I am newly landed PR applicant. How / where do we track number of days lived in Canada for residency obligations ? I thought we get passport stamp when entering but now I learned PRs and Citizens don't get arrival stamp.
How to track Number of Days stayed in Canada
- Thread starter CanVisaUser77
- Start date
Start tracking, otherwise, you will go through the painful process that we went through.
We had to look back 5 years for my hubby's travel (including day trips) and we had to use emails, google map tracking....etc and spent hours looking back.
We lived 30 min from a border and he did lots of day trips, late night package pickup/gas fill up trips and sometimes over night trips. So we needed to find out the hard way and put them in. (you need the info for PR renewal and for citizenship application anyway)
I told him to track, he ignored me.
We had to look back 5 years for my hubby's travel (including day trips) and we had to use emails, google map tracking....etc and spent hours looking back.
We lived 30 min from a border and he did lots of day trips, late night package pickup/gas fill up trips and sometimes over night trips. So we needed to find out the hard way and put them in. (you need the info for PR renewal and for citizenship application anyway)
I told him to track, he ignored me.
thanks, other question will be how would IRCC / CBSA validate it ? Anyone can fake document if its left to end user.
They will and can validate it. Providing fake document is a serious crime.
It would be difficult to overstate the importance of PERSONALLY keeping a complete and accurate record of travel outside Canada.
As reflected in responses above, it is the PR's responsibility to keep a complete and accurate record of travel outside Canada. Not difficult to do, since of course the PR is the one traveling and is the one person who is in the best position to record this information.
And obviously, a PR is legally obligated to provide complete and accurate information about this when properly asked. There are severe penalties for those who engage in fraud or misrepresentation, potentially even criminal prosecution.
Mostly for emphasis, The LONGER EXPLANATION:
PR simply needs to make a complete and accurate record of every date the PR exits Canada and returns to Canada, along with the primary destination, a brief explanation of reason for the trip, and a simple list of all other countries visited during that period of time abroad. That is, a four column record:
Of course PRs should also gather and maintain all the usual records people living in the modern world ordinarily keep, relating to address, employment, taxes, finances including obligations, and so on.
Passport stamps were never conclusive evidence to show how many days a PR was in Canada, or out of Canada. Canada has long been, and continues to be, a country it is easy to enter or exit without CBSA capturing a record of it, for those making the effort to do so (mostly illegally of course, but sometimes incidentally). And since Canada has typically not stamped passports upon exit, for the vast majority of travelers, passport stamps never did show the date of exit, again for most . . .
. . . and a PR's reliance on entry stamps into other countries to report date of exit from Canada was flawed because, apart from fairly common occasions in which there was no entry stamp upon arrival in some countries, the entry stamp into another country was often later than the exit date from Canada by a day or more, ranging from a day later for typical red-eye flights, to two days later for Trans-Pacific flights, to occasions involving layovers in transit where there was no stamp in the passport.
The burden has always been on a PR to report (declare) travel dates COMPLETELY and ACCURATELY, both for purposes of Residency Obligation compliance, and for purposes of qualifying for a grant of citizenship.
If a PR is examined for Residency Obligation compliance (attendant PR card application, or application to sponsor a family member, or attendant an application for a PR Travel Document, or in the course of a Port-of-Entry interview), the PR provides this information essentially under penalty of perjury, but more broadly than that, also under other immigration status related penalties for misrepresentation; while the latter are less severe than a criminal prosecution for perjury, they can nonetheless be so severe as to result in a loss of status in Canada, being deported, and inadmissible to Canada for some time.
Since the PR is the one best source of this information, the PR being the one person for sure there and witnessing the event, every time, it is of course the PR's responsibility to keep and accurately declare this information when needed.
It would be highly unusual for IRCC or CBSA to attempt to fully verify the PR's declaration. Rather, the context in which this information is requested typically requires the PR to provide other information covering a range of personal data, typically including address and employment history, among other details, and all this is compared, mostly looking to see if there are any inconsistencies, incongruities, or other factors indicating cause to examine more closely or to investigate more formally. Additionally, of course both IRCC and CBSA can readily check the PR's information against certain government databases, the most common and obvious one being the CBSA's record of the PR's travel history (for some time now, this has been near complete as to dates of entry, and going forward is expected to be near complete for dates of exit, but of course acknowledging, again, there are plenty of ways for a PR to leave or return in a way that avoids CBSA capturing a record of it). Again, they typically do not try to verify every trip, let alone try to verify presence in Canada every day between a reported date of entry and next known date of exit, but rather, are mostly looking for indications the PR may not have completely or accurately reported all travel history.
