Sponsoring American spouse while both abroad

[Fischercr]

Hi everyone,

I'm very grateful to have found this forum. I hope that you have some advice for me.

I am an American citizen, and my husband is a Canadian citizen. We've been married for nearly a year. We moved to Russia a month ago, and we are currently living and working here together.

In the future, we intend to move to Québec, and we want to start the FC sponsorship as soon as possible because we expect it will take ages. Immigration Québec recommended that we contact the Canadian Embassy in Moscow if we're applying from outside of Canada, so we emailed them, but there's no guarantee that they'll respond.

Has anyone had the experience of sponsoring a spouse while you were both living abroad in a country that neither of you is a citizen of? Any advice?

Best,
CF

 

[canuck_in_uk]

Hi everyone,

I'm very grateful to have found this forum. I hope that you have some advice for me.

I am an American citizen, and my husband is a Canadian citizen. We've been married for nearly a year. We moved to Russia a month ago, and we are currently living and working here together.

In the future, we intend to move to Québec, and we want to start the FC sponsorship as soon as possible because we expect it will take ages. Immigration Québec recommended that we contact the Canadian Embassy in Moscow if we're applying from outside of Canada, so we emailed them, but there's no guarantee that they'll respond.

Has anyone had the experience of sponsoring a spouse while you were both living abroad in a country that neither of you is a citizen of? Any advice?

Hi

It doesn't really matter that neither of you are citizens of Russia. You are in no way required to apply through the Moscow office and I highly recommend you don't. As you are an American, you can select Ottawa as your processing office (Ottawa processes American PR apps right now). At the moment, Ottawa is averaging around 8 months for processing.

When exactly in the future do you plan to settle in Canada? The big thing with applying from abroad is that your Canadian spouse must show proof that he intends to return to Canada when the app is approved. If you apply now but aren't planning to return to Canada for several years, your app would be refused.