Hi all.
I wanted to take a few minutes to outline my smooth landing experience at Toronto Pearson Intl Airport a few days ago. I will be outlining the experience in as much detail as possible to get a clear picture of how it goes. It may be a bit too long so I might put it in different posts. This is specific to landing in Toronto, so your future experience may be different if you're landing in a different airport. The structure of the process will be the same though.
Landing at Toronto Pearson - Kiosk Machines
Firstly, you need to know that Canada and the US have removed the paper-based declaration card, progressively replaced by electronic declaration kiosks upon arrival. At least that’s the case for most major Canadian airports at international terminals.
We landed at Toronto Pearson on an early morning blue sky at Terminal 3. We walked towards the passport control area where there are a whole bunch of clearly new declaration kiosk machines, at least when compared to those old and clunky ones at JFK Terminal 1 Arrivals where we flew from. You scan your passport, and follow the steps outlined on the screen. Pretty basic and straight forward. The questions are mostly the same as the ones on the traditional paper declaration card, with some minor alterations. The first major change you’ll see is when answering the question “What is the purpose of your visit”. On the old traditional paper based declaration card (https://www.cbsa-asfc.gc.ca/publications/forms-formulaires/e311-eng.pdf), you’d only have the option between Study, Personal, and Business. Now, in addition to these 3 options, now there is the option “Immigrate”. Obviously this is the one you’ll have to pick to complete your landing. The second major difference is that you will not be asked to provide an address in Canada in the declaration form, to the relief of many applicants, not knowing where they will actually be when arriving in Canada. By the end of the declaration, be careful not to skim read or skip the important questions like if you’re carrying more than 10,000 CA$ with you, and more importantly, do you have any unaccompanied goods. If you have any Goods to Follow, you’ll have to answer YES to this question. At the end of the declaration, you’ll be asked to position yourself for a photo, and the kiosk will move up and down to adjust to your height. You’ll then be asked if there are any other members travelling with you. Repeat same process for that person. Upon completion of everyone’s declaration, move up to the line for passport control with your printed declaration receipt.
Passport Control & Landing
When you arrive at the passport control counter with the 1st immigration agent, he/she will immediately see that you’re here to complete your landing procedure based on the “IM” clearly marked on your receipt. He/she will put a big “X” on your declaration card with a color marker. Not sure what that’s for, but I assume it’s just to show you’ve been through the first step. Agent will direct you to a second office, where everyone who needs to complete some formalities have to go through it, namely students, new immigrants, and work permit holders. There were just 1 person before us and we were called after less than a minute. The agent was very kind and courteous through the whole process, and asked to see our passports and Confirmations of Permanent Residence. Started out with the primary applicant, did his thing on the computer, shared some pleasantries and small talk, and talked about how Canada is a great country to raise a family. He asked how much money we’re carrying with us at that time, but didn’t ask to see it at all, or ask for bank statements whatsoever. I was prepared however, and had them under my hand if need be. He wanted an address for the delivery of PR Card. He kindly advised that it’s better to wait until we had a final address and provide it online, but we needed it asap, as we were leaving Canada soon after. So we just told him this is where we’re going to be until everything is settled down. Even if we might leave Canada in-between, we said we’re going back to that particular address. Gave a friend’s address and said no problem.
I was ready to provide photos for the PR Card, but apparently, that has changed as well. They just use the photo from the CoPR. He said no I don't need those.
Before confirming my PR, he asked the two basic questions outlined on the CoPR, namely “Have you been denied entry to Canada before or convicted of a crime”, and “Other than the dependents written here, are there any other dependents”. Ideally, both these questions should be answered truthfully by “No”. He signed the CoPR and asked to sign initials near Marital Status, and near the “No” for each of the two questions he asked. Processing was done for me in less than 5mn, and moved on to processing spouse. When it was done, he warmly congratulated us on becoming Permanent Residents of Canada, and reminded us on the residency obligations. He reminded us that we should religiously conserve our CoPRs, as that’s our only proof of PR status until PR Card arrives, and they ask for it when applying for Citizenship. At the end, he asked if we had any goods to follow, and asked to see our forms.
Goods Declaration
We had a lot of stuff in there so it took some more time. For us it was like 20mn, but if you don’t have any, obviously you’ll skip it. We had 5 pages worth of goods in the B186-A form, and quite some jewellery. This is a very important part, and you need to read this carefully.
There is some misinformation circulating online about how to fill in the forms, and this is confirmed by the agent who processed us. Some applicants (including myself) were lead to believe that the B186 form is for goods imported at time of landing, and the B186-A form is for goods to follow. Word of warning, both of them are for Goods to Follow. There is no such form for goods imported at time of landing. For goods imported at time of landing, they just base their judgement on your declaration receipt. B186 is the main form with just 8 lines in it. If you have just 8 items, so be it, just fill in those 8 lines. If you have more, you use the extension to form B186, which is form B186-A, and continue your listing.
