How the Parents and Grandparents Program (PGP) Works in 2026

If you are a Canadian citizen or permanent resident who wants to bring your mother, father, or grandparents to live with you permanently, the Parents and Grandparents Program (PGP) is the main route Canada offers. It is also one of the most frustrating, because far more people want to use it than there are spots each year. For 2026, the program is in a familiar holding pattern: existing applications keep moving, but the door to new sponsors is closed again. Here is how the program actually works, why intake keeps getting paused, and what you can do in the meantime.

What the Parents and Grandparents Program is

The PGP is a permanent residence stream under family sponsorship. Through it, an eligible sponsor in Canada can bring their parents or grandparents over as permanent residents — not visitors. Once landed, those relatives can live, work, and study in Canada indefinitely, access provincial health coverage, and eventually apply for citizenship.

That permanence is the key difference between the PGP and the Super Visa (more on that below). The Super Visa is a long-stay visitor document; the PGP gives your parents or grandparents actual PR status.

Because demand vastly outstrips supply, you cannot simply apply whenever you are ready. IRCC controls the flow through an invitation system, and it only processes a set number of admissions each year. For 2026, the target is 15,000 PGP admissions under the government's multi-year immigration levels plan — a small fraction of the interest out there.

How the invitation "lottery" works

The PGP does not run on a first-come, first-served basis. Instead, it uses a two-step model:

• Interest to sponsor. When IRCC opens intake, potential sponsors fill out a short online "interest to sponsor" form. This does not commit you to anything; it just puts your name in the pool.
• Invitation to apply. IRCC then randomly selects people from that pool and invites them to submit a full sponsorship application. Only invited sponsors can apply.

Because selection is random, it functions much like a lottery. Submitting the interest form is necessary but not sufficient — plenty of people wait years in the pool without ever drawing an invitation.

Here is the wrinkle that shapes everything about 2026: no new interest-to-sponsor form has opened since 2020. Rather than gather a fresh pool, IRCC has drawn invitations from that original 2020 pool in later years — roughly 35,700 invitations in 2024 and about 17,860 in 2025. In other words, the people being invited now put their names in years ago.

What it takes to be a sponsor

Sponsoring a parent or grandparent is a serious financial commitment, and the requirements reflect that.

The income test

Sponsors must show they earn enough to support the relatives they are bringing over, plus everyone already in their household. For the PGP, the threshold is set at the low-income cut-off (LICO) plus 30% — a higher bar than most other sponsorships use. Crucially, you must meet that minimum for each of the three tax years before you apply, proven with your Canada Revenue Agency Notices of Assessment. A single weak year can sink an otherwise strong application. (Quebec applies its own income rules.)

The undertaking

You also sign an undertaking — a legally binding promise to financially support your sponsored relatives and to repay any social assistance they receive during the undertaking period. For parents and grandparents this commitment runs for many years and does not end if your circumstances change, so it is worth understanding fully before you commit.

For a broader picture of how sponsoring relatives works, see our overview of family sponsorship in Canada.

Why intake keeps being paused

On July 15, 2026, IRCC confirmed it would not open a new interest-to-sponsor round or invite new potential sponsors "until further notice." Applications already in the system keep being processed — around 60,500 of them, with wait times near 33 months, and up to about 66 months for applicants in Quebec.

The reason is backlog management, driven by the immigration levels plan. With only 15,000 admission spaces set aside for 2026 and tens of thousands of applications already queued, IRCC has more than enough work in the pipeline to fill those spots for years. Opening a fresh intake would simply add more people to a line that is already long, so instead of collecting new names, the department is working through the existing backlog.

This is why the program feels perpetually "closed." It is not that the PGP has ended — it is that supply is capped low while the queue built up during earlier, larger intake years slowly clears. Until the backlog shrinks, do not expect a wide-open new round.

You can read more in our explainer on why Canada paused the PGP in 2026.

What to do while the pool is closed

You cannot force your way into a closed intake, but you can be ready — and you have a real alternative in the meantime.

Consider the Super Visa. IRCC points to the Super Visa as the stated alternative for families waiting on the PGP. It lets approved parents and grandparents visit for up to five years at a time, on a multi-entry visa valid for up to 10 years. There is no lottery to enter. The trade-offs: it is visitor status, not PR (it does not lead directly to permanent residence), and it comes with conditions — including medical insurance of at least CAD $100,000 valid for a minimum of one year, a host who meets a LICO-based income level, and an immigration medical exam. See our Super Visa requirements and insurance guide for the current thresholds.

Get your paperwork in order for a future round. If a new interest-to-sponsor intake opens, the people who move fastest are those who prepared early. Practical steps:

• Keep three years of clean tax filings so your income history clears LICO+30%.
• Save your Notices of Assessment and other proof of income.
• Set up and verify your online IRCC account so you can submit the interest form quickly.
• Understand the undertaking before you sign it, not after.

For more options and timing tips, our guide on what PGP applicants can do now walks through the practical steps.

The PGP is not gone. But it is a program where patience, preparation, and a backup plan matter as much as eligibility — and for 2026, the realistic move is to prepare quietly and use the Super Visa to keep your family close in the meantime.

This is general information, not legal advice — for your situation, consult an authorized immigration representative (an RCIC or a Canadian immigration lawyer).