My daughter’s U.S. passport expires on February 28, 2010. We’re going to be going to Canada this summer around July 4. I know that, in some cases, your passport has to be valid for a certain length of time after your trip…does anyone know if that’s the case with Canada, and if so, what the length is? (or how I can find out?). I need to figure out if I should be applying for a new passport for her or not.
Redwolf
Looking at this http://help.cbp.gov/cgi-bin/customs.cfg/php/enduser/std_adp.php?p_faqid=74&p_created=1043364936&p_sid=_R34qExj&p_accessibility=0&p_redirect=&p_lva=&p_sp=cF9zcmNoPTEmcF9zb3J0X2J5PSZwX2dyaWRzb3J0PSZwX3Jvd19jbnQ9MjYxLDI2MSZwX3Byb2RzPTAmcF9jYXRzPTI4MyZwX3B2PSZwX2N2PTEuMjgzJnBfc2VhcmNoX3R5cGU9YW5zd2Vycy5zZWFyY2hfbmwmcF9wYWdlPTE*&p_li=&p_topview=1 it looks like all you need is a valid passport, I don’t see any time limit on there.
http://www.cbsa.gc.ca/security-securite/admiss-eng.html
Not sure when that was last updated though, as it says “If you are a citizen of the United States, you do not need a passport to enter Canada.”
This site is interesting but not terribly helpful for this question: http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/13342877/
Aha! A trail of links from the MSN page led me here:
http://travel.state.gov/travel/cis_pa_tw/cis/cis_1082.html
Which says that only proof of being a US citizen is required…and that this can sometimes even take the form of an expired passport!
I forget how old Anna is now but “Children under sixteen need only present proof of U.S. citizenship […] such as a U.S. birth certificate, naturalization certificate, or expired U.S. passport”.
Here in NY, we are now obligated to either have a valid passport or an “enhanced license” in order to go across the border. Apparently the deadline is 1 June to have one of these, for that’s when it’s going to be enforced.
I don’t believe it matters if the passport is going to expire in a year or so…I think it just must be valid. But I’m sure different states have different laws.
It may be true that a US citizen could not need a passport to enter Canada, but apparently does need one, or an equivalent, to return to the US.
Thanks, to 9/11.
Yep. That’s the deal these days. Same with Mexico.
When I was a kid, we used to drive back and forth to Canada with little more bother than driving to another state (sometimes less bother…that was back when California still had agricultural inspection stations, and would tear your car apart looking for forbidden oranges!). But now…yeah. You just plain can’t leave the U.S. without a passport (if you want back in, that is!)
It sounds like it’s not likely to be a big issue, though…the passport is current, and we can bring along her birth certificate besides, in case there’s any friction.
Redwolf
If you drive across, a driver’s license or state ID is needed. If you fly into Canada, you will need a valid passport.
Every time I go to Canada, I get stopped at the customs and they search everything and make we wait a long time.
OK, here’s the secret. The next time you make a border crossing into Canada, just make sure that you do so on the night of a major hockey game, which all true Canadians will be watching or at least listening to, including the border agents, BTW, and you will then fly through Canadian customs, guaranteed!
Yup, I’ve done just that.
Americans don’t need a passport to get in to Canada; a driver’s license will do. The US keeps making noises about requiring one to get back in to the states, but that has yet to be declared.
I think that you’ll want to make sure that your passport has enough unexpired time to cover your whole stay, but apart from that I don’t think there will be any other requirement. They can and might ask you to show that you’ve got access to $100 a day to support yourself while here. They will ask how long you plan to stay.
The last time I went to Seattle, my Canadian passport had expired the previous month. I had other ID, which I showed him with the expired passport, and told the border guard that the trip was unexpected, & that I was going to see a friend in hospital after she’d been in an accident. He let me in. I’m told that Canadians do need a passport these days when travelling by air rather than car.
