On average, according to Citizenship and Immigration Canada (CIC), it takes about eight months to process an application to sponsor a spouse or a partner.
But the time taken to process a spousal application differs from country to country. Interestingly, according to official data provided by the CIC, time taken to process an application is longer in western Europe than in Asia. In general, the time is spread between four months in Beijing, China, to 18 months in Accra, Ghana.
Here are the official processing times for the various regions.
Africa & the Middle East 10 months
Asia/Pacific 7 months
Europe 9 months
The Americas 11 months
One of the factors that can cause delay in the completion of a sponsorship process is the time taken to secure the security clearance. This is particularly true if the applicant is a citizen of a country in a civil-war situation. Canada is keen to ensure those who might fall under its law governing crimes against humanity and/or acts of terrorism do not enter the country.
Another reason for a delay might be when the applicant is considered off-shore. For example, if the spouse is a citizen of India but currently resides in the United States, it is the US consulate that would deal with the application but this is considered off-shore and there could be delays.
SmartCanadian
I’m a spouse who married to a Canadian Citizen in 2009. We have a child & he got his citizenship of Canada in this year(2012). We applied our application for the permanent Residents in 2010 November. Still we are waiting for our Visa & want to send my child to School in next year in Canada too. We married each other by a love affair as matured people. Now we are worrying about each other as we were separated to cannot live together because of this visa. As I’m a loving wife to my husband & as a loving husband, he has to come very often to my country to visit us. Now its already taken Two Years to process on our application & not finished yet. I want to know how long will CIC Canada needs to process on our application & keep us separated. I have heard that there are many of couples have made fake documents and try to migrate to some countries. But i can assure that we haven’t given any of fake details what we have attached with our application and we are ready for any kind of interview if the CIC Canada needs. It’s a huge stress for all of us in our families till we get to gather as a family. I hope that somebody who can concern on my status will help us to solve this situation on a right way to keep our family together. I’m sorry if I have done any kind of language mistake on this status as i’m a Sinhalese and not fluent in English
Thank you very much