Exactly one year for common-law?

Co-habitating is only 1 part of the requirements for common-law sponsorship to be approved. Have you been living as husband and wife over the past year.

It kind of depends, I am not telling you to mislead at all but CIC requirements are not that you are living together 1 year then send in the application, rather that you have been living together 1 year on the day they receive the application.

So if you were to send it so it arrived there on July 1st for example by coriour, and you left on the 30th June, the one year would probaby amount without you running into much trouble.

But as dpenabill says, the 1 year is a requirement, and its and exact requirement. The only time it does not count is in a leap year as the Canadian government does not reckognize the 29th feb as a day in respect of amounting days.

If she already planned on coming to Canada to continue residing together, I don't see why you guys won't hit the 1 year requirement. Moving shouldn't restart the clock, you're relocating together not separating

Thanks for the advice everyone. I was planning on coming back to Canada ahead of my girlfriend by a few weeks or a month to set everything up before she came and I remember reading somewhere that they allow 'gaps' in the 1 year period only for unavoidable circumstances.

I guess I need to look into the in/out of Canada application some more. I'm not familiar enough with the advantages and disadvantages.

RedPanda...just some more advice. I am in the same boat as you. I am a Canadian sponsoring my common-law partner here in Japan. If you are planning to apply at the one year point, dpenabill had some good advice there about waiting just a bit longer. Of course, submitting your application later might be inevitable! I was intending to apply at the one year mark as well, but the time and care it takes to put together everything to prove one year of co-habitating took longer than we had expected and in the end, we didn't submit our application until about the 1 1/2 year mark! LOL.

And just some words of caution...

Finding someone to notarize statutory declarations was a pain in the butt here. No one in Japan seems to understand what that is or who does it. Much easier to get them done in Canada. I drafted up my own version and emailed them to my family back home. They filled them in, had them notarized then mailed them to me. It was actually far easier than finding someone to do it here!

Also, you should DEFINITELY submit IMM5409, the Statutory Declaration of Common-Law Union. I followed the instructions in the application package so did not submit it. However, CIC requested it just the same. Married couples have a marriage certificate; that is their legally binding piece of paper. We common-law couples don't have that, so CIC wants this as our legally binding piece of paper. In this case, we had no option but to get that notarized here in Japan. After more painful searching and asking questions, we FINALLY found an authority who provides notary services. Even then, the guy didn't fully understand it all. We had to explain to him for a really long time about how a statutory declaration works! (Fortunately, one of his OLs was eavesdropping and she understood and brought over the letter in English and Japanese that states that he witnessed us signing our declaration, etc. After that he either finally grasped it or pretended to grasp it so that he wouldn't be upstaged by an OL! ha ha ha!)

Out of Canada application is definitely the way to go. Just remember though, that if they require an interview, she will have to fly to Tokyo for the interview. Small price to pay though, for getting it all done and over with!

We are going to Tokyo for my partner's interview today. I am praying, wishing, hoping and focusing on positive vibes that it all goes smoothly! Whatever happens today, will definitely keep popping back on here over the next few months and if you have any more problems that I have experienced myself, will definitely give whatever advice I can!

Good luck!