Actually, no. It’s not. As Bromley said via linkage, there are very specific documentary requirements, and they are NOT based on mode of transportation. You may be able to get by with less than what’s technically required when crossing the border by car, but the official requirements are the same.
From the Department of Homeland Security, US Customs and Border Protection:
The ID needs to be government issued and have a photo, but having other forms of ID on you that may not meet the exact requirements can’t hurt. The birth certificate should be an official copy, which I think means that it has to be notarized. (?)
Ideally, you’ll get your passport in time, but if you don’t, it’s best to make sure that you comply with all the requirements to the letter so they can’t turn you away.
Also, I don’t know if you know this, but the Vancouver airport is one of seven in Canada that do US preclearance - you actually go through US customs before you board your plane rather than once you arrive in the US. Definitely makes connections easier, but be sure to get to the airport with plenty of time to spare, especially if you don’t get your passport in time to use it.
Thanks all … I’m a nervous traveller so it’s nice to have a heads up! I’ll make sure I get to the airport in plenty of time and have all kinds of i.d. etc along with my birth certificate.
I’m looking forward to actually GETTING there and being able to relax and enjoy Vegas!
The challenge will be made by Canadian authorities. US authorities don’t care if you’ve bought a million dollars worth of cigarettes and drive it up to Canada.
I’m not sure how stringent security is from Canada to the US, and I don’t know if it has been said already, but they’ll probably ask you to take off your shoes, so expect that. If possible, wear shoes that are easy to slip off and on. I made the mistake of wearing hiking boots once and it took forever to take off and on. Give yourself plenty of time to get through security, especially on your return trip out of a US airport.
Birth certificate should be OK. Before 9/11, they would have probably just waved you through or maybe looked at your drivers licence. But most of those people who suicide-flew the planes actually came into the US from Canada, so cut us some slack.
No matter what you do, do not form an opinion of Americans in general based on what you see in LA and certainly not Las Vegas.
Also on the subject of money, because our coins are worth so little, they tend to pile up, and you’ll find yourself with a great clanking mass of coin in your pocket that’s still not enough to buy a beer with. So you should try to spend it as you go, so when you return to Canada you won’t be stuck with a chunk of U.S. money you can’t exchange up there.
Though I’m thinking in Vegas you shouldn’t have a hard time figuring out what to do with all that change
I drove into the States for the first time last week at the Windsor border. Going into the US was no problem, the border fellow was very nice, recommended a couple of placees to eat. Getting back into Canada was awful, I ended up sent to the suspected criminal area, waited for over an hour for someone who was supposed to search the car, when they finally showed up they asked me if I had anything in the trunk, I said a spare tire, and they didn’t even look, they just sent me on my way. I spent an hour thinking I was going to jail, and not having a clue why. I still don’t know what the problem was, they never told me.
In general, my recommendation is to bring your birth certificate (proof of citizenship) and driver’s license (proof of identification). Passports in general are better – one document, universally accepted. I’ve heard that there have been horrendous delays at passport offices in some parts of the country recently, so you may not get yours in time for your trip.
I don’t want to hijack the thread, but my understanding is that none of the September 11 hijackers were shown to have entered the US through Canada, and that reports suggesting otherwise were just early speculation.
In answer to the comments about vastly different experiences crossing the border, there’s a few things you have to remember.
First, when you are driving, they already know something about you. They know you have a car, they know who the car it is registered to (they take a piture of your rear license plate as you pull up to the booth), how many times this car has crossed the border and where, etc. Just seeing a car, and assuming it isn’t a piece of crap, they assume you’ve got a job and home to go back to, so you’ll probably return home after your trip. They ask a few questions, and if they think you are being evasive, ask some more. If they think something isn’t quite right, they’ll ask you to pull over for a more thorough inspection.
When you take an airplane, as you walk up to the customs inspector they know absolutely nothing about you. Right off the bat you know the inspector will have to probe more, because of the lack of initial clues. No matter what you look like, there also isn’t any obvious sign of wealth and a job (clothes and plane tickets are relatively cheap), so they could be concerned you might stay and not bother to return.
I’ve been given “full attention” 5 times while driving across borders, and probably as many times when flying. Sometimes the reasons are obvious - something just isn’t right. For instance, one time when I was pulled over I was driving with my sister-in-law, who is 14 years younger than me and of a different race. Being a young looking 30-something (people often ask me if I’m in college) and having a teenager who probably isn’t your daughter or sister in the passenger seat is a bit different. Other times the reason is simply “congratulations, you’re the lucky 1000th customer today”, or perhaps the customs inspector just has some suspicions.
You may never need to know this, unless you’re too cheap to buy airport food and need to have regular meals, but…
Don’t bring meat products (or fresh fruit/veggies or other plants, I think, but especially meat) with you. American customs will not let this stuff through. It’s not a big deal, but can be a pain in the ass when you get sent to another customs line where they question you and take away your baloney sandwich while you miss your connecting flight. If for some reason you have particular dietary needs and must have that baloney sandwich, nice customs folks will usually let you eat it before going through to the US. Apparently, if it’s in your stomach it doesn’t count. Regular junk food like chips and pretzels are OK to bring across the border. So is PB&J, in my experience.
Don’t forget to put all pointy stuff in your checked luggage, not your carry-on. And, like elfbabe and InTransit said, give yourself plenty of extra time to go through customs.
I wasn’t going to bring it up, but dang it, now I’m going to. I’m a US citizen, and my wife is a US permanent resident, Mexican citizen. We always go back and forth with both our passports, because it’s just easier to keep everything together. We never have problems at all, flying or driving, and driving ease probably has a lot to do with what 5cents says.
