I have US/Canadian citizenship and plan to move to BC in 2-4 years to retire. I want to sponsor my spouse who is a US citizen. We will have investments and social security for better than adequate financial support. I assume it will be relatively simple for me to move to Canada as a citizen but am not sure at what point I should start the process for sponsorship of my husband: before we want to move while both still living in US? Or after moving to BC and he is there as a visitor for 6 months? Any info is greatly appreciated. I'm starting my research and don't know much about the process.
US/Canadian dual citizenship living is US wants to sponsor spouse
- Thread starter happybc
- Start date
Pretty similar to our situation, except we are planning to move over the summer. I'm a Canadian/American dual citizen, as is our child. My husband is American. The timeline estimate is 12 months (currently) for Outland spousal processing but they do seem to fast track straightforward US cases. We applied mid-August and are waiting on the last couple of steps already.
Even if it's approved soon, we are waiting until the summer to avoid disrupting school for our daughter. At least we will have that one major step complete, and then just need to work on the rest of the insane logistics of an international move.
If you aren't planning on moving for a few years, Outland may be easier. Just keep an eye on timelines as you get closer to beginning the process so you can try to figure out the best time to apply.
Thank you, that's very helpful. If you don't mind, what are some of the "insane logistics of an international move"? More than finding a place to rent and packing up a uhaul I assume? Is there special paperwork or applications to fill out to actually move your belongings to Canada? If you can give me a rough list of what you've had to do and the timeline involved I would greatly appreciate it.
-First and foremost, find 2 jobs with acceptable/comparable salaries to our current earnings.
-Coincide start dates at new jobs with selling our current home (if the buyer is financing, it will take 30-45 days to close, but we will need to get our stuff out prior to the sale date).
-Ideally purchase a new property, but the mortgage lenders I have spoke with seem to think that as a "non-resident" I'll need a minimum of 30% down, until I regain "resident" status at some point - but they can't pinpoint how long that actually takes when a Citizen moves back to Canada. Residents can buy with as little as 5% down. I would be comfortable with a nice, normal 20%, but I doubt we will be able to swing the 30% and have enough for moving expenses.
-If we are forced to rent for a year, find a pet-friendly house to rent nearby where we want to purchase, so that my daughter can stay at the same school 2019-20 and onward until high school.
-Figure out what grade to place her in, since the curriculum nor the age cutoffs for school grades line up between Louisiana and Ontario.
-Inventory everything that we want to move so that it can make it through customs.
-Decide how to move the things that we want to move (uhaul, moving company, or don't bother and just sell everything/buy new when we arrive).
-Import a vehicle or two.
-Smuggle our 4-legged child into Ontario since she is technically banned. The other 3 won't have issues, but the very vague "pitbull-like" breed ban is going to present issues for one of them.
None of it is necessarily complicated, it's just a LOT to do all at once. While I've been keeping tabs on employment opportunities, there's no sense in applying for anything 6-8 months ahead of time. I've emailed the school board up there, only to be told that we would discuss placement upon enrollment, not before. I'm a Realtor, so of course I've done my due diligence where the purchasing/renting is concerned, but without employment/salary info, there's not much that can be done with 100% certainty until we have accepted employment offers. So, essentially we just sit and wait, and stress about how to magically make all of this happen in May/June/July.
I have a game plan in my mind, but there are no guarantees that it will work out the way we need it to.
Wow! What a process. Good luck to you. Our situation will be simpler because our kids are grown and we plan to retire. But it's still complicated and I wish you and your family the best and success! I've read good things about Ontario and have considered moving there. Thank you for the response.
Yes! Thanks for this info! Very similar to our situation. I'm a Canadian/US dual citizen living in the US and my spouse is a US citizen. I'm retiring this year but my wife won't be planning to retire for another couple of years. We would like to emigrate to Canada then and I'm starting to look at the hurdles to get us there. If anyone else has some further suggestions please post. Thanks!
We submitted ours 10-12 months before our anticipated move date, based on the advertised average of 12 months at the time.
While I obviously can't guarantee that everyone will be the same, they let us get by with a detailed plan of how we intend to move our lives to Canada, step by step, along with communications that I have had with a Realtor and a Mortgage Broker in Kingston, Ontario. I also included email correspondence that I had with the school board up there regarding enrollment/placement of our daughter, as well as confirmation of my law school application to Queen's University.
I wouldn't consider any of that "proof" to be concrete, since we are not planning to move until the summer (school), but it worked.
Obviously having employment lined up, and/or a lease/mortgage signed for a specific property, would be more ideal. I think they understood that we were waiting for the summer because of our daughter's school year and couldn't provide anything more specific when it was still 6+ months before our move.