Minimum Income for Family Sponsorship (LICO) Explained

If you want to sponsor a relative to come to Canada as a permanent resident, one of the first questions you'll run into is whether you earn enough money to do it. For most family sponsorships, that question is answered by something called the Low Income Cut-Off, or LICO. This guide walks through what LICO is, when it actually applies, and how to prove you meet it.

What LICO Is and Why It Matters

LICO is a set of income figures published by Statistics Canada that the government uses as a benchmark for sponsorship. The idea is straightforward: before you promise to financially support someone moving to Canada, you need to show you can already support your own household at a reasonable level.

For sponsorship purposes, immigration uses a slightly higher bar called the minimum necessary income (MNI), which is based on LICO plus a margin in some streams. The threshold isn't a single number. It scales with how many people you'll be responsible for, and it's updated every year. Because the figure changes annually and depends on your family size, you should always confirm the current amount on the official IRCC website rather than relying on a number you saw somewhere else.

The key thing to understand is that LICO is about your total household size after sponsorship, not just the person you're bringing over.

When LICO Applies (and When It Doesn't)

This is where a lot of people get tripped up, so it's worth being precise.

LICO usually does NOT apply when you sponsor a spouse, common-law partner, conjugal partner, or a dependent child who has no children of their own. For these "core family" sponsorships, there's generally no minimum income requirement at all. You still have to show you can meet basic needs and aren't receiving social assistance (other than for disability), but you don't need to hit a specific income threshold.

LICO DOES apply when you sponsor parents and grandparents through the Parents and Grandparents Program (PGP). For this stream the bar is higher than the standard LICO, and you typically have to prove you met the required income for three consecutive tax years in a row, not just the most recent one.

There are a few special cases too. Sponsoring a dependent child who has their own children, or certain other relatives, can trigger an income test. The safest move is to check the requirements for your exact relationship type before assuming anything.

How Family Size Is Counted

Your required income depends on the number of people you'll be financially responsible for. When you add up your family size, you generally include:

• Yourself
• Your spouse or common-law partner
• Your dependent children
• The person you're sponsoring (and their family members coming with them)
• Anyone you've sponsored before whose undertaking is still in effect
• Anyone your spouse has sponsored before, if still under undertaking

People often forget that last category. If you sponsored a relative years ago and that financial undertaking hasn't expired, they still count toward your family size, which raises the income you need to show.

The bigger your resulting household, the higher the threshold climbs.

How to Prove You Meet the Requirement

Income for sponsorship is assessed using your Canadian tax records, not your pay stubs or a letter from your boss. The main document is your Notice of Assessment (NOA) from the Canada Revenue Agency for the relevant tax year or years. For the Parents and Grandparents Program, you'll usually provide NOAs for three years and need to meet the threshold in each one.

A few practical points:

• If you live in Quebec, the province runs its own income assessment after the federal stage, with its own rules and figures. Plan for both.
• A co-signer (your spouse or common-law partner) can combine their income with yours to help you reach the threshold. Their income gets added to yours, and they share responsibility for the undertaking.
• The undertaking is a binding promise. Depending on the relationship, it lasts a set number of years, and during that period you're financially responsible for the sponsored person even if circumstances change.

A Realistic Way to Approach It

Before you start an application, do this simple check. Work out your full family size using the rules above, look up the current threshold for that size on the official IRCC website, and compare it to the income on your most recent Notice of Assessment. If you're sponsoring parents or grandparents, repeat that comparison for each of the last three tax years.

If you're close but not quite there, a co-signer is often the cleanest solution. If you're well under, it may make sense to wait until your tax records show stronger income, since the assessment looks at filed tax years rather than your current salary.

LICO can feel intimidating, but it's really just a transparent income test with published numbers. Get your family size right, confirm the current figure on the official source, and match it against your tax assessments, and you'll know where you stand before you spend a dollar on the application.