Super Visa: How to Apply

The super visa lets a parent or grandparent visit their child or grandchild in Canada for up to 5 years at a time, on a visa that can be valid for up to 10 years with multiple entries.

Compare that with a regular visitor visa, which usually gets you 6 months per entry. If your parents want to actually live with you for a stretch, this is the document.

It is also the application most often sunk by one detail: the insurance policy. We will get to that, because it is where the money is lost.

Who qualifies

You must be the parent or grandparent, biological or adopted, of your host.

Your host must be:

Your child or grandchild.

A Canadian citizen, a permanent resident, or a person registered under the Indian Act.

At least 18 and living in Canada.

Able to meet or exceed the minimum necessary income.

Willing to write and sign a letter of invitation.

And you must be outside Canada when you apply. The visa is printed at a visa office abroad. You cannot apply from inside Canada, and you cannot have the visa printed here.

Two things that catch people out.

You cannot include dependants in a super visa application. Each person applies on their own.

Only biological or adopted children can invite their parents or grandparents. Siblings, aunts, uncles and cousins have no route here. A host's spouse or common law partner may co sign the letter of invitation and contribute income. Other family members, including siblings, cannot co sign.

If you already have a parent and grandparent sponsorship application in the system, you can still apply for a super visa while you wait. Or withdraw the sponsorship and apply. Both are allowed.

The medical insurance requirement, in detail

This is the part to read twice.

Your policy must:

Be valid for a minimum of 1 year from the date of entry.

Provide a minimum emergency coverage of $100,000.

Cover health care, hospitalisation and repatriation.

Name the insurance company that issued it.

Be paid in full, OR paid in instalments with a deposit.

Be valid for EACH entry to Canada.

Be available for a border officer to inspect on request.

Two corrections to things you will read elsewhere.

First, the policy does NOT have to be paid in full. IRCC explicitly accepts instalments with a deposit. What it will not accept is a quote. A quote is not a policy, and officers reject them.

Second, the insurer does not have to be Canadian, but the exception is narrow and most people get it wrong. A foreign insurance company qualifies only if it is authorised by the Office of the Superintendent of Financial Institutions under the Insurance Companies Act to provide accident and sickness insurance, appears on OSFI's public list of federally regulated financial institutions, AND issued the policy while doing insurance business in Canada. A policy from a foreign insurer must include a statement saying it was issued while the company was doing insurance business in Canada.

And here is the trap inside the trap: insurance brokers and claims administrators are not insurance companies. They will not appear on the OSFI list. If your policy names a broker rather than an insurer, it fails.

The coverage must hold on every entry, not just the first. If your policy will expire before you leave Canada, renew it. If you leave and come back, expect to show valid insurance again at the border.

The letter of invitation

Written and signed by your host child or grandchild. It must include:

Proof that they meet or exceed the minimum necessary income.

The list and number of people counted in their family size, with the name and date of birth of each one.

A promise of financial support for the length of your authorised stay.

The host's spouse or common law partner may co sign and add their income if needed to reach the threshold.

The income requirement

Your host's income is measured against Statistics Canada's Low Income Cut Off. Here is the table IRCC publishes.

Getting the family size right matters as much as the income figure. The count includes you and any other super visa applicant the host is supporting, such as your spouse. It includes the host, the host's spouse or partner, and their dependent children. It also includes previously approved super visa applicants and anyone previously sponsored where the undertaking is still running.

A useful distinction: because a super visa is a temporary resident visa, YOUR family members are not counted in the host's family size. That is different from family class sponsorship, and people routinely over count.

There are two ways to prove the income.

Option 1. The host shows total income at or above the minimum in either of the two tax years before the application. The document is a Notice of Assessment from the Canada Revenue Agency.

Option 2. The host shows at least 75% of the minimum in the year before the application, and you add your own income to close the gap. If you go this route, you must prove you will keep earning that income while in Canada, and the document must state the currency you are paid in.

If your host has no Notice of Assessment, IRCC accepts a T4 or T1, twelve months of pay stubs, an original employer letter stating job title, description and salary, bank statements showing investment income or regular deposits, pension statements, Employment Insurance statements, rental ownership and lease contracts, or an accountant's letter for the self employed.

The medical exam

You need an immigration medical exam from an approved panel physician. Your own doctor cannot do it.

Results are valid for 12 months.

You can do an upfront exam before you apply, which saves time.

You pay the panel physician directly, and IRCC does not refund those costs if your application is later refused.

Fees

If you are from a visa exempt country, you pay neither the super visa fee nor the biometrics fee.

Note that the medical exam and the insurance policy are separate costs, paid to the doctor and the insurer, not to IRCC.

One quiet constraint on the visa's length: IRCC cannot issue a super visa valid longer than your biometrics. If your biometrics expire in four years, that is your ceiling.

How to apply

Apply online through the IRCC Portal. Two answers matter and people select the wrong ones:

When asked "I want to apply for," select Visitor visa or super visa.

When asked "Why do you need a visitor visa," select "To visit my children or grandchildren for more than 6 months (super visa)."

Get the second one wrong and you have applied for an ordinary visitor visa.

Any document not in English or French needs a translation plus an affidavit from the translator, unless they are a certified translator. The translator cannot be you, your parent, guardian, sibling, spouse, partner, grandparent, child, aunt, uncle, niece, nephew or first cousin.

All documents must be clear and easy to read. IRCC will return or delay an application it cannot read.

Processing time

IRCC does not publish a single super visa processing time. It says only that it varies by country and sends you to the live processing times tool. Anyone quoting you a firm national number is inventing it.

Whatever the tool says, it does not include the time you take to give biometrics.

If you are visa exempt

You can still get a super visa, and you should. You will not receive a visa sticker. IRCC issues you a letter to hand to the border services officer when you arrive. You may also need a separate eTA.

Without that letter, you are just a visitor, and visitors get 6 months.

Working, studying, and what the visa does not do

A super visa does not authorise you to work or study in Canada. Those need permits.

And a super visa does not guarantee entry. A border services officer makes the final call, every single time. Carry your insurance proof, and be ready to show it.

Leaving at the end of your stay, and dual intent

An officer must be satisfied that you will leave Canada at the end of your authorised stay. They weigh your ties to your home country, the purpose of your visit, your family, and your finances.

If you also hope to become a permanent resident one day, say so honestly. IRCC's own guidance is unambiguous: holding two intents, temporary now and permanent later, is legitimate. Officers are specifically warned against assuming that anyone with a pending or prospective PR application automatically intends to overstay. That assumption is named as bias in IRCC's instructions.

What the dual intent rule does not do is excuse you from the temporary resident obligation. You still have to satisfy the officer that you will leave at the end of the authorised period.

Extending your stay

It is your responsibility to keep your status valid. Before it expires, either leave Canada or apply to extend.

An extension is done through a visitor record, which costs CAD $100 per person. A visitor record is not a visa. It does not let you re enter Canada.

Common reasons super visas are refused

Submitting an insurance QUOTE rather than a policy.

A policy from a broker or claims administrator instead of an insurance company.

A foreign insurer that does not meet the OSFI conditions.

Coverage below $100,000, or valid for less than a year.

Host income below the threshold for the correct family size, usually because the family size was counted wrong.

Failing to satisfy the officer that you will leave at the end of your stay.

An incomplete application, or documents an officer cannot read.

Not following the medical exam instructions.

Misrepresentation, which carries a five year ban from entering Canada.

Questions people actually ask

Prepared by KGraph Immigration. Last updated July 2026. General information, not legal advice.