better option for you and her, and then, if needed, help navigating the process. (Still be aware and vigilant, of course, that like most internet forums, responses tend to be superficial and prone to misleading generalizations or outright misinformation; always try to corroborate and verify.)
In any event, the key considerations in your decision-making range from whether there are potential snags in obtaining PR status anew and how things are going at IRCC in regards to processing family class sponsored PR applications (including how long these are currently taking for example), to factors that could affect the viability of an effort to retain her current status as a Canadian (PR).
This brings up a clarification:
Her PR status has NOT expired. There is no way for her to "
try to somehow renew the old" status.
In particular, she is still a Canadian not a FN (so she is not currently eligible to be sponsored for PR). Just the PR card has expired (similar to how a passport expires; not like a how a drivers' license expires). The expiration of a permanent resident status card has no effect on their Canadian status. This is why she would need to renounce her current PR status and revert to being a FN before she could make a family class PR application sponsored by her spouse.
The only reason why she should even consider renouncing PR status and applying anew for PR is that she has failed to meet her obligations as a PR. Her breach of the PR Residency Obligation, and breach of it by a lot in particular, means she is at high risk of being deemed inadmissible resulting in a decision terminating her PR status, whether that be the issuance of a Removal Order during a PoE examination, the denial of an application for a PR TD, or attendant an inland inadmissibility proceeding triggered by an application for a new PR card.
In contrast, there is some chance (impossible to quantify; probably not good, but a significant chance nonetheless) that the two of you could come here and be waived through the PoE, not much questioning about RO compliance. If that happened she could simply stay in Canada long enough to get into RO compliance before engaging in any transaction that might trigger an examination of her RO compliance.
That would be the wait until she travels to Canada to see how it goes at the PoE option.
Even if waived through, however, that approach has some significant drawbacks. Gets complicated. Among frequent commentators here
@canuck78 tends to address these more than others. Obvious drawbacks include difficulty obtaining provincial health care coverage without a valid PR card, or even a drivers' license, since it will take staying here two years to get into RO compliance and it is usually not a good idea to even make the application for a new PR card until then.
A major factor to consider is whether she obtained a SIN during her brief stay here. If not, that too is very difficult to obtain without a valid PR card.
Then there is the option of applying for a PR TD. I will get to that in a separate post.
Meanwhile, a reminder: approach internet forum information with caution (including, for sure, what I post). I do not know much about current processing times for family class PR applicants, that is actual, in practice, processing times, so I will not say that the claim that current processing times for spousal sponsored applications are about 6 to 14 months is wrong or even misleading . . . but information provided by IRCC currently states that the processing time is "
About 15 months" for an outland application, and "
About 22 months" for an inland application (much, much longer for those planning to live in Quebec), and even though processing times can be shorter than those posted by IRCC, that's not the norm and longer is common.
