Now, let's deal with what could be considered the complex part of the application which is to gather all the necessary supporting documents to prove that the marriage was not done out of convenience or simply for visa purposes.
If your relationship is genuine, this will come quite easy because there is not much convincing to be done because the relationship will speak for itself.
Anyway, I will take you through the supporting documents and an overview of how ours was prepared or done. Please do note that each case may be different so don't base your immigration journey off of ours or any others. Use these information as a reference, but focus on what you have as well.
You may have seen this in the previous parts of this series but I'll just keep adding this as long as it's relevant as a reminder:
- My husband is a Canadian permanent resident residing in Canada, but a Filipino citizen (holding a Philippine passport). I am a Filipino citizen.
- This is both our first (last and only) marriages.
- We dated for 2+ years before getting married.
- We have been married for around a month by the time we lodged the application.
- Both my husband and I have no record of visa overstay or violations in Canada and in any other country.
- I (sponsored applicant) have not resided in any country other than the Philippines.
- We don't have any dependent on this application.
- This blog series is published months after we completed the entire process. The month and year the post was written is at the end of each post.
- This is not a comprehensive guide or a hack to get approved, but merely a record of our experience. For the latest information, visit https://www.cic.gc.ca/english/information/applications/spouse.asp .
- You may view all parts of the series here
- Part One: Sponsor
- 1.1: Permanent Residence Card
- 1.2: Employment/Source of Income
- Part Two: Sponsored principal applicant
- 2.1: Birth certificate and marriage certificate
- 2.2: NBI Clearance
- 2.3: Passport bio page
- 2.4: Photo
- 2.5: Proof of visits and travel
- 2.6: Proof of contact
- 2.7: Photos of wedding, customary celebrations, engagement and/or outings
- 2.8: Proof of financial support
- 2.9: Other proof that the relationship is recognised by friends and family
- More tips
Part One: Sponsor
1.1: Permanent Residence Card
We took photos of the front and back of my husband's permanent residence card, compiled those photos in one page through Microsoft Word and exported it as one pdf file.
1.2: Employment/Source of Income
Part Two: Sponsored principal applicant
2.1: Birth Certificate and Marriage Certificate
This is fairly easy. There are three options to request for your PSA documents:
PSA Office
- Advantage: You may be able to get your document on the same day or within 3 days. It's also the cheapest option.
- Disadvantage: Depending on your location, some offices are not very convenient and the wait times could take hours. There are also days and times when it gets very crowded.
- I wrote about my experience on the steps of booking my appointment for the PSA Office in Cebu City and the appointment day. Check out the blog post here.
- Make an appointment here: https://appointment.psa.gov.ph/
Online via PSA Serbilis
- Advantage: Very convenient
- Disadvantages: Slightly more expensive and takes a few days for processing and delivery
- https://www.psaserbilis.com.ph/#!
SM Government Services.
- Another way to purchase is from several SM Government Services centres, but note that you will have to wait 10 business days and you need to claim it at the Customer Service centre of the SM mall that you went to.
- To apply, just head to the cashier area of the OSSCO or SM Government Service Express (check this link to see what services are offered in the mall near you: https://www.smsupermalls.com/government-services/) and tell them you'd like to order a birth certificate for yourself. You can only order or claim for yourself or an immediate family member. Bring proof of relationship such as birth or marriage certificate as well as an authorisation letter to be sure if you're claiming for someone else.
2.2: NBI Clearance: How to get one from SM City Cebu Government Services (Over the counter payment)
2.3: Passport bio page
I took very clear photos of pages 2 and 3 of my passport. These pages contain passport and personal information as well as the signature page. Since I was only taking a photo, I decided to crop out the area that IS NOT a part of the passport just to make it look neat.
2.4: Photo
I went to Colours Foto in Ayala Center Cebu (check the exact location here) because they have always been my go-to places for all things ID photos. I've had all of my visa application photos done here. It's my favourite because it's almost never crowded, the place is spacious and clean and the staff are super friendly.
I told them I need photos for permanent residence application (they might ask if it's for citizenship, but don't worry because it's the same thing). The photo is larger than a usual ID photo and ask them to stamp on two of the photos. The stamp has the date and location of the shop as proof that your photo is taken within 6 months of when you lodge your application.
This will cost you Php 150 just for the photos and will cost another Php 50 for the soft copy to be emailed to you (not necessary). If you do get the soft copy, check your junk mail because their email dropped to my junk folder.
Follow the specific instructions in the portal on how to upload the soft copy of your photo. DO NOT FORGET to write your complete name and date of birth at the back of the photo and make sure to do so legibly.
What I did was take a photo of both the front and the back (cropped out the area that is not part of the photo) and compiled the two photos into one pdf file.
We were not living together so we had to attach a proof of visit and contacts documents:
2.5: Proof of visits and travel
We compiled ours into one document using Microsoft Word. Clear photos and screenshots are pasted on each page and save as one pdf file.
This file includes my travel ticket to Canada as a tourist (on the year that we were already a couple which was my second visit to my parents as well), my husband's flight ticket to Cebu (we were on the same flight), our flights to visit my husband's father and all of our hotel bookings with both our names in the reservation.
2.6: Proof of contact
Our original proof of contact file has one table with two tabs: date and screenshot. Just in case you are not aware of what I'm talking about when I say tables and tabs, I just go to Microsoft Word, Go to Insert section on the ribbon and create a table with two tabs:
There really is no set standard for how you present your documents. It just personally looked the most readable and neat to me so we chose to have it that way.
Just do whatever your comfortable with, as long as your proof is presented in a logical manner.
VERY IMPORTANT
Because we have not been married for more than two years at the time of our application, we were required to also attach these documents:
2.7: Photos of wedding, customary celebrations, engagement and/or outings
Other than our wedding photos, we also uploaded photos of our travel and outings together during my visit to Canada and during my husband's visit to the Philippines. The limit is set to a maximum of 20 photos. In most photos, we had our family and close friends with us.
We also attached a separate file which was a document that contained description of the photos. I created a table with three tabs one for each of these: date, small thumbnail of photo and description.
For the date (especially in case you forgot), in the computer I just right clicked on the original photo and clicked on Get Info for Mac and I believe it should be More Info for other operating systems. There should be a line that says when the content was originally created. For Mac users, it will show something like this:
2.8: Proof of financial support
We took a screenshot of every single remittance receipt. It was not much though since I have a job and the money received was for additional support. I took screenshots of the digital receipts, pasted all of them to Microsoft Word in chronological order and saved it into one file as a pdf.
2.9: Other proof that the relationship is recognised by friends and family
Four of our friends and family members wrote and signed letters stating how we are connected with them, about our relationship and their contact information. We also included screenshots that showed our relationship was public through our posts. We compiled these into a single file.
Those were the supporting documents that we had on our application. More documentation might be needed for other cases and I apologise, but I don't have the expertise to explain other than what we have.
More tips
- It will be very helpful for you to set up an online drive from the start just to properly organise your files. Make sure to properly label the drafts and the files that are ready for upload.
- Don't be afraid to ask those who have experience with this type of visa and challenge yourself to research more. If you're still in doubt of your skills, it wouldn't hurt if you consult an immigration lawyer.
- As I mentioned, if your relationship is genuine, it should not be difficult to gather your documents.
- Always try to keep the content of your files and your files organised.
- Follow the file name syntax suggested or required by the portal. In my case it was LastName-FirstName-FileType-Number. For example: Handler-Barbara-Birth Certificate.pdf
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