Bringing Your Parents Over: the US, Canada, Australia, the UK and New Zealand Compared

The question sounds the same in Toronto, Sydney, London, Auckland and New Jersey: “can we bring Mama over?” The answers could not be more different, and most families learn their own country’s answer from a cousin who lives in a different one. Here are the five side by side — permanent routes, long-visit routes, costs, waits, and the promise you sign — as of August 2026, with the honest line under each.

The one-table version

	Permanent route	Realistic wait	Cost to the family	Long-visit alternative
United States	Immediate relative petition (I-130) — no queue	1–2+ years (processing only)	~US$1,355 in government fees; then no Medicare for ~5 years	B-2 visitor, ~6 months per entry
Canada	Parents & Grandparents Program — a lottery, and paused to new entries in 2026	Years, if ever invited	Modest fees; 20-year undertaking	Super visa: up to 5 years per entry, 10-year validity
Australia	Contributory Parent (143)	12–15 years; non-contributory (103) ~30 years	~AUD 48,000 per parent (contributory); assurance of support	Sponsored Parent (Temporary) 870: 3 or 5 years
United Kingdom	Adult Dependent Relative	Granted to fewer than 1 in 20	Fees; must prove care is unavailable/unaffordable at home	Standard Visitor, 6 months
New Zealand	Parent Resident Visa — 2,500 a year, selection system	Years; selection changing Oct 2026	Fees; sponsor income thresholds raised April 2026	Parent & Grandparent Visitor: 3-year multi-entry, 6 months per visit

United States

The outlier — in a good way, for once. Parents of a US citizen aged 21+ are immediate relatives: no annual cap, no visa bulletin, only processing time. The whole route, and the reason it’s still a hard decision, is in Petitioning Your Parent — and Whether You Should. The short version: the petition is easy; the I-864 affidavit is an enforceable contract; and a newly arrived parent has no Medicare for around five years, which is the number that actually decides most families.

Canada

Two very different doors, and families routinely confuse them.

The Parents and Grandparents Program (PGP) is the permanent route — and it is a lottery. IRCC invites sponsors from a pool of interest-to-sponsor forms (recent rounds drew from the 2020 pool), accepting around 10,000 applications a year. Then, in July 2026, IRCC paused intake of new PGP applications entirely; only applications already invited in 2025 are being processed this year. If you didn’t enter the pool in 2020, there is currently no door to knock on. When it reopens, the sponsor must have met the minimum necessary income (low-income cut-off plus 30%) for three consecutive tax years and signs an undertaking of 20 years (10 in Quebec) to repay any social assistance the parent receives.

The Super Visa is the door that’s actually open — and it’s generous. A multi-entry visitor visa valid up to ten years, letting a parent or grandparent stay up to five years per entry, extendable from inside Canada. Requirements: an invitation from the child, proof the child meets the income threshold, a medical exam, and private health insurance of at least C$100,000 covering a year at a time — which, since 28 January 2025, can be bought from authorised insurers outside Canada, not only Canadian ones, making it markedly cheaper. For most Filipino-Canadian families the super visa is the real answer: Nanay lives with you for years, keeps her Philippine residence and PhilHealth, and nobody signs a 20-year undertaking.

Australia

Honest, because the numbers are brutal.

Contributory Parent (subclass 143) — the “fast” route — costs roughly AUD 48,000 per parent in the second visa charge alone (call it AUD 95,000 for two), plus an assurance of support, and is currently taking 12–15 years: the Department is processing applications lodged in mid-2013. Non-contributory Parent (103) is cheap and takes about 30 years — applications from 1994 are being processed. Both queues are capped by the annual migration program, which is why they move so slowly.

The practical alternative is the Sponsored Parent (Temporary) visa, subclass 870: three or five years in Australia, up to ten years total, with a sponsor income test and the parent holding health insurance — no permanent residence at the end, but actual time together. Many families use it while a 143 sits in the queue.

United Kingdom

The hardest door. The Adult Dependent Relative route requires proving that the parent, through age, illness or disability, needs long-term personal care that is unavailable or unaffordable in the Philippines — a test almost no applicant passes, and the grant rate runs below 5%. Practitioners treat it as a last resort with medical evidence, not a plan. For most Filipino-British families the realistic shape is the Standard Visitor visa — six months per visit, with the same “will she go home?” logic as the US tourist visa — and the parent’s care organised in the Philippines.

New Zealand

The Parent Resident Visa is capped at 2,500 a year; sponsors must meet income thresholds (raised in April 2026), and from 5 October 2026 selection switches to a hybrid — about 90% of expressions of interest selected in date order, 10% by ballot. It’s a real route with a real queue. The Parent and Grandparent Visitor Visa — multiple entry for three years, six months per visit — is the long-visit alternative, and a Parent Retirement category exists for families able to make a substantial investment.

The catch that’s the same everywhere

Read the five again and a pattern shows: wherever a permanent route exists, it comes with a sponsorship promise — the I-864, the 20-year undertaking, the assurance of support — and with no public healthcare for a newly arrived parent, for years. Wherever the permanent route is closed or a lottery, the long-visit visa is the honest workaround, and it works best when the parent keeps a genuine life, and healthcare, at home.

Which is why the real decision is rarely about the visa. It’s the one in the petition guide: is a parent better cared for here, uninsured and far from the barangay, or at home with full-time help and the family visiting? The care comparator puts numbers on that for any country — the cost of care at home doesn’t change with your passport.

If you’re going ahead — by country

• US: file the I-130 now; plan the healthcare gap before the interview.
• Canada: apply for the super visa now; enter the PGP pool the day it reopens, and don’t plan around winning it.
• Australia: decide whether ~AUD 48,000 and a decade is the plan, or the 870 temporary visa is; don’t lodge a 103 expecting to use it.
• UK: assume ADR is closed unless there’s serious medical evidence; plan visits.
• NZ: lodge the expression of interest early; use the visitor visa meanwhile.

In every case: the document locator for the parent’s papers, the sibling conversation before the application, and travel medical insurance for every visit, without exception.

Official resources

• US: USCIS — Form I-130 · Form I-864 · USCIS processing times
• Canada: IRCC — Parents and Grandparents Program · IRCC — Super visa · What a sponsorship undertaking means
• Australia: Home Affairs — Contributory Parent visa (143) · Sponsored Parent (Temporary) visa (870)
• UK: GOV.UK — Adult dependent relative · Standard Visitor visa
• New Zealand: Immigration NZ — Parent Resident Visa · Parent and Grandparent Visitor Visa

Figures as of August 2026: IRCC’s July 2026 PGP intake pause and the January 2025 super-visa insurance change; Home Affairs processing notices (143 at mid-2013 lodgements, 103 at 1994) and the 143 second-instalment charge; UK Home Office grant data as reported by practitioners; Immigration NZ’s October 2026 selection change. Every one of these moves — confirm on the linked official page before deciding. General information, not legal advice.