How do I bring my funds with me to USA? Moving in few weeks, have no idea how to bring my money....

[aphr0dite 22]

56 minutes ago, Sarasota said:

I used the website transferwise

 

Sent to my wife's bank

 

Worked well for me

We have been using Transferwise as well for the past two years and have always had a great experience. Their currency conversion rates and transfer fees are very reasonable IMO. The amounts we exchanged so far have never exceeded $5,000, so we will probably explore all options before he moves here just to be sure. Good luck with your journey, OP!

[dbLA 15]

RBC have branches in the US, you can open one without a SS number and you may get a better rates by just moving it to the US part of RBC,  https://www.rbcbank.com/cross-border/faqs.html?view=bank-accounts 

 

[Sparkle Sparkle 914]

4 hours ago, mika__ said:

Hi everyone

 

 

I am moving to the USA to California near the end of November here on my IRI visa I just got recently. Ill be moving there from Canada.

 

 

My question is that I am completely  confused on how to go about doing is:

 

• How do I bring my funds with me to America? Im currently with RBC bank in Canada here and I dont know how to bring my money when I move. 

 

• I obviously dont have a bank down in California yet so when I cross the border to the USA do I open up a bank account down there asap and then wire transfer myself from my RBC bank (while im in the USA) all my money to my new bank ill have in America? (if I can do that?) Can I do that/should I do that?

 

• Should I leave my RBC bank account open/leave some money in there for awhile while im living in the USA?

 

 

Im curious to know what some of you did/experiences

any advice would be highly appreciated because I have no idea what to do in this area at all. (I have an appointment with my bank coming up but I just want some advice off here too)

 

Thanks!

Have you heard of transferwise?... Check them out. 

[Duke & Marie 1,389]

EFT or Bank Check easiest way... alternatively, my bank in home country refunds all fees and charges for overseas atm usage so I just use that no need to transfer 

Edited October 24, 2020 by Duke & Marie

[Loren Y 2,756]

51 minutes ago, aphr0dite said:

We have been using Transferwise as well for the past two years and have always had a great experience. Their currency conversion rates and transfer fees are very reasonable IMO. The amounts we exchanged so far have never exceeded $5,000, so we will probably explore all options before he moves here just to be sure. Good luck with your journey, OP!

Transfer wise is a option. I have an account with them, and their bank card allows me to withdraw funds from anywhere in the world at a good exchange rate. It would cost you a little over 300 canadian to transfer 46,000 using transfer wise.  See current rate below. You can bring a cashier's check if you feel safer that way, it will take at least 5-7 days to clear when you deposit it, and then the conversion rate can hurt. You could just leave it in the account, bring a few thousand with you to start with, then transfer after you get an account setup. 

[ohcoffeeeyes 120]

1 hour ago, yoda one for me said:

Same.

 

Left my money in my UK bank account which I just administered online for a few months until I had a US bank account set up. Used TransferWise to move from UK bank to US bank as it was cheaper than a direct bank transfer from my UK bank. It was pretty hassle free.

 

edit: I also left my UK bank account open with a small amount of money for when we return to visit. Figured it'd be easier than having to convert $   Also, I had a UK pension which can only be paid out to a UK account once it becomes payable - if you have a similar situation it's worth keeping an account open. 

I'm doing this. I also have a transferwise card in case I ever need it (I probably wont but my bank TSB is absolutely horrible, they flag anti-fraud on everything, so I'll probably have to use it at the airport.)

[Mike E 11,742]

I have CIBC account in Canada. It let's me send up to $30,000 (use to be $10,000 a few years ago) at time online from its desktop website. I'm pretty For larger amounts I just call my account manager at CIBC and she wire transfers after I give her my US account info. I'm selling a house in Canada, and will just wire transfer the proceeds. RBC has something similar, https://www.rbcroyalbank.com/banking-services/international-money-transfer.html but less flexible. 

 

The advice you've been given to just bring it cash is dangerous.

 

1. You were advised correctly to declare this with US-CBP (usually at the preclearance station at the airport in Canada). What you weren't told is that if carrying over $10,000 CAD or equivalent, you must declare it with CBSA at the airport too. Anyone who has been declaring over $10K USD to CBP age preclearance and not CBSA has been very lucky.  So budget extra hours for this and hope the CBSA office is open. also my one experience doing this from Calgary resulted in me being sent to secondary inspection by an officer young enough to be my grand kid. All told I budgeted 5 hours at the airport and had just enough time to hit the lounge and drink a couple whiskeys after the ordeal.

