Bengaluru
Immigration, Refugees and Citizenship Canada (IRCC) has confirmed it will raise the maximum age of a dependent child who may be included on an application to immigrate to Canada. As of October 24, 2017, principal applicants may include their children aged 21 and under, who are not married or in a common-law relationship, on their immigration application.
Currently, children under 19 years old may be included on an application to immigrate to Canada. This has been the case since August 1, 2014 — prior to that date, the maximum age was under 22. Consequently, this recent regulation change represents a return to the previous definition of a dependent child. The new definition of dependent child applies to children included on applications for permanent residence through economic, family, and refugee/humanitarian programs. The change will take effect for applications submitted on or after October 24.
IRCC has confirmed that the age limit change will not be applied retroactively to applications submitted on or after August 1, 2014, and before October 24, 2017. It explained its decision, stating that ‘applying the change to in-process applications would require a pause in finalizing many permanent residence applications and would impact processing times in many programs.’
