I was elated the day when I got my acceptance of Permanent Residency in Canada. But, then the question about taking my car with me to Canada came up. After reading through endless articles and posts I found out that I could take my car to Canada tax free as a new settler and that motivated me to go through export and import process.

So, skipping ahead to the actual car exportation out of the US to Canada.

Car Details:

Make: Honda
Year: 2017
Model: Accord 4 Door
Trim: EX-L Navigation and Sensing
Ownership: Financed
Ownership: Me and my uncle, combined ownership

Export Process:

Most of the articles out on the internet give feeling that the export process is straight forward process, but I think its a bit more complicated that that and everyone’s case is unique. Here is one article that gives you the basic idea about the steps involved in the export process.
https://driving.ca/auto-news/news/how-to-import-a-car-from-the-u-s-into-canada

Once I read this article and made sure that my car is admissible and title is clean, I made a checklist as following: (for most people it will be these 2 simple steps)
1. Get an ITN number through AES (Automated Export System)
2. Call the U.S. Customs and Border Protection 72 hours before I export the car.

Though I had narrowed it down to two items, more questions popped up for me. How do I get the ITN and how do I send my ITN to the US Customs and Border Protection folks? Can I export my car on a weekend or does it need to be on a weekday?

So, I contacted Simplified Trade Solutions to get the ITN. The contact person at the company mentioned that the title need to be LIEN FREE. Well, I wasn’t sure what the “LIEN” mean, the contact person was more than happy to tell me that my lien would be the finance company that is financing my car. Then I started to look for the car title.

Called up my financing company and told them that I will be exporting the car to Canada and they were like NOPE, can’t give that lien release letter without paying off the loan. I had to take out a personal loan at high interest (14% APR) and pay off the auto loan (1%APR). My financing company charged 45$(one day shipping) to get the letter delivered to me.

Phew! Things were finally looking up. I got the lien release letter! But, that wasn’t the end of things. Now, I wanted to export the car on a weekend and the contact person wasn’t sure if I can export the car on the weekend, since they just process the ITN. Their website has information on the major border crossing, offices and hours. None of the places mentioned in their website had information on weekend border crossing.

I called up each of the border crossing offices in Michigan to inquire if I can export my car over the weekend and found out that Ambassador Bridge crossing is open 24*7 and can process exports on the weekend. There are other border crossings that are open 24*7 (Eg, Rainbow Bridge near Niagara Falls, but expect a lot of traffic).

After deciding the point of border crossing to export the car, I filed the ITN and emailed the CBP office of my car VIN, ITN, make and model. When I called the Ambassador Bridge office to inquire if they received the information and if the 72 hour clock has started, they mentioned that I needn’t send the details by email or have to call since the AES system tracks the ITN and clock started once the ITN has been created and is on the AES system.

Yay! I thought I got all the bases covered with less than a week to export and then came in the twist! The CBP officer mentioned that I need a notarized letter from my uncle that he gives me the authority to export the car to Canada since it was a combined ownership. It was freezing -40F in Minneapolis and most of the businesses were closed for 2 days. He braved the weather for me and got the letter notarized and did a one day shipping (costed me 45$ via UPS).

On the day of export!

After tiring 14 hour drive from St.Louis, I reached Detroit. Now, the challenge was to find the export office near Ambassador bridge. One thread on the Canadian Visa forum had the answer to where to find the export office. Here is the picture from the forum that they shared:

Once I took the left on W Fort St, I saw a sign on the right saying that its one way to Canada and can’t enter back into US. After continuing for about 3-4 mins, I took a small passage under the bridge and was stopped at the gate by friendly CBP officers and asked me the reason for visiting the office. I mentioned that I was there to export my car and they gave the directions to the office.

I parked my car nearby and went inside the office, there were no people in the office apart from the officers. I went to the window counter and presented my title, lien release letter and notarized letter from my uncle. The officer took 5 mins to process the documents and stamped my title. It took me close to 15 mins to get out of the compound and head to the Ammex Global Marketplace. I brought a few goodies and headed to the toll gate, paid toll and got on the bridge to cross the river into Canada.

In all, the export process was quite an exhilarating experience. Let me know if you have any questions regarding the export process and will try to answer your questions to my best 🙂