Actually, after June 1, all U.S. citizens will need either a passport or an “enhanced” drivers license (i.e., one with citizenship information encoded) to re-enter the U.S. from either Canada or Mexico, even by car. I’m afraid that’s a given.
The only reason I had a concern at all is that travel to some countries requires that you have a certain length of time left on your passport, but that may have been the individual country’s requirement rather than ours.
Redwolf
Ayup. The 6 months, year, etc is up to the country you’re visiting, not the US. (Assuming you’re a US citizen with proof of citizenship, returning without a passport is a relatively minor hassle.)
I just sent my passport in for renewal (expiry date was this coming August) because I sometimes need to travel for business with almost no advance notice. I should have sent it in a couple of months ago, but I’d forgotten that this could be an issue. I got a quick reminder when one of my coworkers had major problems (and had to delay an urgent trip by 10 days) because his passport was 3 months from expiry and the customer’s home country has a 6 month requirement. Since the trip was to deal with a production bottleneck, the customer was not at all pleased at the delay.
Many countries are this strict not because they really think that a US passport holder is likely to overstay their visa, but as tit-for-tat because their citizens have the same requirement visiting the US. To the best of my knowledge, though, Canada isn’t one of them. Unless Jo plans to get a job while she’s there or similar nefarious economic activity you should be OK (though it wouldn’t hurt to check with local Canadian consulate).
The hassles should be diminishing, though - now that she’s over 15, when she renews her passport her new one should be good for 10 years.
In general, Canada’s attitude wrt our only border is to encourage as much cross-border traffic as possible, both in terms of tourism and trade. We don’t like the US’s moves to get more restrictive, and our government has objected to them. We won’t, in other words, be the first with a new requirement, although we’re likely to match whatever the US does eventually.
I can guarantee that most border states aren’t happy with the new restrictions either. When I was growing up in Eastern Washington, we spent Canadian money as freely as U.S. money (I was shocked when I visited cousins in California at the age of 13 or so, and a shop I went into wouldn’t accept a Canadian quarter…I’d always taken it as a given that they spent just as easily as the U.S. ones). Cross-border tourism and trade is an important part of Eastern Washington’s economy.
Redwolf
The banks here seem to be incapable of figuring out what to do if you go in and ask for Canadian money for vacation. And when you get back, they will only exchange the paper money for US, even if you have some $1 or $2 Canadian coins. Seemed to be a lot easier when I lived in Michigan. I see that AAA is now supposed to have $100 worth of various currencies available in their offices - next time I go to Canada for any length of time, I think I’ll get the money there instead of the bank.
Unless you’re in a border town, you will always get a better exchange rate at a Canadian bank than an american one, because Canadian banks see a whole lot more US money than vice versa.
Apparently the US could share Canada’s only land border, but then there’s Greenland, for instance, which apparently shares a nearby maritime border with Canada.
Moreover, apparently the Russians more recently claimed to have planted their national flag on the Arctic Ocean floor, directly beneath the North Pole, which then kicked off an international brouhaha involving several other nations, and so perhaps Canada, the US and other nations could eventually have a new maritime border with Russia.
Maritime boundaries don’t count. However, if Canada’s dispute with Denmark over ownership of tiny Hans Island between Greenland and Ellesmere Island ever results in a ‘split the difference’ compromise, Hans Island will become the only place in the world where you can walk from North America to Europe.
lol
I liked the satire, about the Hans Island Liberation Front, and Radio Free Hans Island.
Yes, if it’s split between Canada and Denmark it could make for an interesting situation.
For instance, customs checkpoints on the border, one for each?
Canadian banks are much more efficient at changing US money than US banks are at changing Canadian currency. And the stores in Canada mostly seem to have a button on the cash register that is programmed to figure the exchange rate so if you pay in US$ it doesn’t totally confuse the cashier. But still, you would think Spokane would know how to handle Canadian money better. Especially if businesses expect to lure any Olympic tourists over to this side of the state next year!