 

2. Large amounts of cash are subject to asset forfeiture by police in the USA. So if there is a traffic stop by an officer on the way from the US airport, you can lose it all. Similarly on the way from home to bank to try to deposit it.

 

3. Large deposits of cash must be reported by banks to the federal government. That's no big deal actually. What is a big deal is that by law banks that suspect you are money laundering have to close your account. Large deposits of cash are triggers. Each large bank uses mysterious software algorithms to find suspect money launderers and a cursory examination of r/personalfinance on reddit.com . And so people are seeing their accounts closed. Worse, they are blacklisted and other large banks and brokerage firms won't deal with them now.

 

4. TransferWise is great in theory. In practice , their ID verification process is onerous. I gave up.

 

5. And don't try to structure large deposits, transfers, or hand carry of cash into several small amounts. That's illegal. On occasion US-CBP has asked me how much cash I am carrying.

 

[zochu 255]

I recently just moved to the US (2 weeks ago). It took 9 business days from entry into the States to get my SSN. I opened a US bank account on the 10th business day. So it won’t take long.

 

I’d leave it in your Canadian bank account until your established a bit here. 

[Just Paul 4,595]

See what the baking options are around where you are going to live.  For instance BMO made a bunch of acquisitions and a bunch of Canadians that came here used them.  I have a US BMO account and have been able to get different things done without fees or reduced fees.  My company even keeps a BMO CAD account to pay for vendors and services on Canadian jobs.  

[Loren Y 2,756]

1 hour ago, Mike E said:

I have CIBC account in Canada. It let's me send up to $30,000 (use to be $10,000 a few years ago) at time online from its desktop website. I'm pretty For larger amounts I just call my account manager at CIBC and she wire transfers after I give her my US account info. I'm selling a house in Canada, and will just wire transfer the proceeds. RBC has something similar, https://www.rbcroyalbank.com/banking-services/international-money-transfer.html but less flexible. 

 

The advice you've been given to just bring it cash is dangerous.

 

1. You were advised correctly to declare this with US-CBP (usually at the preclearance station at the airport in Canada). What you weren't told is that if carrying over $10,000 CAD or equivalent, you must declare it with CBSA at the airport too. Anyone who has been declaring over $10K USD to CBP age preclearance and not CBSA has been very lucky.  So budget extra hours for this and hope the CBSA office is open. also my one experience doing this from Calgary resulted in me being sent to secondary inspection by an officer young enough to be my grand kid. All told I budgeted 5 hours at the airport and had just enough time to hit the lounge and drink a couple whiskeys after the ordeal.

 

2. Large amounts of cash are subject to asset forfeiture by police in the USA. So if there is a traffic stop by an officer on the way from the US airport, you can lose it all. Similarly on the way from home to bank to try to deposit it.

 

3. Large deposits of cash must be reported by banks to the federal government. That's no big deal actually. What is a big deal is that by law banks that suspect you are money laundering have to close your account. Large deposits of cash are triggers. Each large bank uses mysterious software algorithms to find suspect money launderers and a cursory examination of r/personalfinance on reddit.com . And so people are seeing their accounts closed. Worse, they are blacklisted and other large banks and brokerage firms won't deal with them now.

 

4. TransferWise is great in theory. In practice , their ID verification process is onerous. I gave up.

 

5. And don't try to structure large deposits, transfers, or hand carry of cash into several small amounts. That's illegal. On occasion US-CBP has asked me how much cash I am carrying.

 

All the above statements are true, and if you are a criminal, you would have something to worry about. I have been thru all of the above over the past 10 years, and have had no issues in the end. Maybe a inconvenience, but never a issue, I'll go in numbered order....

1. I have come thru airports all over the world with large amounts of cash, not even large, but I regularly travel with over 10,000 in US dollar of value, from Canada probably 50 times or more via land and air. I have always declared it, and never had to spend 5 hours in secondary. All you have to do is be able to provide proof of where the money originated from. A bank withdraw receipt, a bill of sale for an item or property, these are a few examples. As long as you have a verifiable justification for having the cash on you, you are not breaking any laws, and you have no worries. I did have 50,000 dollars taken from me at LAX on my return from Hong Kong ( Believe it or not, the search dog "Hit" on my bag I was carrying with the cash in it ( Yes, the dogs are trained to smell large amounts of cash as well as drugs). I had already filled out the declaration form when they pulled me out of line. This time the money was from the sale of a Mercedes Benz I sold to a gentleman in Hong Kong, and I had to travel behind it to get it thru customs in Hong Kong and I wanted to be there to obviously get paid, and make sure everything went smooth. Things took a little longer than planned and I couldn't stay the extra day to wait for all the paperwork, so I had no proof of where the money was from on me at the time. I still declared it and they still confiscated it, put it in a sealed evidence bag, and said when I had the proof to come back to their office and I could pick it up. Paperwork from the Sale was fed-ex to me a few days later, I took the paperwork, went back to the CBP office at LAX, showed the paperwork, signed a form on the dotted line, and they handed me my money back no questions asked, this is the only time out of probably close to 100 times I have declared more than 10,000 dollars that there was an issue, and even them confiscating my money took less than 2 hours.

