Understanding Inland Spousal Sponsorship Application Assessment in Canada

Recent data from Immigration, Refugees and Citizenship Canada (IRCC) reveals that around 27% of inland sponsorship applications submitted in 2025 were rejected due to incompleteness.

Out of the 45,235 spouse or common-law partner sponsorship applications reviewed by IRCC during this period, 32,994 were accepted for processing, while 12,241 failed the R10 completeness check.

An application is deemed complete only if it meets the requirements set under Regulation 10 (R10) of the Immigration and Refugee Protection Regulations.

This article offers insights into the application assessment stages and tips to ensure your spousal sponsorship application is complete and ready for processing.

Applications’ Completeness Check Results in 2025

Here is a breakdown of the number of applications that passed or failed the completeness check by month in 2025.

Month Completeness check: passed Completeness check: failed
January, 2025 3,606 1,635
February, 2025 3,051 1,379
March, 2025 2,928 1,180
April, 2025 3,375 1,297
May, 2025 3,734 1,289
June, 2025 3,438 1,071
July, 2025 3,580 1,145
August, 2025 3,308 1,061
September, 2025 3,332 1,244
October, 2025 2,642 940

Insight into the Application Assessment Process

Upon submitting an inland spousal sponsorship application online, the immigration department conducts an application completeness check (R10) as the initial step.

An application pass