Exporting/Importing a car from the US

[AllisonVSC]

We never had to pay 100$ excise tax on the a/c.  we imported 2 cars and it was never asked about.  We were also told we could not sell the vehicles for ONE YEAR after importing or we were have to pay tax and duty on them.
We crossed at Lewiston bridge in Ontario.

Kaz

I had a similar experience, but with only one car.

[QCSunshine]

I have heard this too. Well, actually two separate things related to this.

1. That it was illegal for a Canadian person to drive a car that a US person has in Canada as a visitor. (Especially if if the US person is not in the car with the Canadian.) I heard the car can be confiscated on the spot if a Canadian is driving a US visitor's car and the US citizen is not there. I don't know if this is true, but it did concern us some after we heard about this.

Just to clarify....what I meant by that is that I was told that a Canadian is not supposed to drive a US car if it has been brought in temporarily (without importing it) by a visitor to Canada and has US plates. Apparently, temporarily imported things by visitors are not supposed to be used by Canadians: http://www.cbsa.gc.ca/publications/pub/bsf5082-eng.html#s2

I don't know how strict they are about that though, especially for US-Canadian couples dealing with immigration...

As far as how long one can drive on a US drivers license after landing, I think that probably varies by province. In Québec, for example, I think they allow six months to switch a US license to a Quebec one. It took me three months to get the paperwork together and have my appointment. (I had to re-schedule once, because of not getting the right paperwork in time from the US, and each time I called they had only 2 appointments still available for that next month for transferring a US license.) Other provinces could have much different timelines and procedures, as some have mentioned.

[mmshock]

Three months!?! My goodness..... which province?

I was told on the phone by the Ontario MOT that I had 45 days to switch my license upon landing. Some states require an abstract, but apparently the one I have a license from does not. I printed out my drivers record that I could request online just in case, but we'll see I guess.

[QCSunshine]

It was Québec. But the timing is just a matter of how circumstances happened: I needed a drivers history report from the state of my license, so I had to request that. Right after I mailed off the request, there was the postal lockout. So....that delayed things a few weeks.

Then, the DMV office in my former state that processes those requests mailed mine back to me because my money order (in USD) had too many digits (10) in the serial number and they couldn't process it because their new computer system only allows data entry of money orders with 9 digits. So...I had to mail the forms to my father in the US because he agreed to write a personal check on behalf of me for the processing fee to go to the DMV. Then he mailed the forms to them, and they re-processed it and sent it back to me in Canada. It was frustrating, but perhaps a representative conclusion to the end (I hope!) of immigration-related tasks. Normally, without the weird delays, I guess it would have taken about a month to request and get the right documents back and switch licenses.