Same day trip to the states

[luvfufu]

I've been to Seattle 3 times in the last 4 years, but those are same day return only, I didn't stay overnight in the states. My question is, I was told that I don't have to include them in my physical presence calculation. Is that true?

 

[dpenabill]

I've been to Seattle 3 times in the last 4 years, but those are same day return only, I didn't stay overnight in the states. My question is, I was told that I don't have to include them in my physical presence calculation. Is that true?

Foremost, follow the instructions in the online physical presence calculator.

All travel abroad must be disclosed, including day trips to the U.S.

The online physical presence calculator will not count those as days outside Canada. Indeed, even an overnight trip, that is for a single night abroad (exit Canada during one calendar day and return to Canada before midnight the next calendar day), will not count as time outside Canada.

But the applicant is instructed to declare all such trips. This has been the policy since June 11, 2015.

This is a good thing. In many, perhaps most or even nearly all cases, IRCC compares the applicant's travel declarations against the CBSA travel history, which at minimum will typically show all entries into Canada including all entries made at the U.S./Canada land border. In the past, for those who applied prior to June 11, 2015, this often meant CIC, or IRCC (for applications being processed after the Liberal government renamed CIC), would see an entry into Canada but no declaration of that trip in the applicant's declaration of travel.

I was an applicant under the prior process and what I did was nonetheless report one of my day trips for each calendar year and in the purpose box stated that it was a day trip and was one of [XX number] of day trips made that year, so there would be no concerns I was failing to disclose any travel. That approach, however, was contrary to the instructions, which (again prior to June 11, 2015) were to not include day trips to the U.S. It is rarely a good idea to not follow the instructions. My most frequent and adamant observation is "if in doubt, follow the instructions; otherwise, yep, follow the instructions." My compromised approached seemed sensible at the time and indeed I proceeded from date of application to date of taking the oath in barely eight months at a time when CIC was reporting a timeline of 20 months for routine applications.

But since June 2015 applicants do not need to worry . . . just report each and every border crossing event as the instructions state, including day trips, and the online calculator automatically, correctly, calculates the number of days abroad, the number of days present in Canada.

 

[2_of_5]

Hi Bill,

Same here, I have been diligently keeping track of ALL my daytrips since 2015, but the thing is I had been tracking only overnight trips from my landing in June 2013 until C-24 went into effect.

I've had to pull my entry records from BOTH CBSA and US CBP and match them up in a spreadsheet, along with calendar entries from my work email where I used a pool car, etc. along with receipts from both sides of the border.

I've run into one, hopefully small, snag: several of my entries back into Canada are not logged. One of them makes it look like I was outside of Canada for 11 days. And I think I know why: there was one older CBSA agent at the Ambassador Bridge who sometimes would not even check passports or PR cards, he would just tell you "buh-bye" and wave you through. :

Thankfully, I planned ahead for this eventuality, and have been saving every single receipt possible since the first day I came to live in Canada in 2010. I'm planning on giving myself at least a month buffer, but hopefully these discrepancies don't lead to a RQ.

 

[luvfufu]

dpenabill,

Thanks for your advice.