Parents Sponsorship Canada Income Requirements And LICO
To sponsor your parents or grandparents through the Parents and Grandparents Program, you must be at least 18 years old and meet IRCC’s minimum necessary income (MNI) requirement. Under the current federal rules, sponsors are assessed on their family size and the 3 tax years immediately before the date IRCC receives the application. The most recent published guidance uses 2024, 2023, and 2022. IRCC generally uses line 15000 from your CRA Notice of Assessment, allows only a spouse or common-law partner to co-sign, and requires the income threshold to be met in all required years. Family size can also change from year to year, which can affect the amount of income you must show.
Minimum Necessary Income for Parents and Grandparents Program
To sponsor your parents or grandparents, you must meet IRCC’s minimum necessary income (MNI) requirement. This is the main family sponsorship income requirement for sponsoring parents under PGP. If you are invited to apply after submitting a PGP interest to sponsor form, you must meet the required income level for each of the 3 tax years immediately before the date IRCC receives your application.
Many people also look for LICO when researching income requirements for sponsoring parents. Low Income Cut-Off (LICO) is a general Canadian income benchmark. MNI is the specific income threshold IRCC applies to the Parents and Grandparents Program. The key question is whether your income meets the required amount for your family size in each of the required tax years.
In practical terms, for a PGP application, you should use the official income table for your family size and the required tax years, not a general LICO figure on its own.
If your income falls below the required threshold in even one of the required tax years, you may not be eligible to sponsor under PGP. A spouse or common-law partner may co-sign so their income can be included, but no other relative can co-sign.
Minimum Necessary Income Table by Family Size and Tax Years
The income you need to sponsor your parents or grandparents depends on your family size. Under the federal Parents and Grandparents Program rules, IRCC assesses the minimum necessary income (MNI) using the 3 tax years immediately before the application is received. As of April 2026, the latest published PGP income table is the 2025 intake table, which uses the 2024, 2023, and 2022 tax years. Information about future PGP intakes may change, and future intakes may use different years and different income thresholds.
Note: These federal income thresholds apply to sponsors living outside Quebec. Quebec has its own financial assessment rules.
The table below shows the official federal income thresholds for each family size across those 3 required tax years. If your family size changed during that period, the income threshold that applies to you may also change from one year to the next.
Family Size
2024
2023
2022
2 people
$47,549
$44,530
$43,082
3 people
$58,456
$54,743
$52,965
4 people
$70,972
$66,466
$64,306
5 people
$80,496
$75,384
$72,935
6 people
$90,784
$85,020
$82,259
7 people
$101,075
$94,658
$91,582
If more than 7 people, for each additional person, add:
$10,291
$9,636
$9,324
Income Sources for PGP Sponsorship
For parent sponsorship, IRCC generally starts with your CRA Notice of Assessment and uses line 15000 total income, then subtracts income that must be excluded under the program rules. IRCC’s public list of excluded income includes:
- provincial or territorial training allowances,
- social assistance from a province or territory,
- payments under a federal resettlement assistance program,
- regular Employment Insurance earnings,
- Old Age Security and Guaranteed Income Supplement payments
In practical terms, income only helps if it is reflected in the CRA income information IRCC uses for the required years and is not part of an excluded category. IRCC does not assess PGP income using informal budgets, private spreadsheets, or unverified cash flow.
SPECIFIC INCOME TYPES
IRCC’s public guidance explains the CRA-based method, but it does not publish a separate standalone rule for every type of income. The examples below are practical guidance based on that method.
RENTAL INCOME
Rental income may help if it is properly declared to CRA, reflected in the CRA income information IRCC uses, and not excluded under the rules. A lease agreement by itself is not what makes rental income count. What matters is whether the income appears in the CRA-based evidence used for the financial evaluation.
CHILD SUPPORT INCOME
Child support is not a separate amount that can simply be added on its own. The practical question is whether it is reflected in the CRA income basis IRCC uses for the program and whether it falls outside the excluded-income categories. If it is not captured in the CRA figure IRCC uses for eligibility, it will not help meet the threshold.
FOREIGN, U.S., SELF-EMPLOYMENT, AND DIVIDEND INCOME
The safest approach is the same for all of these: they may help only if they are properly reported to CRA, included in the income IRCC actually uses, and not excluded under the PGP rules. If you are close to the threshold, the key question is how that income appears in your CRA records for the required years.
Family Size, Co-Signer, and Notice of Assessment Rules
The family size determines which income threshold applies under the Parents and Grandparents Program. IRCC says you must count yourself and everyone you are or will be required to financially support under the sponsorship rules. Depending on your situation, this can include your spouse or common-law partner, your dependent children, the parents or grandparents you want to sponsor, and their family members. It can also include people you or your co-signer previously sponsored or co-signed for if that sponsorship undertaking is still in effect, along with their family members where required. IRCC also says you must include all of the principal applicant’s family members, even if they are not coming to Canada and even if they are already permanent residents or Canadian citizens.
Family size is counted year by year, not just once. IRCC’s guidance says you count each person in the year they became part of your family. That means changes such as marriage, a common-law relationship, or the birth of a dependent child can affect which income threshold applies in each of the required tax years.
Important: If your spouse or common-law partner is co-signing the application, they must be included in your family size for all 3 required tax years, even if you married or became common-law during that period.
Only your spouse or common-law partner can co-sign a PGP application. If there is a co-signer, their income can be combined with yours to help meet the income requirement. No other family member can co-sign.
For proof of income, IRCC generally requires the sponsor and co-signer, if there is one, to provide a Notice of Assessment for each of the 3 tax years immediately before the date the application is received. IRCC says there are 2 ways to do this: you can give consent on IMM 5768 so IRCC can get your tax information directly from CRA, or you can submit paper proof of income using IMM 5748 with your notices of assessment.
In practice, sponsorship applicants should calculate family size separately for each required year, confirm whether a spouse or common-law partner should co-sign, and make sure your CRA income documents support the family size and income claimed in the application. Learn more about the PGP document checklist.