We had our goods imported at time of landing written on form B186, so he disregarded it, and took a new one and just wrote “See attached list”, and stamped that one. No big deal at all, but it’s good info to know.
Also, you need to have photos of each and every piece of jewellery, and I can tell you he went over them very thoroughly, by comparing the item description to the actual photo. Took him a few minutes. If you don’t, they won’t accept it. The agent really appreciated that we also took photos of any items that was either hard to understand based solely on the item description, like custom made/traditional dresses like Saris or Caftans, designer shoes, home furniture, and pretty much any expensive item. Told me “Thanks for such well made items declaration”. Indeed, other than the fact that my original B186 was useless, everything else was very thorough. He stamped every page (forms and photos), made a copy of the forms, took a copy of photo pages, and printed out a duty slip with total value of 0 CA$. You absolutely need it to import any item listed. You don’t have to import everything at the same time, and customs agent will cross out the items as they come into Canada.
We were all set after a total of around 30mn tops! As we arrived on a Sunday, the adjacent Service Canada office was closed (We knew that), and just proceeded to grab our luggage, and out to meet our friends (PR themselves) who came to meet us! It was such a wonderful moment!
We didn’t do anything remotely related to our application that day, and just took a day to breath in our newly acquired PR status. I can tell you it was a relieving moment, and hope you’ll all get to experience it.
Service Canada - Social Insurance Number (SIN)
As you probably already know, you’re just a breathing carcass in Canada if you don’t have a SIN. You literally cannot do anything without. So if you’re landing on a weekday during Service Canada working hours at the airport, that’s cool, as you’ll probably be directed to their office right after you become PR. We landed on a Sunday, so we just went to our nearest Service Canada the next day. There was a bit of a line, but not a huge problem. There was a seating area and it was quite smooth and efficient. We were called after 20mn which was alright. I’m used to chaos and flea-market like administrative offices, so it was a breeze for us. Gave our passports, CoPR, Phone number, address. She punched it all in, printed out our SIN on a regular paper, and we were on our way after 5mn. I asked if we should come back for a SIN card, and she said SIN cards are a thing of the past since 5 years now. They don’t do it anymore.
I wanted to take a few minutes to outline my smooth landing experience at Toronto Pearson Intl Airport a few days ago. I will be outlining the experience in as much detail as possible to get a clear picture of how it goes. It may be a bit too long so I might put it in different posts. This is specific to landing in Toronto, so your future experience may be different if you're landing in a different airport. The structure of the process will be the same though.
Landing at Toronto Pearson - Kiosk Machines
Firstly, you need to know that Canada and the US have removed the paper-based declaration card, progressively replaced by electronic declaration kiosks upon arrival. At least that’s the case for most major Canadian airports at international terminals.
We landed at Toronto Pearson on an early morning blue sky at Terminal 3. We walked towards the passport control area where there are a whole bunch of clearly new declaration kiosk machines, at least when compared to those old and clunky ones at JFK Terminal 1 Arrivals where we flew from. You scan your passport, and follow the steps outlined on the screen. Pretty basic and straight forward. The questions are mostly the same as the ones on the traditional paper declaration card, with some minor alterations. The first major change you’ll see is when answering the question “What is the purpose of your visit”. On the old traditional paper based declaration card (https://www.cbsa-asfc.gc.ca/publications/forms-formulaires/e311-eng.pdf), you’d only have the option between Study, Personal, and Business. Now, in addition to these 3 options, now there is the option “Immigrate”. Obviously this is the one you’ll have to pick to complete your landing. The second major difference is that you will not be asked to provide an address in Canada in the declaration form, to the relief of many applicants, not knowing where they will actually be when arriving in Canada. By the end of the declaration, be careful not to skim read or skip the important questions like if you’re carrying more than 10,000 CA$ with you, and more importantly, do you have any unaccompanied goods. If you have any Goods to Follow, you’ll have to answer YES to this question. At the end of the declaration, you’ll be asked to position yourself for a photo, and the kiosk will move up and down to adjust to your height. You’ll then be asked if there are any other members travelling with you. Repeat same process for that person. Upon completion of everyone’s declaration, move up to the line for passport control with your printed declaration receipt.
