Travel hack: How to beat long U.S. customs lines at Canadian airports

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If you’ve ever flown from Canada to the United States, then you know that Canada is one of the six countries that have Customs and Border Protection (CBP) Preclearance. It’s a huge time saver and a relief because when you land in the U.S., passengers are treated as domestic passengers. All passengers have to do is walk off the plane, grab their luggage (if they have any), and either exit or go to their connecting flight. That’s it.

According to the CBP website: “Today, CBP has more than 600 officers and agriculture specialists stationed at 15 Preclearance locations in 6 countries: Dublin and Shannon in Ireland; Aruba; Bermuda; Abu Dhabi in the United Arab Emirates; Nassau in the Bahamas; and Calgary, Toronto, Edmonton, Halifax, Montreal, Ottawa, Vancouver, Victoria, and Winnipeg in Canada.”

As you can see, Canada has nine of those preclearance locations, which makes sense since so many Canadians and Americans travel between the two countries.

I’ve written about the benefits of having Global Entry and NEXUS (Canada’s version of Global Entry, which is cheaper, gives members Global Entry and makes arriving in Canada much quicker). What’s surprising is that there are still a ton of travelers who don’t have either Global Entry or NEXUS. If you don’t have either, you really need to show up early to make sure you can clear immigration/customs before your flight. I’ve never seen officers ever let someone cut the line because they were running late.

I go through Toronto’s Pearson International Airport (YYZ) often since my wife Natalie is from there and I’ve never seen a line, let alone a long one, at Global Entry. I can’t say the same about the regular customs line because the CBP is usually understaffed, which makes it even more frustrating for travelers, seeing only a couple of lanes open and so many booths vacant.

We’ve never had to worry about it since my wife, kids and I all have Global Entry and NEXUS; everyone in your party has to have it to use together. However, Natalie just became a U.S. citizen in March (here’s what her swearing in ceremony was like) and legally changed her name. She hadn’t updated her Known Traveler account because she hasn’t had time to make an appointment.

On our last trip through YYZ a few weeks ago, I took the kids so we could use Global Entry line and so I could ask the CBP agent if Natalie was allowed to use it or not. We didn’t want to risk breaking the rules because if you get the wrong CBP agent, they could revoke your card.

While we said a quick goodbyes at the entry of the customs Hall (our daughter didn’t want to leave her mama), I noticed for the first time that they had a separate line in between the Global Entry and the regular queue for Mobile Passport Control, formerly Mobile Passport.

I’ve written about Mobile Passport (MPC) before (here’s my tutorial) but the long story is that it’s free to use and you just do all the paperwork on your phone and take a photo of yourself and you can then bypass the long immigration line.

There was no one in line (see the photo above) so I asked the security agent at the door why no one was using it. He said, “I don’t know but if I were you, I would quickly download the app and use it to save 30+ minutes.”

That’s exactly what Natalie started doing until the super-friendly agent manning the Global Entry booth I was at said Natalie could join us. So if you’re traveling internationally and returning to the U.S. and don’t have Global Entry, download the MPC app or when arriving to Canada, the ArriveCan app, in advance and save yourself precious time.