Apologies for the length, but I wanted to share my experience with the forum along with helpful links below.
I was already in Canada as a visitor starting at the end of March, after applying outland for PR in January. My mother gave me her 2006 Honda Civic as a gift - I drove it up from Texas to NYC and then up here to Toronto with my two kids (my husband, the dual Canadian/US citizen, drove the U-Haul with all of our stuff). It’s a great little car!
My understanding was that as a visitor in Canada, the car was also a visitor and I didn’t need to do anything with it yet as far as registering it with RIV, etc. because I didn’t intend on being a visitor for more than 12 months (if I was we’d cross that bridge when we came to it). I was also still dealing with the transfer of the title from my mom to me, which we did via some fun mailing back and forth. She bought it new so the title was “clear” and she also keeps perfect records so she sent her whole file to me with everything from the original sale receipts to the most recent service bill. Because it wasn’t sold to me, we did have a “Gift Transfer” form notarized that shows that she gave me the car (I ended up needing to surrender this when I registered it). She had also added me to her TX insurance coverage which as far as I know was still good in Canada (I honestly didn’t confirm) - it expired today.
Another thing to note - I did get an Ontario driver’s license within a couple of weeks when we got here. You don’t need PR status. I just had to surrender my NY State license. It’s a full “G” status with no restrictions. It’s been really helpful to have as a local ID with my address on it. You’ll need something that shows at least 2 years driving experience - if you can I recommend requesting your driving record from your state (or country) if you don’t have it.
So, I got my CoPR in June. We decided to take a day trip on Monday, June 29th to the border at Lewiston (with the kids) to complete my landing and do the export/import of the car at the same time.
I was all ready to go - I had my CoPR, my passport and all of the documentation needed per the handy checklist from the RIV website… I had the title and the gift transfer form, I filled out the Transport Canada “Vehicle Import Form” (Form 1) online and paid the fees online in advance, I had the recall clearance printed out from the Honda website, I had the Kelley Blue Book value print out…
…and I had done the US CBP “vehicle export process”. I got an EIN from the IRS and used a vendor to get an ITN number from AES - I originally thought that I would try it myself for free but I ended up deciding to use a vendor just so I wouldn’t mess it up. I emailed the VIN, ITN and other required info to the export office the Thursday before our trip (to meet the 72 hour requirement). I got the response from them and added it to my collection of “landing” paperwork.
We decide that we’re going to the export office first thing after crossing the border. It’s on the right side as soon as you go through the US gates - there’s a HUGE sign that you can’t miss. We park and I go happily up the stairs into the very clearly marked “VEHICLE EXPORT OFFICE”. The office was staffed that day by two female CBP officers, bullet-proof vests and guns and all - kind of intimidating. I say that I am there to export my car to Canada and hand over my title and transfer form and passport. First question - “Where are you coming from?” I’m WAY too honest for my own good so I spit right out that we drove down from Toronto. “Nope. You can’t export the car.” Uh… “It says in the email we sent you 3 times that the car has to be in the US for 72 hours before export and that it’s not supposed to be driven to Canada before export. You can come back on Thursday.” Lots of expletives fill my head and mentally I kick myself repeatedly. I realized I was totally naive in thinking that there would be some sort of exception to this, that there was some way that it wouldn’t apply to my situation. Stupid me. NUTS! What do I do now? We’re not prepared for a 3 day vacation so we HAVE to go home - we can’t leave the car. They suggest that we find a safe place to leave it and get a rental car. No, that’s not happening. I tell my husband and he calms me down a bit. In order to get my title back from the officer I had to call the vendor and cancel the AES filing, which I did. They gave my stuff back with a warning that if I tried to import it without exporting there are penalties and fines. Then we were back in the car and on the road. UGH. My husband says, “don’t worry - we’ll plan a long weekend and take care of it later.” Ok honey…
Not wanting to spend anymore time in the US after this, we turned right around and went back to the Canadian border. I let the gate agent know that I’m landing and he gives me the yellow slip to go and park and go in to the big office. Thankfully there were only a handful of people there and there was no line, but I still had to wait for a while to get called up. The CBSA officer took my CoPR and passport and started working on that - everything was fine and filled out and stamped and signed. Then she asked if I had anything to declare, and I said just the car (my husband claimed everything else as his on his B4 back in March - they did look at me a little funny about this). I explained that I couldn’t export it yet so I needed to put it as “goods to follow”… She says, “You can declare it now - the export process is a US thing, we don’t need it.” WHAAAT? Seriously? So she starts to give me the Form 1, but then I pull out everything I had already completed along with the receipt for the RIV fees. I give her the value of the car and she confirms that I don’t need to pay any duty/taxes on it. She checks the papers over and gives it the ok then sends me to the cashier. I’m still stunned - I thought it wasn’t going to happen this way. Everything is stamped and I get my receipt and I am on my way! We spent the rest of the day at Niagara Falls doing fun stuff with the kids.