Passport Control & Landing
When you arrive at the passport control counter with the 1st immigration agent, he/she will immediately see that you’re here to complete your landing procedure based on the “IM” clearly marked on your receipt. He/she will put a big “X” on your declaration card with a color marker. Not sure what that’s for, but I assume it’s just to show you’ve been through the first step. Agent will direct you to a second office, where everyone who needs to complete some formalities have to go through it, namely students, new immigrants, and work permit holders. There were just 1 person before us and we were called after less than a minute. The agent was very kind and courteous through the whole process, and asked to see our passports and Confirmations of Permanent Residence. Started out with the primary applicant, did his thing on the computer, shared some pleasantries and small talk, and talked about how Canada is a great country to raise a family. He asked how much money we’re carrying with us at that time, but didn’t ask to see it at all, or ask for bank statements whatsoever. I was prepared however, and had them under my hand if need be. He wanted an address for the delivery of PR Card. He kindly advised that it’s better to wait until we had a final address and provide it online, but we needed it asap, as we were leaving Canada soon after. So we just told him this is where we’re going to be until everything is settled down. Even if we might leave Canada in-between, we said we’re going back to that particular address. Gave a friend’s address and said no problem.
I was ready to provide photos for the PR Card, but apparently, that has changed as well. They just use the photo from the CoPR. He said no I don't need those.
Before confirming my PR, he asked the two basic questions outlined on the CoPR, namely “Have you been denied entry to Canada before or convicted of a crime”, and “Other than the dependents written here, are there any other dependents”. Ideally, both these questions should be answered truthfully by “No”. He signed the CoPR and asked to sign initials near Marital Status, and near the “No” for each of the two questions he asked. Processing was done for me in less than 5mn, and moved on to processing spouse. When it was done, he warmly congratulated us on becoming Permanent Residents of Canada, and reminded us on the residency obligations. He reminded us that we should religiously conserve our CoPRs, as that’s our only proof of PR status until PR Card arrives, and they ask for it when applying for Citizenship. At the end, he asked if we had any goods to follow, and asked to see our forms.
Goods Declaration
We had a lot of stuff in there so it took some more time. For us it was like 20mn, but if you don’t have any, obviously you’ll skip it. We had 5 pages worth of goods in the B186-A form, and quite some jewellery. This is a very important part, and you need to read this carefully.
There is some misinformation circulating online about how to fill in the forms, and this is confirmed by the agent who processed us. Some applicants (including myself) were lead to believe that the B186 form is for goods imported at time of landing, and the B186-A form is for goods to follow. Word of warning, both of them are for Goods to Follow. There is no such form for goods imported at time of landing. For goods imported at time of landing, they just base their judgement on your declaration receipt. B186 is the main form with just 8 lines in it. If you have just 8 items, so be it, just fill in those 8 lines. If you have more, you use the extension to form B186, which is form B186-A, and continue your listing.
We had our goods imported at time of landing written on form B186, so he disregarded it, and took a new one and just wrote “See attached list”, and stamped that one. No big deal at all, but it’s good info to know.
Also, you need to have photos of each and every piece of jewellery, and I can tell you he went over them very thoroughly, by comparing the item description to the actual photo. Took him a few minutes. If you don’t, they won’t accept it. The agent really appreciated that we also took photos of any items that was either hard to understand based solely on the item description, like custom made/traditional dresses like Saris or Caftans, designer shoes, home furniture, and pretty much any expensive item. Told me “Thanks for such well made items declaration”. Indeed, other than the fact that my original B186 was useless, everything else was very thorough. He stamped every page (forms and photos), made a copy of the forms, took a copy of photo pages, and printed out a duty slip with total value of 0 CA$. You absolutely need it to import any item listed. You don’t have to import everything at the same time, and customs agent will cross out the items as they come into Canada.
We were all set after a total of around 30mn tops! As we arrived on a Sunday, the adjacent Service Canada office was closed (We knew that), and just proceeded to grab our luggage, and out to meet our friends (PR themselves) who came to meet us! It was such a wonderful moment!
We didn’t do anything remotely related to our application that day, and just took a day to breath in our newly acquired PR status. I can tell you it was a relieving moment, and hope you’ll all get to experience it.
Service Canada - Social Insurance Number (SIN)
As you probably already know, you’re just a breathing carcass in Canada if you don’t have a SIN. You literally cannot do anything without. So if you’re landing on a weekday during Service Canada working hours at the airport, that’s cool, as you’ll probably be directed to their office right after you become PR. We landed on a Sunday, so we just went to our nearest Service Canada the next day. There was a bit of a line, but not a huge problem. There was a seating area and it was quite smooth and efficient. We were called after 20mn which was alright. I’m used to chaos and flea-market like administrative offices, so it was a breeze for us. Gave our passports, CoPR, Phone number, address. She punched it all in, printed out our SIN on a regular paper, and we were on our way after 5mn. I asked if we should come back for a SIN card, and she said SIN cards are a thing of the past since 5 years now. They don’t do it anymore.
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