Minimum Necessary Income (MNI) Requirements for 2024

Some family sponsorship programs require that the sponsor meet a minimum income level to support themselves and their family members, including the family members they are applying to sponsor. To assess their ability to financially support their family members, IRCC uses the Minimum Necessary Income (MNI).

What Is the Minimum Necessary Income (MNI)?

Depending on the sponsorship program under which you are applying, and where you live in Canada, a citizen or permanent resident can only be deemed eligible to sponsor one or more family members to Canada if you meet the Minimum Necessary Income (MNI) for your family unit size. The family unit size includes those they currently support in Canada as well as those they intend to sponsor.

Sponsors must provide their Notice of Assessment from the Canada Revenue Agency to prove they meet the minimum income requirement.

If applying to the parent and grandparent sponsorship program, the sponsor must prove that they have exceeded the low-income cut-off for three consecutive years and sign an undertaking that promises to repay any and all social assistance received by their family members.

Federal Minimum Necessary Income for Sponsorship

Sponsors living anywhere in Canada except the province of Quebec must meet or exceed the minimum income requirements depending on the size of their family.

The MNI is updated annually, and applies to all relevant sponsorship programs for sponsors living in Canada but outside of the province of Quebec.

In sponsorship applications, sponsors and their potential co-signers, if any, are required to demonstrate adequate financial capacity to support all individuals for whom they will be responsible, including themselves. This entails proving their ability to meet the income requirements for each of the three tax years preceding the date they received an invitation to apply, not the date they submitted an interest to sponsor.

Applicants who filed an interest to sponsor form in 2020 are eligible to apply for the 2024 intake, but they will need to show that they have met the income requirements for 2023, 2022, and 2021. The following table provides an overview of this:

Quebec Minimum Necessary Income for Sponsorship

Since applicants must determine the basic income required for the sponsor’s own family’s necessities as well as the needs of the sponsored individual or individuals and their family members, even if they are not travelling with the sponsored persons, Quebec’s minimum income standard differs from its federal counterpart.

How to Calculate Family Unit Size

The low-income cut-off will be determined by the size of both your family unit in Canada and that of the individuals you wish to sponsor to Canada. To calculate the size of your family unit, you must count:

• Yourself
• Your spouse or common-law partner
• Your dependent children, if any

and

• The number of persons you are applying to sponsor
• The number of dependent family members of that person, whether or not they are accompanying them
• The number of persons currently covered by valid undertakings that you have signed or co-signed in the past
• The number of persons currently covered by valid undertakings that your co-signed has signed or co-signed in the past.