We Have Kids Together But We’re Not Married — Does That Help Our Application?

You and your partner have built a family together. You have a child – maybe more than one. But you’re not married, and you’re wondering whether that changes what Canadian immigration requires, or whether it makes your application stronger somehow.

The answer is yes – but probably not in the way you’re expecting.

A shared biological child is powerful relationship evidence. It demonstrates a level of commitment, shared responsibility, and permanence that is difficult to manufacture and hard to dismiss. IRCC officers who see a shared child in a sponsorship file treat it as one of the more compelling indicators that the relationship is genuine.

But here is the critical distinction:

Having a child together does not replace the 12-month cohabitation requirement. If you have not lived together continuously for 12 months, you cannot apply as common-law partners – regardless of how many children you share or how long you’ve been in a relationship.

The cohabitation threshold is a legal requirement, not a test of relationship quality. A couple who has a child together but lives separately still needs to meet it.

For couples who do meet the 12-month cohabitation threshold, a shared child adds meaningful weight to the application in several ways:

• It corroborates the genuine, committed nature of the relationship – children are not something people create casually with acquaintances
• It adds a layer of documented evidence through birth certificates, custody arrangements, and shared parenting records
• It introduces a humanitarian dimension – IRCC is aware that keeping a parent separated from their child creates real hardship, and this context informs the assessment
• It can reduce scrutiny on other elements that might otherwise attract questions – for example, a shorter-than-average courtship before cohabitation

A file that includes a shared child with documented co-parenting activity is considerably more difficult to question than one built on lease agreements and bank statements alone.

The following are among the most useful child-related documents in a common-law sponsorship file:

• Birth certificate – particularly one that lists both parents’ names, confirming legal parenthood
• Child’s medical records – especially where both parents are listed or both have participated in medical decisions
• School or daycare enrollment records – listing both parents as contacts, guardians, or emergency contacts
• Child benefit records or tax filings that name both parents or reference the shared family unit
• Evidence of financial contributions to the child’s upbringing – child support payments, shared medical bills, education expenses
• Communication between both parents about the child – scheduling, health updates, school matters
• Photos of both parents with the child across different time periods, in different settings

The pattern these documents create – of two people who are jointly and actively raising a child – directly supports the picture of a genuine, ongoing relationship.

If you are sponsoring a common-law partner who is the parent of a dependent child, that child can typically be included in the sponsorship application as a dependant – provided the child meets the age and dependency requirements for IRCC’s definition.

This is not optional if the child qualifies. The ‘one-chance rule’ in Canadian immigration law means that a dependent who should have been included in an application but wasn’t may be permanently barred from being sponsored by the same sponsor later. Excluding a qualifying dependent is one of the costliest mistakes a family can make in an immigration application.

If you are unsure whether your child should be included, or whether they qualify, that question needs to be answered before you file – not after.

This situation is more common than it might appear, particularly for international couples where one partner became pregnant during a visit, or where the child was born in one country while the parents were unable to establish a shared home.

In this situation, the options are:

• Wait until you have lived together for 12 months and then apply as common-law partners – with the shared child as part of a strong evidence file
• Get married and apply as spouses – marriage has no cohabitation requirement and allows the process to begin immediately
• If a genuine, documented barrier to cohabitation exists, explore conjugal partner sponsorship – and in this case, the shared child is particularly strong evidence of the relationship’s genuine conjugal nature

What is not an option: applying as common-law without meeting the cohabitation requirement, even with a shared child. The child is evidence of the relationship – it is not a substitute for the legal threshold.

If your partner has been functioning as a parent to your child – present in the child’s daily life, involved in decisions, providing support – that role is still relevant and documentable. It demonstrates a level of integration and commitment that supports the genuine relationship claim.

Document it accurately. If your partner has been acting as a parent but has not legally adopted the child, describe the parenting role clearly in personal statements and support it with documents. The legal status and the lived reality don’t need to be identical – but the description needs to be honest and consistent.