We get home and I find that I am horribly confused about the whole “export” thing. Should we even bother? What happens if we don’t? Canada didn’t seem to care, but what if I take a trip to the States and they find out and my car is seized or we have to pay all kinds of fines? I search all over this forum and the web and can’t find anything conclusive about what will happen if I DON’T export the car. There were a few people who said that they never did it and they were fine. I didn’t find any horror stories. I was also told that my title had to be stamped “exported” by the US before I could register it, but I couldn’t confirm this (I guess I could have called Service Ontario…). Still, I was uneasy. We decided that we’d go ahead and take another trip to do it in a few weeks.
Meanwhile, I received the RIV inspection (Form 2) in the mail the next Monday. I took the car to Canadian Tire and had the RIV inspection done along with the safety and emissions inspections required for Ontario registration. It passed everything and the inspector stamped and signed off on the forms. I didn’t need any modifications. They send the information back to the RIV - you don’t have to do anything. I got the official “Canadian Certification Label” in another 10 days or so from the inspection. The RIV process was super easy and efficient. I held on to the sticker - I didn’t want to apply it before I completed the export.
Friday, July 10th we decide to go to the US for the weekend and complete the export process 72 hours later on Monday the 13th. Late the night before I submitted a new request to the vendor I used for a new ITN, which I received in the morning. I sent the details to the export office at about 11:30am and got the response email back at about noon. We set off for Batavia, NY (I found a hotel with a mini indoor/outdoor water park that the kids loved). We didn’t cross the border until 7pm that evening - my husband was driving and the CBP officer asked us who the car belong to and I said me… he was looking at his screen for a while which got my anxiety going… So we’re having our mini vacation. I got so anxious that something would go wrong and that we wasted the whole weekend/money. I was seriously panicking, thinking they would make us wait another day or another 3 days, or that they would just be jerks. Someone told me that they didn’t think the 72 hours included weekend days and I almost lost it. My husband is really good at calming me down, thank goodness!
So Monday comes. We go to the export office at about 1pm. It is the same two officers. There is another person there who seems to be having a worse day than I am. They ask me the dreaded question, “Where are you coming from?” I say Batavia. “What were you doing there?” “Vacation. We stayed at a hotel with an indoor water park - the kids loved it.” One of them asks where the car is parked and I tell her and she takes my paperwork and heads outside. I sit there, fidgeting and drinking water. She comes back in with another officer and gives me the papers back. “You’re good.” Title is stamped. I thank them profusely and happily go out and down the stairs. WHEW! So now the car is legally exported, and that was way more dramatic than it should have been!
Finding insurance coverage was fairly simple - there’s no shortage of providers. At first it was looking pretty grim because I hadn't had insurance coverage before March of this year since 2003 (I didn't need a car in NYC), but I ended up getting a deal through my husband’s employer on coverage from TD. Coverage started today and got the policy and cards in the mail. That was the last piece that I needed in order to register the car in Ontario.
Today (a month after landing) I went to Service Ontario and registered the car - it’s all done! They took the title and gift transfer form and safety inspection form. I got my registration/ownership, new plates and sticker. TA-DA! What an ordeal!
I also have to thank user JayPinNC for his help and guidance - he got me through most of my anxiety about the whole PR process including this!
Helpful links:
RIV (Registrar of Imported Vehicles) - you can do almost everything online here, including generate a handy customized checklist and complete your Form 1/pay your fees
http://www.riv.ca/Home.aspx
CBSA page on importing vehicles from the US
http://www.cbsa-asfc.gc.ca/publications/pub/bsf5048-eng.html#s3
Simplified Trade Solutions - the vendor I used for AES filing that also has helpful info on their site
http://simplifiedtradesolutions.com/get-an-aes-itn/vehicles-to-canada/
Service Ontario Vehicle Registration info
http://www.ontario.ca/driving-and-roads/register-vehicle-permit-licence-plate-and-sticker
CBSA FAQ - Visitors, Tourists and Temporary Residents Entering Canada with Foreign Owned Vehicles
http://www.tc.gc.ca/eng/motorvehiclesafety/safevehicles-importation-visitors-faq-1336.htm
I was already in Canada as a visitor starting at the end of March, after applying outland for PR in January. My mother gave me her 2006 Honda Civic as a gift - I drove it up from Texas to NYC and then up here to Toronto with my two kids (my husband, the dual Canadian/US citizen, drove the U-Haul with all of our stuff). It’s a great little car!
