US to Canada move journal November 2022

I am writing this post to document my experience of relocating from US to Canada in November 2022. Me and my family lived in the US from January 2017 to November 2022. Due to certain immigration related issues we decided to look for opportunities in Canada after June 2022 and finally made the move in early November. In this post I will cover some points regarding wrapping up your life in US as well as setting up things in Canada. I hope this post can serve as a guide and help people who will be going through a similar experience in future.

Let me first start with my Canada immigration status. Both me and my wife are Canadian permanent residents. We did our soft landing in 2018 and collected our PR card. In February 2020 we were blessed with a son and he does not have a permanent residency status in Canada yet.
Another aspect to clarify here is that - I did not move to Canada through my US employer. I resigned from my job in the US and moved to Canada to join a new employer.

Below are some of the most important points/steps that I personally experienced while planning this move.

  1. US born child who is not yet a PR of Canada - Since our son does not have a Canadian PR status - we were given a visitor record by CIEC at the border checkpoint. This visitor record is valid for 1 year and can be used as a valid document for his stay in Canada. This document can also be used for enrolling him in daycare, schools, etc.
  2. Credit cards - In my situation I wasn’t moving to Canada with a lot of cash in my Canadian bank account. Hence I was dependent on US credit cards for almost a month. While in US I had multiple credit cards - regular financial institutions cash bank cards (Bank of America, Chase, American Express), wholesale store cards (Costco card from Citibank), retail store cards (Old Navy, J Crew, TJ Max) and some app specific cards (like Uber card from Barclays, Venmo card). I cancelled all my cards - ordered new travel credit cards from Bank of America and Chase with a higher credit limit and only carried them with me to Canada. These 2 cards supported all my expenses in the first month. Pro tip - check if your existing credit card works outside US and if there is a foreign transaction fee associated to it.
  3. Car - I sold off my car in US. I had read many blogs on this particular topic and I came to the conclusion that unless there is a specific sentimental/personal reason attached to the vehicle you own in US - there is no real reason for you to import it into Canada. After I made this decision, I started looking for vehicles in GTA area by contacting the dealerships and they were very prompt in responding. I would suggest that once you have decided the make, model of the vehicle you want to own/lease in Canada - reach out to the respective dealerships immediately. Once you have chosen the vehicle and the vehicle has been assigned to your name, the dealership would ask you to pay a deposit (I paid CAD $1000) and will give you a receipt. I dealt with multiple dealerships but my experience with Mazda of Brampton was exemplary. Both the sales and the finance persons I was working with were really prompt, helpful and understood my situation. If you are planning to sell off your vehicle in US then please keep the below points in mind -
    • Cancel vehicle insurance in US once it’s sold.
    • Return any kind of electronic toll devices/transponders like EZ Pass transponder.
  4. Driving to Canada using a rental vehicle - Since I was living in Philadelphia area which is well within driving distance of GTA, I had decided to rent a vehicle from AVIS and drive it across the border from Niagara checkpoint. It is a ~7 hours drive and I decided to break it by taking an overnight stop over at Rochester. Tip - you may only find one way cross border vehicle in the airports and the local AVIS rental location wasn’t allowing me to book one vehicle all the way to GTA. I decided to break down the rental into 2 parts - greater Philadelphia → Buffalo airport & Buffalo airport → Mississauga. Pro tip - what I actually ended up doing was I extended the Trip 1 by 1 one more day and changed the destination to Mississauga. You can make these changes from the AVIS app or their website. I am sure similar features would be available in any other leading car rental company.
  5. Driver’s license and getting driving history abstracts from US - You will need to furnish driving history of 2 last year without any breaks in order to be eligible for G licenses. You can get the driving history records from the corresponding state DMV websites. Pro tip - while getting the driving history from the DMV - please check if the abstract has details of at least 2 years. People like me who were in visa in US had their DLs renewed as per the visa extensions hence the abstract will be tied to the start & end dates of the last visa extension that you received. For example - in my wife’s case. the PennDOT (Pennsylvania’s DMV) was showing driving history from early 2021 (as per the last visa extension start date) and therefore she didn’t have continuous 2 years history. From my experience with Drive Test Center in Mississauga - unless you show continuous 2 years of driving history in US - you are not eligible for G licenses.
  6. Opening a bank account in Canada - I had opened a bank account in HSBC Canada while was I was still in US and didn’t have a physical address in Canada. I was pleasantly surprised by the ease with which it was approved, online banking details were shared and even their mobile app was working from US. I had to open a bank account before traveling because I had to transfer some funds for the deposits of my house rental in Canada. Pro tip - it takes at least 2-3 days for funds transfer between US to Canada so please keep that timeline in mind while you are planning anything. Unlike transferring funds to India which happens almost instantly, US to Canada money transfer takes time.
  7. Finalize moving company - In my situation I was moving with all my furnitures and belongings from US to Canada. Hence I had to find a reliable moving company. I took quotes from 8-10 companies and the quotes varied from US $10,000 to $6,000. I went for Transcontinental Moving based in Montreal and they charged me CAD $6,500 for moving. I spoke to Andy Cohen from Transcontinental during the entire time and I had a very good experience with them.
  8. Canceling memberships, subscriptions in US - Please go check the different memberships (like gym membership) and subscriptions (like Netflix, Amazon Prime, etc.) to see if they will work in Canada. I cancelled my gym membership and the subscriptions which will not work in Canada before moving. Some of your US subscription will work in Canada too (for example Netflix), but the content that you will see here will be Canadian content. However you may want to compare the subscription price that you are paying in US vs. the subscription price in Canada to make a decision.
  9. Mobile phone connection - I had an unlimited plan with Verizon while I was in US. I am continuing with the same plan in Canada as coverage in Canada is part of the plan. Please check with your phone company about your plan eligibility. I have recently taken a Canadian phone number as there were some websites in Canada which weren’t accepting a US number. However you can easily survive with a US phone number alone if you want to.
  10. Finding a rental house and real estate agent in Canada - Unlike US, in Canada you need to work with a local real estate agent to find and apply to a rental listing. Try to get references from friends, family, etc. while searching for real estate agents in Canada and avoid going with someone totally new. I checked with my friend in Canada and was referred an agent who was really prompt and helpful. You will be asked to pay at least 1 month of rent upfront by wiring that money to the broker’s bank account. It takes at least 2-3 days for funds transfer between US to Canada so please keep that timeline in mind while you are planning anything.
  11. All financing plans - One last thing to consider is to review all the on going financing plans in US and whether you want to pay them off or keep them open before moving to Canada. The reason it is important is because you cannot use Canada bank details to pay off any on going installments in US. The money will be deducted from a US bank account only and therefore - more the number of financing plans open - you will need to maintain that much funds in your US bank account every month.

