Guides

The short answer: a baby who is a visa-exempt foreign national and is flying to Canada needs their own eTA, linked to their own passport, and the parent or guardian applies on the child’s behalf. There is no age exemption for infants. You also cannot include a child in a parent’s application: the Government of Canada says you can apply and pay for one person at a time, so a family of three completes and submits the form three times. ...

The short answer: type your name into the eTA form exactly as it is shown on the passport you will travel with, because the form itself says “Please enter exactly as shown on your passport or identity document”. Do not shorten it, translate it, add a middle name from another document or change the order. If you already submitted a name that differs from the passport, an eTA cannot be edited after submission, so the safe route is a new application with the correct name. ...

The short answer: a first-time eTA application has six steps: check that you need one, open the application form, fill it in, pay the government fee, wait for the email, and check that the details match your passport. Have your passport, an email address and a payment card ready before you start. Most applications are decided within minutes. A minority need extra documents and can take several days, so it is safest to apply well before you book anything you cannot cancel. ...

Most people assume a criminal record means they cannot enter Canada at all. In fact, you may still be able to visit: eTA just is not the route. A “yes” to the criminal-history question on the eTA form does not refuse you on the spot — the file leaves the automated lane that clears most applicants within minutes and goes to an officer to be read by hand. That review can still end in a refusal, and when it does, two routes deal with the inadmissibility itself rather than working around it: a temporary resident permit, which sets it aside for one trip, and criminal rehabilitation, which clears it for good. A visitor visa and deemed rehabilitation also come into it, and both are covered further down — but these two are where most people’s real decision sits, so this article starts there. ...

In a Nutshell Your work permit is permission to work once you’re inside Canada. It is not what gets you onto the plane or across the border. What does that job is a separate travel document: an eTA, a visitor visa, or a Canadian passport, depending entirely on your citizenship and how you’re entering. The confusion is common because the permit and the entry document are processed together the first time around, which makes it easy to assume they’re the same thing. They aren’t — and getting this wrong the second time around, at renewal, is what actually catches people out. Study permit holders face the same split; where something differs specifically for a work permit, it’s called out below. ...

Before you zip your bag and head for the airport, sort your medications out properly. Border officers in Canada can and do inspect medications closely, and the difference between a smooth crossing and a prolonged secondary inspection usually comes down to paperwork you either have or don’t. The short answer: bring your meds in their original labelled containers, carry a copy of each prescription and a doctor’s note explaining why you take them, keep everything in your carry-on, and declare what you have, the same way you declare any food you are bringing in. That covers most situations. The sections below fill in the details, including the cases where the rules get sharper. ...

A lot of travellers assume that crossing into Canada with a dog or cat is roughly like crossing with extra luggage: declare it, pay a small fee, move on. The reality is that Canada has specific import requirements for animals, and arriving without the right paperwork puts you at genuine risk of delays or, in the worst case, being turned back at the border. The correct documents and health preparations need to be in order before you leave home, not assembled at the crossing. ...

You submitted your eTA application, expected a quick approval email, and instead got a message saying more information is required. Here’s the part that trips people up first: the email itself never names a single document. It only tells you that something is needed and that a deadline applies. The actual list — and the only place to send anything — is somewhere else entirely. If English or French is not your first language, see the help available in other languages. ...

Before you read anything else in the email IRCC sent you, find the line that starts with Status :. That single line, not the subject and not the word “approved” you may have skimmed past, tells you which of four possible messages you actually got — and two of them mean you do not have a valid eTA yet. All four share the same generic subject line and arrive from the same no-reply government address, so the subject tells you nothing. Only that line settles it. ...

A slow Canada eTA almost always comes down to one of four specific causes: a request for supporting documents, a background or admissibility check, a system-wide slowdown, or an email that arrived but landed in spam. Each one leaves a different trace, and once you know which trace you’re looking at, you know roughly what to expect next. This guide is not about how long an eTA normally takes — it is about diagnosing why yours specifically is slow. ...