My understanding was that as a visitor in Canada, the car was also a visitor and I didn’t need to do anything with it yet as far as registering it with RIV, etc. because I didn’t intend on being a visitor for more than 12 months (if I was we’d cross that bridge when we came to it). I was also still dealing with the transfer of the title from my mom to me, which we did via some fun mailing back and forth. She bought it new so the title was “clear” and she also keeps perfect records so she sent her whole file to me with everything from the original sale receipts to the most recent service bill. Because it wasn’t sold to me, we did have a “Gift Transfer” form notarized that shows that she gave me the car (I ended up needing to surrender this when I registered it). She had also added me to her TX insurance coverage which as far as I know was still good in Canada (I honestly didn’t confirm) - it expired today.
Another thing to note - I did get an Ontario driver’s license within a couple of weeks when we got here. You don’t need PR status. I just had to surrender my NY State license. It’s a full “G” status with no restrictions. It’s been really helpful to have as a local ID with my address on it. You’ll need something that shows at least 2 years driving experience - if you can I recommend requesting your driving record from your state (or country) if you don’t have it.
So, I got my CoPR in June. We decided to take a day trip on Monday, June 29th to the border at Lewiston (with the kids) to complete my landing and do the export/import of the car at the same time.
I was all ready to go - I had my CoPR, my passport and all of the documentation needed per the handy checklist from the RIV website… I had the title and the gift transfer form, I filled out the Transport Canada “Vehicle Import Form” (Form 1) online and paid the fees online in advance, I had the recall clearance printed out from the Honda website, I had the Kelley Blue Book value print out…
…and I had done the US CBP “vehicle export process”. I got an EIN from the IRS and used a vendor to get an ITN number from AES - I originally thought that I would try it myself for free but I ended up deciding to use a vendor just so I wouldn’t mess it up. I emailed the VIN, ITN and other required info to the export office the Thursday before our trip (to meet the 72 hour requirement). I got the response from them and added it to my collection of “landing” paperwork.
We decide that we’re going to the export office first thing after crossing the border. It’s on the right side as soon as you go through the US gates - there’s a HUGE sign that you can’t miss. We park and I go happily up the stairs into the very clearly marked “VEHICLE EXPORT OFFICE”. The office was staffed that day by two female CBP officers, bullet-proof vests and guns and all - kind of intimidating. I say that I am there to export my car to Canada and hand over my title and transfer form and passport. First question - “Where are you coming from?” I’m WAY too honest for my own good so I spit right out that we drove down from Toronto. “Nope. You can’t export the car.” Uh… “It says in the email we sent you 3 times that the car has to be in the US for 72 hours before export and that it’s not supposed to be driven to Canada before export. You can come back on Thursday.” Lots of expletives fill my head and mentally I kick myself repeatedly. I realized I was totally naive in thinking that there would be some sort of exception to this, that there was some way that it wouldn’t apply to my situation. Stupid me. NUTS! What do I do now? We’re not prepared for a 3 day vacation so we HAVE to go home - we can’t leave the car. They suggest that we find a safe place to leave it and get a rental car. No, that’s not happening. I tell my husband and he calms me down a bit. In order to get my title back from the officer I had to call the vendor and cancel the AES filing, which I did. They gave my stuff back with a warning that if I tried to import it without exporting there are penalties and fines. Then we were back in the car and on the road. UGH. My husband says, “don’t worry - we’ll plan a long weekend and take care of it later.” Ok honey…
Not wanting to spend anymore time in the US after this, we turned right around and went back to the Canadian border. I let the gate agent know that I’m landing and he gives me the yellow slip to go and park and go in to the big office. Thankfully there were only a handful of people there and there was no line, but I still had to wait for a while to get called up. The CBSA officer took my CoPR and passport and started working on that - everything was fine and filled out and stamped and signed. Then she asked if I had anything to declare, and I said just the car (my husband claimed everything else as his on his B4 back in March - they did look at me a little funny about this). I explained that I couldn’t export it yet so I needed to put it as “goods to follow”… She says, “You can declare it now - the export process is a US thing, we don’t need it.” WHAAAT? Seriously? So she starts to give me the Form 1, but then I pull out everything I had already completed along with the receipt for the RIV fees. I give her the value of the car and she confirms that I don’t need to pay any duty/taxes on it. She checks the papers over and gives it the ok then sends me to the cashier. I’m still stunned - I thought it wasn’t going to happen this way. Everything is stamped and I get my receipt and I am on my way! We spent the rest of the day at Niagara Falls doing fun stuff with the kids.
