Mark E. Ritchey

I am a U. S. citizen who would like to build a vacation home in Canada and visit this
vacation home often.

As I understand it, a U. S. citizen can enter Canada without a visa and can stay up to
six months.

My question is: Is this six months continuous, or can it be a day here, a day there, a
week here, a week there? Are the days counted as 183 in any given 12-month period? Who
keeps track and how do they do so?

I do not want to circumvent Canadian law -- I simply would like to know what it is so that
I don't accidently break it.

If this is not the right news group to come to to get an answer to this, I would
appreciate it if someone would point me in the right direction.

Thanks for your help.

Andrew Miller

You may stay in Canada for up to 6 months per visit, unless otherwise limited by admitting
officer at the port of entry. Your stay will not be cumulative, that means if you leave
Canada after let's say 5 months stay and return here a week (or a day) later then your 6
months clock starts from zero, at least in theory. In reality, sooner or later if you will
stay in Canada for prolonged period of time and leave only for a short time, or if in the
opinion of immigration officer frequency of your entries requires some explanation then
you will be asked why you stay in Canada for that long, you will have to prove having
sufficient funds for a period of stay and you may have time restrictions imposed on your
visit. Exactly the same as we Canadians have to go through when going often to US. It is
very easy to keep track of your entry and departure - if you are crossing border by car
then your license plates are being photographed and entered into the database (on both
sides of the border), if you are coming by air then your entry is also recorded by
Canadian immigration and departure by US immigration, as well as record exists in the
airline database. And don't forget things like credit cards and bank cards use which are
the easiest way to prove where you are at a particular time. When the length of your stay
(or absence) is in question then you will have to prove your side of the story.

--

../..

Andrew Miller Immigration Consultant Vancouver, British Columbia email:
[email protected] (delete REMOVE and INVALID from the above address before
sending an email)
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PMM

Hi Mark

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Visitors are usually admitted for 6 months. If the person leaves after 1 week and returns
2 months later they would probably get another 6 months. It is not accumulative, the
"clock" only starts each time you enter Canada.

PMM