The latter leads back to recognizing, with some emphasis, that the PR is the one best source of this information, the PR being the one person for sure there and witnessing the event each and every time. This is what some jurists might describe as "the best evidence." What IRCC and CBSA are focused on is whether or not there is some indication that the BEST EVIDENCE is, for some reason, not trustworthy. If they find information that the BEST EVIDENCE is not entirely accurate, cannot be entirely trusted, and is thus NOT reliable, that tends to make it a lot more difficult for a PR to meet the burden of proving the days the PR was actually present in Canada. Of course IRCC and CBSA recognize that PRs make mistakes. It is not a Gotcha-Game. A minor omission or inaccuracy will not cause the government to totally throw out the PR's accounting of days in Canada. But if and when IRCC sees cause to doubt the PR's credibility, and the PR's declaration is not considered reliable, that's when things can get difficult.
REMINDER: IRCC can explore open sources in search of information tending to support (verify) or contradict the PR's declarations. Known examples include information in a LinkedIn account indicating the PR had employment other than that reported and outside Canada, constituting evidence the PR was likely outside Canada more than the PR reported. In one case CIC somehow obtained a conference brochure indicating the PR was at a conference in Switzerland on behalf of an employer the PR did not disclose, and that was during a time the PR claimed to be in Canada; did not turn out well for the PR.
As reflected in responses above, it is the PR's responsibility to keep a complete and accurate record of travel outside Canada. Not difficult to do, since of course the PR is the one traveling and is the one person who is in the best position to record this information.
And obviously, a PR is legally obligated to provide complete and accurate information about this when properly asked. There are severe penalties for those who engage in fraud or misrepresentation, potentially even criminal prosecution.
Mostly for emphasis, The LONGER EXPLANATION:
IRCC used to have easy access to a printable version of a template PRs could use to print a chart to record this information. Have not noticed it at the IRCC website lately but the format is simple enough.
PR simply needs to make a complete and accurate record of every date the PR exits Canada and returns to Canada, along with the primary destination, a brief explanation of reason for the trip, and a simple list of all other countries visited during that period of time abroad. That is, a four column record:
-- from-date
-- to-date
-- country (primary destination)
-- and a bigger space for stating purpose and list of other countries
Of course PRs should also gather and maintain all the usual records people living in the modern world ordinarily keep, relating to address, employment, taxes, finances including obligations, and so on.
Passport stamps were never conclusive evidence to show how many days a PR was in Canada, or out of Canada. Canada has long been, and continues to be, a country it is easy to enter or exit without CBSA capturing a record of it, for those making the effort to do so (mostly illegally of course, but sometimes incidentally). And since Canada has typically not stamped passports upon exit, for the vast majority of travelers, passport stamps never did show the date of exit, again for most . . .
. . . and a PR's reliance on entry stamps into other countries to report date of exit from Canada was flawed because, apart from fairly common occasions in which there was no entry stamp upon arrival in some countries, the entry stamp into another country was often later than the exit date from Canada by a day or more, ranging from a day later for typical red-eye flights, to two days later for Trans-Pacific flights, to occasions involving layovers in transit where there was no stamp in the passport.
The burden has always been on a PR to report (declare) travel dates COMPLETELY and ACCURATELY, both for purposes of Residency Obligation compliance, and for purposes of qualifying for a grant of citizenship.
Validate what? Your personal record of dates exiting and entering Canada? IRCC will not validate that. A personal record of this sort is not even a significant document as evidence let alone something that would be validated or not. It is an important record, nonetheless, FOR the PR personally, for the PR to use in completely and accurately reporting this information when required.