We get home and I find that I am horribly confused about the whole “export” thing. Should we even bother? What happens if we don’t? Canada didn’t seem to care, but what if I take a trip to the States and they find out and my car is seized or we have to pay all kinds of fines? I search all over this forum and the web and can’t find anything conclusive about what will happen if I DON’T export the car. There were a few people who said that they never did it and they were fine. I didn’t find any horror stories. I was also told that my title had to be stamped “exported” by the US before I could register it, but I couldn’t confirm this (I guess I could have called Service Ontario…). Still, I was uneasy. We decided that we’d go ahead and take another trip to do it in a few weeks.
Meanwhile, I received the RIV inspection (Form 2) in the mail the next Monday. I took the car to Canadian Tire and had the RIV inspection done along with the safety and emissions inspections required for Ontario registration. It passed everything and the inspector stamped and signed off on the forms. I didn’t need any modifications. They send the information back to the RIV - you don’t have to do anything. I got the official “Canadian Certification Label” in another 10 days or so from the inspection. The RIV process was super easy and efficient. I held on to the sticker - I didn’t want to apply it before I completed the export.
Friday, July 10th we decide to go to the US for the weekend and complete the export process 72 hours later on Monday the 13th. Late the night before I submitted a new request to the vendor I used for a new ITN, which I received in the morning. I sent the details to the export office at about 11:30am and got the response email back at about noon. We set off for Batavia, NY (I found a hotel with a mini indoor/outdoor water park that the kids loved). We didn’t cross the border until 7pm that evening - my husband was driving and the CBP officer asked us who the car belong to and I said me… he was looking at his screen for a while which got my anxiety going… So we’re having our mini vacation. I got so anxious that something would go wrong and that we wasted the whole weekend/money. I was seriously panicking, thinking they would make us wait another day or another 3 days, or that they would just be jerks. Someone told me that they didn’t think the 72 hours included weekend days and I almost lost it. My husband is really good at calming me down, thank goodness!
So Monday comes. We go to the export office at about 1pm. It is the same two officers. There is another person there who seems to be having a worse day than I am. They ask me the dreaded question, “Where are you coming from?” I say Batavia. “What were you doing there?” “Vacation. We stayed at a hotel with an indoor water park - the kids loved it.” One of them asks where the car is parked and I tell her and she takes my paperwork and heads outside. I sit there, fidgeting and drinking water. She comes back in with another officer and gives me the papers back. “You’re good.” Title is stamped. I thank them profusely and happily go out and down the stairs. WHEW! So now the car is legally exported, and that was way more dramatic than it should have been!
Finding insurance coverage was fairly simple - there’s no shortage of providers. At first it was looking pretty grim because I hadn't had insurance coverage before March of this year since 2003 (I didn't need a car in NYC), but I ended up getting a deal through my husband’s employer on coverage from TD. Coverage started today and got the policy and cards in the mail. That was the last piece that I needed in order to register the car in Ontario.
Today (a month after landing) I went to Service Ontario and registered the car - it’s all done! They took the title and gift transfer form and safety inspection form. I got my registration/ownership, new plates and sticker. TA-DA! What an ordeal!
I also have to thank user JayPinNC for his help and guidance - he got me through most of my anxiety about the whole PR process including this!
Helpful links:
RIV (Registrar of Imported Vehicles) - you can do almost everything online here, including generate a handy customized checklist and complete your Form 1/pay your fees
http://www.riv.ca/Home.aspx
CBSA page on importing vehicles from the US
http://www.cbsa-asfc.gc.ca/publications/pub/bsf5048-eng.html#s3
Simplified Trade Solutions - the vendor I used for AES filing that also has helpful info on their site
http://simplifiedtradesolutions.com/get-an-aes-itn/vehicles-to-canada/
Service Ontario Vehicle Registration info
http://www.ontario.ca/driving-and-roads/register-vehicle-permit-licence-plate-and-sticker
CBSA FAQ - Visitors, Tourists and Temporary Residents Entering Canada with Foreign Owned Vehicles
http://www.tc.gc.ca/eng/motorvehiclesafety/safevehicles-importation-visitors-faq-1336.htm
