Term: Immigrant family status

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Glossary Definition

Last Updated: 2026-07-14

Definition:

Family status refers to the declaration of a dependent, spouse, or common-law partner on a Canadian immigration application. Dependents will typically be a dependent child of the principal applicant, of the applicant’s spouse or common-law partner, or a dependent child of a dependent child. When a family applies together for permanent resident status under a common application, the family status identifier and common application number can be used to link family members together. Family status identifiers are also available in recent temporary resident data, but there is no application number associated with the temporary resident permit records in our repository, so family linkage of temporary residents is not possible.

Family status is represented by the FAMILY_STATUS_ID variable in non-legacy landing or temporary permit data. In legacy landing data, the FAMILY_STATUS_ENG variable distinguishes principal applicants from spouses or dependents, while the BASE_FAMILY_STATUS_ENG variable further distinguishes Principal, Spouse, “Dependant non J88”, and “J88 Dependant”. There is no variable in the legacy data with the full specificity of the non-legacy FAMILY_STATUS_ID, and no family status information at all in legacy temporary permit data.

Cautions about family status variables:

1. The two family status variables in legacy landing data lack some specificity, and do not allow one to make a distinction between different dependent family members. The vast majority of dependents are children, but in some cases a dependent may be some other family member. This can lead to some ambiguity in family structure analysis, when the assumption is that dependents are children of the principal applicant and/or spouse of the applicant.
2. In non-legacy family status ID values have changed with every new acquisition of the IRCC-PR data. The IRCC_family_status_id format reflects the most recent (2025) acquisition set, and should not be used for older acqsets. For other sets, the registry.ircc_family_status_1985jan table can be matched up to the landing data by family_status_id and acqdt values, to get the descriptive text at various levels of categorization.

Related concepts 

• Family Structure Overview - Links to Family Structure Data and Related Concepts and Glossary Terms
• Immigrant family status and family linkage
• Immigration / Migration Overview - Links to Immigration / Migration Data and Related Concepts and Glossary Terms
• International adoption

Related terms 

• Application number
• Immigration, Refugees and Citizenship Canada (IRCC) Registry Data
• Permanent Resident
• Temporary Resident

Links 

• Which family members can come with me to Canada when I immigrate?