If a PR is examined for Residency Obligation compliance (attendant PR card application, or application to sponsor a family member, or attendant an application for a PR Travel Document, or in the course of a Port-of-Entry interview), the PR provides this information essentially under penalty of perjury, but more broadly than that, also under other immigration status related penalties for misrepresentation; while the latter are less severe than a criminal prosecution for perjury, they can nonetheless be so severe as to result in a loss of status in Canada, being deported, and inadmissible to Canada for some time.
Since the PR is the one best source of this information, the PR being the one person for sure there and witnessing the event, every time, it is of course the PR's responsibility to keep and accurately declare this information when needed.
It would be highly unusual for IRCC or CBSA to attempt to fully verify the PR's declaration. Rather, the context in which this information is requested typically requires the PR to provide other information covering a range of personal data, typically including address and employment history, among other details, and all this is compared, mostly looking to see if there are any inconsistencies, incongruities, or other factors indicating cause to examine more closely or to investigate more formally. Additionally, of course both IRCC and CBSA can readily check the PR's information against certain government databases, the most common and obvious one being the CBSA's record of the PR's travel history (for some time now, this has been near complete as to dates of entry, and going forward is expected to be near complete for dates of exit, but of course acknowledging, again, there are plenty of ways for a PR to leave or return in a way that avoids CBSA capturing a record of it). Again, they typically do not try to verify every trip, let alone try to verify presence in Canada every day between a reported date of entry and next known date of exit, but rather, are mostly looking for indications the PR may not have completely or accurately reported all travel history.
The latter leads back to recognizing, with some emphasis, that the PR is the one best source of this information, the PR being the one person for sure there and witnessing the event each and every time. This is what some jurists might describe as "the best evidence." What IRCC and CBSA are focused on is whether or not there is some indication that the BEST EVIDENCE is, for some reason, not trustworthy. If they find information that the BEST EVIDENCE is not entirely accurate, cannot be entirely trusted, and is thus NOT reliable, that tends to make it a lot more difficult for a PR to meet the burden of proving the days the PR was actually present in Canada. Of course IRCC and CBSA recognize that PRs make mistakes. It is not a Gotcha-Game. A minor omission or inaccuracy will not cause the government to totally throw out the PR's accounting of days in Canada. But if and when IRCC sees cause to doubt the PR's credibility, and the PR's declaration is not considered reliable, that's when things can get difficult.
REMINDER: IRCC can explore open sources in search of information tending to support (verify) or contradict the PR's declarations. Known examples include information in a LinkedIn account indicating the PR had employment other than that reported and outside Canada, constituting evidence the PR was likely outside Canada more than the PR reported. In one case CIC somehow obtained a conference brochure indicating the PR was at a conference in Switzerland on behalf of an employer the PR did not disclose, and that was during a time the PR claimed to be in Canada; did not turn out well for the PR.
Since 2020, CBSA has been tracking commercial airline entries/exits from Canada. Since before then, CBSA has had an arrangement with the US CBP to have US entrance data from land borders with Canada (by necessity, "exit records" from land borders with Canada) shared. CBSA can and does track entries/exits from the country.
Why would they do this? To verify in cases where they have other suspicions. As @dpenabill says, it's not a gotcha game where they will give you trouble for a 12-hour period incorrectly stated. It's used on the whole to verify if you are trustworthy and fit the requirements under the Act and Regulations.
Why would they do this? To verify in cases where they have other suspicions. As @dpenabill says, it's not a gotcha game where they will give you trouble for a 12-hour period incorrectly stated. It's used on the whole to verify if you are trustworthy and fit the requirements under the Act and Regulations.
It's almost like you're talking about me! 30 mins to the border, SO many day trips to Ship Happens in Sumas. Just starting the process now.
I presume it has to be 100% accurate too. Is there a way to request the info from CBSA? Surely they know!
We did request report but because the record were not very accurate, we had to cross check with our own records (emails/google map/gas bill records/package pickup notification emails...etc). Some of those are not listed with location time zone... and the close to mid-night crossing make it more complicated.
Don't remember which one we applied for and the US side looks different. So they may have changed their system for requesting exit and entry records.
https://www.cbsa-asfc.gc.ca/agency-agence/reports-rapports/pia-efvp/atip-aiprp/thr-rav-eng.html
https://www.cbp.gov/site-policy-notices/foia/records