Canada Super Visa

What the Super Visa is — and what it is not

The Canada Super Visa is a multiple-entry temporary resident visa designed for the parents and grandparents of Canadian citizens, permanent residents, and registered Indians under the Indian Act. It is valid for up to ten years and allows stays of up to five years per entry without requiring a visitor-record extension during that stay. The five-year-per-stay rule was introduced in 2022 — earlier holders were limited to two years per entry.

This is the part many applicants miss: a Super Visa is not permanent residence. The holder may visit Canada repeatedly for long stays but cannot work in Canada, cannot enrol in subsidised education programmes, and cannot access provincial public health care. That is why private medical insurance is mandatory — IRCC requires you to be financially self-sufficient for any health-related event during your visit.

If your goal is to settle in Canada permanently with your child, the relevant pathway is the Parents and Grandparents Program (PGP) — a sponsorship-based permanent residence stream that operates separately from the Super Visa, with its own intake windows and capped invitations. Many of our clients use the Super Visa as a long-stay bridge while their PGP application processes, or instead of PGP if permanent residence is not the goal.

Who can sponsor — and the income test

Your child or grandchild in Canada is your sponsor for this application. They must be a Canadian citizen, a permanent resident, or a registered Indian under the Indian Act. They must also meet a minimum income threshold tied to the Low Income Cut-Off (LICO) published annually by Statistics Canada, for the size of their family — including everyone they currently sponsor and the parents or grandparents they are now inviting on the Super Visa.

Acceptable proofs of income include the most recent Notice of Assessment from the Canada Revenue Agency, T4 slips, an employment letter confirming current salary, and recent pay statements. If the sponsor is self-employed, additional documentation is usually required to substantiate the income claim.

The signed letter of invitation is a separate, equally important document. It states the relationship, the purpose of the visit, the planned duration, the accommodation arrangement, and a clear undertaking that the sponsor will provide financial support during the stay.

The medical insurance requirement

The Super Visa is the only Canadian visa category with a mandatory private medical insurance condition built into the application itself. The policy must:

• Be valid for at least one year from the date of entry to Canada.
• Provide minimum coverage of CAD 100,000.
• Cover health care, hospitalisation, and repatriation in case of severe illness or death.

Until 2022, IRCC required the policy to be from a Canadian insurer. Since then, policies from designated non-Canadian insurers approved by the Minister are also accepted. The list of approved providers is published by IRCC and reviewed periodically — verify the current list before purchasing.

We recommend buying the insurance only after a candid family discussion. Premium costs scale steeply with age and pre-existing conditions, and one year of coverage for a 70-year-old applicant from India can run several thousand Canadian dollars. Some insurers offer a refund if the visa is refused — check the cancellation terms before paying.

Eligibility checklist

Before submitting an application, you should be able to satisfy the following:

• A documented parent or grandparent relationship with the Canadian sponsor.
• A signed letter of invitation from the sponsor with the prescribed contents.
• Sponsor income at or above the Low Income Cut-Off for the relevant family size, with verifiable documents.
• A valid private medical insurance policy meeting the IRCC requirements.
• A satisfactory Immigration Medical Examination from a panel physician.
• Evidence of strong ties to your home country — property, ongoing employment or pension, dependants, community roles — sufficient to satisfy the visa officer that you intend to leave Canada at the end of your stay.
• Adequate funds for travel, daily expenses during the visit, and return travel home.
• A clean record without significant criminal or security concerns.

The application in practice

A typical Super Visa application unfolds in this order. Your sponsor in Canada confirms they meet the LICO threshold and prepares their income documentation and the letter of invitation. You secure your private medical insurance from a Canadian or IRCC-approved foreign insurer with the required CAD 100,000 minimum coverage. You complete the upfront Immigration Medical Examination with a panel physician and obtain the e-medical reference letter. You assemble the relationship documents, your sponsor's paperwork, the insurance certificate, and a brief statement of purpose. You file the application online through IRCC's portal, pay the visitor-visa government fee, and submit biometrics at a Visa Application Centre.

After submission, the visa officer reviews the application against the standard temporary-resident criteria — genuine intent to visit, sufficient ties to the home country, demonstrated funds, and strong sponsor support — plus the Super Visa-specific medical insurance and sponsor income tests.

The strongest applications we see are those where the relationship is well-documented, the sponsor's income comfortably exceeds LICO with multiple supporting documents, the insurance certificate is from a recognisable provider with clean terms, and the applicant's ties to home country are obvious from the file. The weakest are those where the sponsor has just barely cleared LICO, the insurance is from an obscure provider, or the applicant's ties to home are thin — for example, a retired applicant with no property, no dependants at home, and adult children all settled abroad.

Costs — what to budget

A Super Visa file in our hands typically involves the IRCC government fees, biometrics, the medical exam, document translations and authentication where applicable, the medical insurance premium, and our consultancy fee. The medical insurance is usually the single largest cost — expect to pay several thousand Canadian dollars per year per applicant for older parents, particularly with pre-existing conditions. Insurance costs vary widely between providers and policies; we point you to reputable insurers and let you compare quotes.

Refusals and how to address them

Common refusal grounds include: sponsor income falling short of LICO at the time of decision; insurance that does not meet IRCC's specifications; applicant ties to the home country considered weak; inconsistencies between the relationship documents and other parts of the file; and concerns about previous immigration history of either the applicant or the sponsor.

If your application is refused, IRCC issues a refusal letter listing the grounds. Order the GCMS notes for a more detailed picture of the officer's reasoning. A reapplication that directly addresses the cited grounds — strengthened sponsor documentation, better insurance, additional ties evidence — often succeeds where the first application did not. We handle CAIPS / GCMS retrieval and Super Visa reapplications as part of our standard service.

How we can help

We are a licensed visa consultancy based in Patiala, Punjab. We handle the Canada Super Visa end-to-end on the family side: sponsor income assessment, letter of invitation drafting, insurance provider shortlist, IME coordination, file assembly, submission, and follow-up through to decision. One consultant sees your case from first call to decision — there is no handoff. Book a free 30-minute assessment and we will tell you, honestly, whether the Super Visa is the right route, or whether you should be planning around the PGP timeline instead.