Actually Moving to Canada: My Experience and Things you need to do

Here is a good link which mentions about Jwelleries - https://www.cbsa-asfc.gc.ca/travel-voyage/mrc-drc-eng.html

He is what it says - “Describe each item of jewellery you plan to bring into Canada on the list of goods you submit. Since jewellery is difficult to describe accurately, it is best to use the wording from your insurance policy or jeweller’s appraisal and to include photographs that have been dated and signed by jeweller or gemologist. This makes it easier to identify the jewellery when you first enter Canada, and later when you return from abroad with the jewellery.”

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Thanks for the details Anshul! All the very best!

Thanks
Appy

Hi Anshul ( @avj) , do we need to get canadian insurance also before shipping the car?
Once the car reaches the bonded warehouse, if I plan to drive it from there to my home, I should have canadian insurance as well as registration. Or is it waived off for first 30 days?

I called my US insurance provider Gieco and they said they will cover the car during the transition phase and they were okay with me driving my car in Ontario until I switched the car to Ontario license plates, for which you need Canadian insurance for registering the car anyway. I suggest you call your US car insurance provider and confirm, just to be 100% sure. Gieco also covered
rental car insurance here while I was still on their policy.

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Thanks @am1

Could you share the name of the car shipping company you used for the move to canada ?
There are too many choices, and little price difference, so would prefer a company which worked for folks here.

Thanks

I had a bad experience with the auto shipper I used, so I cannot recommend them; once our cars were picked up they were not very responsive to our calls and they took more than a month to deliver our cars. But the cars arrived without any damage or other issues. It cost me a lot to rent a car for several weeks while waiting for our cars.

I paid $2500 to ship 2 cars from Texas to Ontario. It usually takes about 10 days to ship a car including the mandatory wait period at the US border.

Thanks @am1
Please share the name still so we could avoid this company . I hope it’s not turboauto movers .

No it’s not that one.

There was a very famous new article on a SFO engineer who converted all of his assets (> $400k) in liquid cash to crypto so that he can transfer it to Canada, and lost all of it when the company’s CEO passed away and took all the passwords with him.

Hence very risky and subject to market risks.

You need Canadian insurance during registration not shipping. Your US insurance should cover a car in Canada, call them to confirm. Nothing is waived, if your car is on the road you need some form of insurance. As soon as you get the car you can drive on your US insurance but call an insurance broker to get the best deal.

Depends on your bank but for example Chase has no fee for wire transfers greater than U$5k. Also if you prefer to keep your money in USD, Canadaian banks offer USD accounts in Canada and so there won’t be any potential loss (or gain sometimes) due to currency exchange.

I had tried a transfer from my RBC USD to CAD account and the transfer rate they gave was pretty low. 1.30 when the actual rate was 1.34.
Xoom was offering 1.32 at that time.

Have used xoom extensively for USD to India transfer, but not sure how fast USD to CAD would be. I would stick to xoom if they offer the same quality as USD to India.

Xoom exchange rate is pretty low. At Vancouver airport, they offer $1.32 if you request online. - https://www.ice-canada.ca/en/exchange-rates/address/vancouver-international-airport-yvr/rates/

I would also advise to you take a look at transferwise. They have one time fee ( looks like they roughly charge around .45% - .50% of the total amount) unlike Xoom but have better transfer rate than xoom. Today’s rate: 1.35180

Thank you for putting everything out in detail. Do we have to declare our car in the Goods to Follow list?

Yes, declare your car on your GTF list, otherwise you won’t be able to import it without taxes. Include the VIN and KBB value.

That’s because the middleman also needs to make money. Any institution you use will get the cut, whether it is banks with “free” RBC US to CAD transfers - minus exchange rate hit or Xoom which charges a fee for transfers + exchange rate hit.

Taxes are only levied if car is valued at more than $10,000 and not part of GTF

My understanding is that Norbert’s Gambit can only be used from a CDN brokerage (especially if you are planning on using DLR.TO/DLR.U.TO ETFs). At least all the popular USA brokerages (Fidelity, Shwab etc) do not have this ETF available to buy/sell from US.
If any one has successfully done this to convert USD to CAD from US brokerage, please share the info.

I have a few questions pertaining to bringing jewellery to Canada. I don’t plan to bring in any jewellery when I land in Canada for the first time but might bring some in on the consequent visits to India.

  1. I will be declaring all my jewellery in the GTF list with photos. Is it mandatory to get valuation done for these or can I just put in the approximate cost based on the gold/silver rate for that day?

  2. What is the validity of the GTF list? I mean, within how many months/years do we need to bring in all the stuff that we mention on the GTF list?

  3. If I bring jewellery from the list to Canada and carry it back to India or elsewhere for some reason, do I need to carry my GTF list every time to show that it was pre-declared?

  4. If relatives or friends bring in my jewellery on their visit to Canada, can I give them a copy of my GTF list to show that it is for my use and that they are just bringing it in on my behalf?

  5. Once jewellery is brought to Canada, what are some good banks for opening safety deposit boxes/lockers in and around Toronto? Are these usually easily available since getting one in the SF Bay Area was almost impossible? And how much do they usually charge?

I know that not everyone would have answers to these questions but if anyone has been through these scenarios, it would help to know what the options are.