Traveller86 said:
Hi Guys,
Need your help. How should I carry funds into Canada? I am immigrating along with my wife and the min. fund requirement is around 15.5 k CAD. Yesterday I went to my bank and they said that I will be able to convert currency only upto USD 10k. I am planning to take that in cash and travel card. Any suggestions on how should i take the rest of the amount?
Hello
while travelling there are 2 things to keep in mind...first, showing POF during landing and then declaring how much you have at customs...anything over 10K CAD needs to be declared..
coming to the first issue...POF at landing...you can take out bank statements to show POF prior to landing...in some cases it isn't even asked...carry POF nonetheless...
after you have POF, how much to declare?...you have a wide variety of options here, but anything liquid (cash, monetary instruments, travellers cheques, etc) over 10K CAD needs to be declared at customs... two options I can think of are:
Option 1- you can find out in your country if there is the presence of a Canadian Bank...for example, there is a Scotiabank in Mumbai India...people opened accounts there..transferred the money easily...this is the easiest option
Option 2- travel visa cards- these can be easily found and works just fine at all Canadian atms, they usually are multi-currency and there is no limit to how many cards you can have.....and because its not liquid...so no need to declare..customs is not interested in how many cards you have in your wallet-just the amount of liquid cash you are carrying...most importantly, you wont get dinged twice due to exchange rate..once converting from your currency to USD and then USD to CAD..
I would additionally advise you not to carry too much cash..its just not safe...
Best wishes!