Six month limit for northerners?
Me and DW were having a conversation the other day about a siz month time limit for Canadians spending time in US. She thinks that Canadians can only spend a max of six months south of the border, the...
Forum Discussion
FULLTIMEWANABE wrote:PackerBacker wrote:Mike Boutet wrote:MudChucker wrote:
Sort of accurate, we can stay 6 months and must return to Canada for 24 hours before may return to the USA.
The 24hrs statement is incorrect. According to US customs agent you need to be in Canada for a minimum of 30 days. Otherwise the US government considers you still in US.
Actually it's a total 6 months of days within any specific calendar year. Once you cross over into a new year the 'clock' starts over again; there is no minimum time in Canada from a US Customs & Immigration perspective.
Actually PackerBacker, we were under that impression as well regarding 6 months in any one "calendar year" so Jul to Dec and Jan to Jun would be two separate years, two separate 6 months, but we were told that is not the case, and technically doing that we would overstay our allowed time in the USA and be subjected to a 5 year to 10 year ban. Just saying that's what officialdom told us, as we intended to do that when building a house in Fla from early November until Certificate of Occupancy granted June the following year. Just saying that's what we were told when crossing over the border to do just that in November 2009. So I had to fly him back and forth in-between trades so spread it out so he was there when it mattered most during construction, and daughter and I used up some of our time there in-between to keep an eye on things = and we were so glad we were always on site as we oversaw things that caused more than just head.
This is not quite the same as I was told at a meeting with US Customs & Immigration in March. I think the difference is that after the initial 6 months, you do need to actually exit the US to restart the clock. That was the way it was when I was working on both sides of the border using a US work visa. My prior comment was really intended for Snowbirds accumulating up to 6 months of days in the US in any given year and who would normally be out of the US for the time in between. You comments are correct for someone who wants to stay in the US for 12 consecutive months over a 2 calendar year period.
... Eric
