Time between spouse application sent and OWP received

[Kelsey369]

Hey,
I’m sure this is answered somewhere but I’m still so confused. I was under the impression that if I (a Canadian citizen) sponsored my wife (and American citizen) as inland, we could apply for an OWP with it and that it would take 4-5 months to be approved. However, after reading a bunch of forums I discovered there’s something called AIP and you need to have that along with the OWP to work. I’m just not sure what the right answer is, what I’m wondering is if we did I land with an OWP, how long is it estimated before everything is finalized and she’s legally allowed to work?

 

[kcward7]

Hey,
I’m sure this is answered somewhere but I’m still so confused. I was under the impression that if I (a Canadian citizen) sponsored my wife (and American citizen) as inland, we could apply for an OWP with it and that it would take 4-5 months to be approved. However, after reading a bunch of forums I discovered there’s something called AIP and you need to have that along with the OWP to work. I’m just not sure what the right answer is, what I’m wondering is if we did I land with an OWP, how long is it estimated before everything is finalized and she’s legally allowed to work?

AIP is approval in principle. It comes at the tail end of the inland process - it's one of the last steps. If you were to apply for the OWP when you did not have valid status you would not receive OWP until AIP. If you apply for the OWP with valid status (like visitor status) you will receive the OWP in 3-5m.

 

[Kelsey369]

Oh okay, that makes a little more sense.
Pardon me for my next stupid question but I’m just so overwhelmed; since she’s an American and she would only be in Canada for about a month before we sent in the app and US citizens don’t need visitors visas, does this mean she would have visitor status so she would likely get OWP early on? We figured she could fly here, we could submit the app together, and then get OWP early so we’re not living off of one income for an extended period.

 

[kcward7]

Oh okay, that makes a little more sense.
Pardon me for my next stupid question but I’m just so overwhelmed; since she’s an American and she would only be in Canada for about a month before we sent in the app and US citizens don’t need visitors visas, does this mean she would have visitor status so she would likely get OWP early on? We figured she could fly here, we could submit the app together, and then get OWP early so we’re not living off of one income for an extended period.

She will have valid visitor status for the first 6 months of her being here and you need to submit within that time frame. If you do you'll get OWP in 3-5 months, the processing times fluctuate a bit.

 

[andybc]

Do note that US outland applications are usually processed significantly faster.

No OWP, but potentially PR after like 6-8 months.