We live in the Detroit area. Our preferred crossing point is Sarnia (Windor crossing sucks, unless it’s actually your destination). This puts us at 3 hours from Toronto, counting from Port Huron and not our house.
So, the last time coming back from Canada, this is what happened. I handed the immigration dude our passports. Where you live? (Warren.) Citizenships? (Hers and mine.) Where were you? (Toronto._ Length of trip? )Overnight._ What’d you do? )See a show and ate)… now keep in mind, this is all normal stuff. We usually breeze right through this, but then… what are you bringing back. (Nothing.) This answer, he didn’t like, and he changed completely. He just couldn’t seem to comprehend that we’d go all the way to Toronto without bringing anything back (let alone enough for it to be a declarable value)!
At this point, he’s asking me where I work (a big car company). What do you do? (Engineer.) Is this your car or the company’s? (mine) Do you own it? (I have the title, PeopleFirst owns most of it). You really didn’t bring back anything? (okay, a program booklet from Medieval Times). Stop your motor. (Okay.). Open your trunk. (Okay)… then began round two in a similar vein.
Finally, he asked why’d we go so far and not bring back anything from Toronto, and then was nice again, and told us to have a nice day.
The only reason this strikes me as strange is because his whole attitude and outlook seemed to change when we had nothing to declare in this long, long, long voyage.
The rules for bringing stuff from Canada to the US are a bit looser. You can bring most Canadian grown fruits and vegetables into the US, but it must be clearly marked as such. For instance, if you are bringing apples, make sure they are individually labelled (common in the US, not as common in Canada). Curiously, you can’t repatriate US grown fruit. I’ve had Florida Oranges ™ confiscated at the border…
As for meat, the regulations constantly change (and I know Mad Cow has had an effect, at least temporarily), but I have talked to the USDA a few times, and generally cooked meat products from Canada are OK. I’ve taken half a suitcase full of Montreal Smoked Meat with me, declared it at customs (of course), and they didn’t care (other than ask how big a party I’m throwing).
You are correct that for pretty much all other countries you can’t bring back any meat (cooked or not) or fruit/vegetables.
Funny thing you’ll see on bridges between the US and Canada. When entering Canada, you’ll see a sign on the bridge stating “You must declare all weapons”. When entering the US, there’s usually a similar sign stating “You must declare all fruits and vegetables”. I can just see it now, Canadians invading the US armed with grapes and cabbage leaves!
When you think about it from customs perspective, this is a little unusual. You drove 400 miles round trip and didn’t buy anything? Anything at all? I always have something to declare, if only to give a better answer to customs. One time it was “my grandmother gave me a pie”. Got a smile.
One time I was pulled over was when driving in Europe, crossing from Czechia to Germany at a small rural crossing. The German border guard was an old phart and humorless. His English was passable, and my German is really bad. He collected our passports (myself, wife, brother-in-law), asked us where we were born (Canada, it’s on the passports), then motioned us aside. He went around the car asking us individually where we were born, answer was always the same, Canada! After 3 trips around the car, he motions for me to get out. He then asks me: these two (pointing to wife and bro-in-law), where are they from? Canada! Hands me the passports and lets us go. I’m white, but my wife and bro-in-law aren’t, and I guess he couldn’t understand that it is possible for Canadians to be non-white.
I guess that’s part of it – I just checked out the Customs page at Deptreasury, and it says I have to delcare everything – I seem to remember customs customs in the past was only to declare over a certain value, and being under that value literally was nothing to declare.
The distance seems inconsequential to me. I live on the Canadian border. Toronto just isn’t that far. When I got to Mexico, knowing I can’t just drive there when I want to, I bring back things. Similarly Texas, California, whatever. But short, tiny, little trip? Heck, the only reason we didn’t make it a day trip was because we knew we’d be drinking! We’ve gone to Niagara several times as just a day trip! So, I guess I’ll admit that maybe it’s not normal, but could it really be that unusual?
Although now that I think of it, I imagine I should have declared the highly-overpriced gasoline that I put into the tank near London…
A Canadian citizen, returning home after an absence of (I think) five days, is allowed to bring into the country, duty free, 1.5 liters of alcohol, and up to 20 packs of cigarettes, as well as gifts of up to $60. I’ve made the crossing a couple of times now.
Well, you are aware that Toronto is the Center of the Universe, right? I mean, you visited Toronto and you expect us to believe you didn’t buy anything? Right.
In all seriousness, as far as we can tell, very short trips (like day trips) seem to arouse the suspicion of customs agents - my wife and I guess that drug runners aren’t in town for very long. A multi-day trip to Las Vegas is unlikely to arouse any suspicion at all.
I have to chime in again in favor of a passport. In my experience, it makes flying domestically much easier and for crossing between the US and Canada and Mexico. Plus, it’s great for other ID purposes too. Speaking from a former cashier’s point of view, I’ve never had any question about whether or not a passport (though I’ve mostly dealt with US passports when they’ve been used) is genuine. Same goes for other federal IDs–I’ve had people use military IDs, national laboratory IDs, and others.
When a US-ian crosses into Canada(Ontario) Customs(Canadian) may ask if anyone in the vehicle has ever been arrested. One dumb-ass I know said yes, after being heckled by the agent, and said he had been arrested for a misdemeanor assault. Well he got to jump out of the car catch a ride back home, as Canada refused his entry. What also is asked is for D W I"s, and there is no way you will cross the boarder then. I don’t think US customs cares if anyone has a DWI or other such misdemeanor.
Can the Canadian customs search US court records?
Will lying get you through if you have a past?
Regular junk food like chips and pretzels are OK to bring across the border. So is PB&J, in my experience.