Hi, I expect my CoPR shortly and need to soft land by Jan '24, expecting to hard land in May '24. Does anyone know if I have to provide VIN number of my car on my advance declaration (B4A) / GTF form? I would like to buy a new car but likely won’t have it by January on time for my soft landing…..thanks for any insights here.
Soft-landing timing and car aquisition ...
- Thread starter fuzzypoodle
- Start date
Soft/Hard landing doesn't really exist. That's just a term we use, but it has no legal meaning.
Yes, for cars it is highly recommended (I'm not 100% sure if it's mandatory, but it might as well be) to have the VIN in the goods to follow list. The good to follow list is for things you own right now, not things you may buy in the future. Of course they're not going to hassle you if you buy some clothes/books/shoes/small furniture etc.. it's not likely that any of that is highly valuable.
But a car? Expensive jeweler? Expensive art?
That, they look at very carefully. If not, this would be a perfect way to smuggle stuff into Canada! Just get a new PR to submit a list with something like ("20 bars of gold, value 10 million"), and then give them the gold to carry into Canada without paying any duties...and that won't work because when you submit the list, the officer may well ask you to provide exact documentation for expensive things.
Point being, if your goods to follow list has expensive stuff on it (say worth more than $3000, at a guess) it is always a good idea to document it. I took pictures of all the expensive things we had (wedding jewelry, some art, and so on).
The officer made a copy of the whole thing (10+ pages of pictures), signed and stamped each page, and gave me a copy.
When I went for customs clearance, the officer had a copy of the same form with all the pictures. He could have asked me to open the bags and checked each item, but they only do that if that are suspicious.
Hi there Goose, could you please help in commenting on whether there would be any issue at immigration, when a person with PR does a soft landing and returns after 2 years. Could you please let me know if any additional things need to be done for coming back to Canada or if we can just go back without any hurdles. Thank you.
ould you please help in commenting on whether there would be any issue at immigration, when a person with PR does a soft landing and returns after 2 years. Could you please let me know if any additional things need to be done for coming back to Canada or if we can just go back without any hurdles. Thank you
My suggestion would be to not file the goods-to-follow at the time of soft landing. File it when you return to Canada to settle permanently.
Situation would be (is) no different than a PR/citizen who leaves the country to reside for some time and then returns with personal effects.