Hopefully the above information helps you. Please feel free to send me a message if you have any follow up questions or need more information for any of the above points.

6 Likes

Great post!!!

Would you mind sharing any pro tips related to finding reliable real estate broker for finding rental house/apt if someone doesn’t have any references and your experience up until landing job in Canada?

Hi @Takita - Maybe it wasn’t clear from my earlier post - I had a job offer in hand before I moved to Canada and I joined the same organization. I did not pursue the job after moving here.
Regarding brokers for finding rental house/apt - you can send me a DM and I can pass on my real estate broker’s information to you. Alternatively you can also search some of the other threads which are more specific to that topic and they might contain some information around brokers.

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Hi Souvik, thank you for the detailed post. My family moved to Mississauga recently as well and in similar boat as you with a us born kid and wife with issue on her driving record. Question for you: 1) how did you handle the driving history for your wife? My wife renewed hers in june of this year and the public abstract doesnt show prevoous years. We have images of her old licenses that we have printed out. will that work at the drive test center? 2) For your us born kid. Have you started the PR application process for them? if so, was it under the prinary applicant on ircc site or did you have to start a separate application for them?

Hi @abhinavgupta -

  1. For driving history abstract - Print outs of older license scan will not work. We called the Pennsylvania DMV couple of weeks about this issue. They have assured that they are going to send an abstract which lists the entire driving history. Given the year end holidays - I am expecting that it will take another week or so to receive this letter. You can check with your state DMV if they can send a similar letter.

  2. About my son’s PR application - I plan to start to process of my son’s PR application in February 2023. I haven’t started my research on it yet. However - my wife did speak to some immigration consultants based in GTA who asked for CAD $1500 to his PR :slight_smile: .

@souviksengupta Thanks for sharing this move journal! Regarding bank accounts, did you also manage to open credit cards while still being in the US?

Hi @Karan11 - no I did not open any Canadian credit card while I was still in US. I am not even sure if that is something we can do.

Hi @souviksengupta Question out of curiosity: If you did soft landing in 2018, then you would have had to apply for PR renewal in 2023 sometime. How were you able to meet the 2 year residency requirement given that you only moved at the end of 2022? I am just asking because my friends are in this kind of situation. They did soft landing in summer 2021, and they would need to renew PR in mid-2026. To meet the 2 year requirement, they have to move by mid-2024 at the latest.

Hi @arjun-humain - yes you are correct - we did not meet our 2 years residency requirement when we applied for our PR renewal. Our PR renewal is still in progress (most likely - it is longer than typical processing timelines due to this factor). We submitted a bunch of documents along with the renewal application to get approved under humanitarian grounds. We are hoping :crossed_fingers:t4: that it will be approved soon. I will probably write a separate thread about it - once and when we get our renewal decision.

Got it. Good luck!:crossed_fingers:

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How long has your application been in process? You can contact your local MP’s office and ask their help to intervene if you have been waiting for a significantly long time.

Hi @MissMapleFry - I was not aware of this option (I know something similar exists in the US for green card application delays). I was told by IRCC agent that I should expect an update by the end of February. If that doesn’t happen I might have to take this option. Have you tried this (or do you know anyone who has tried this) ?

Our PR renewal application was stuck in their system for some reason. The average processing time was around 90 days and we started getting worried when we hit the 4 month mark. It was due to a very silly reason which we only found out after asking our MP’s office to intervene on our behalf. Once they did, we received our cards within a week.

We basically called them and explained our situation. Someone in their office sent us a form that requested information about our case and asked for our consent to investigate on their behalf. It was straightforward and at least in our case it seems like things moved very quickly once the MP intervened.