2. This is true also, I have been stopped with amounts ranging from 10,000 to over 100,000 dollars on my person in my vehicle more than a few times. Every time I was asked I had a reason for the money. I also carry a weapon 99.9% of the time I am here in the US as we have the good old second amendment, and I have a license to carry, so the first thing when a officer stops me is I notify them I have a weapon in the car, and a large amount of cash also. If you are not trying to hide it, they are not going to think you are a criminal. I was going to by a 95,000 dollar motorhome, and had the ad and everything with me. Even the I need to check this guy out, I know he is dirty, and I want to take him to jail, officer that stopped me actually called the person I was buying the motorhome from and asked him to verify if I was the one coming to buy it. Everything checked out, and I was free to go.

3. Why this could be a problem, it is very rare. I routinely deposit and withdraw large amounts of cash from any number of bank accounts I have ( Citibank, Chase, US Bank, Americas First Credit Union, etc.) I have never been flagged for money laundering, or blacklisted by any large banks or brokerage firms ( My investment account at Charles Schwab has hundreds of thousands of dollars in value tied to it, and never had I had an issue) the only thing you have to do is advise the bank you want to make a large withdraw and set up a time for them to get the money delivered. Banks don't carry more money than they need to operate. If you want 50k cash, you better give the bank a few days to come up with it, but they will. Banks are not a issue because there is a trail of the money being moved around, and if they can tell where it came from, once again you will have no issues. I had more trouble at the car dealer when I bought my last car cash in 2016. it was a hyundai elantra and I paid a little over 22k for it in cash. The car dealer was required to report any cash sale over 10k to the local FBI office ( Once again, thanks to 9-11 rules being implemented) so I got to chat with a few FBI agents from the local field office an hour later before I picked up the car, had to show I withdrew the money from my bank before I went to the dealer, and explain to them that most terrorists don't buy a frigging Hyundai to turn into a bomb to blow up buildings. Once again, I was free to go.

4. I agree a little with this statement, I had no issues getting it set-up, but my friend had a hard time with his Identification not being verified, and it took him a few emails to get it straightened out, but he is up and running now.

5. I would love to know what law you are breaking by breaking a large transfer into smaller ones. I routinely transfer 9999 from my foreign accounts into my US banks, sometimes 3-4 days in a row, just to avoid the " Flags" that are put in place. I have been asked almost everytime I cross the US border how much cash I am carrying, and my answer is always the same. Under 10,000 US dollars in Cash and negotiable instruments.( Gold, diamonds, and other things are also considered part of the Value to get to 10,000 dollars, just as a side note). And never had a problem, I always declared anything over 10,000 and if you are not near that amount you are not required to say OH, I have 345.23 cents on me. I guess if you were crossing the border 5-6 times a day with 9000 dollars cash on you all the time, they would get wise, and you would get flagged and probably have some serious explaining to do. How many legit people would be crossing the border this much all the time( except the criminals and mules). The laws are meant to catch criminals, not John Q public.

[Loren Y 2,756]

12 minutes ago, Paul & Mary said:

See what the baking options are around where you are going to live.  For instance BMO made a bunch of acquisitions and a bunch of Canadians that came here used them.  I have a US BMO account and have been able to get different things done without fees or reduced fees.  My company even keeps a BMO CAD account to pay for vendors and services on Canadian jobs.  

This is a good idea also. Most " Real" banks will let you have a Foreign currency account tied to your main account. For example I have a Bangkok Bank account in Thailand that has a Thai Baht, and a US funds account. This is beneficial as I can transfer my US dollars into my US Funds account with no fees because Bangkok Bank has a branch here in New York. SO, I can literally transfer money from my us account to my Bangkok account by using an Inter Institution Transfer. They are Free with most banks. Here is the bonus, It is free to do. I use the routing number from their US based Bank with my Bangkok Bank account number and they transfer it from New York to Thailand within a few days for free. Bam! I just did an international transfer for FREE baby!!! And the double up ( I love doubling up) is that it goes into my Bangkok Bank US fund account, and whenever I see the exchange rate get favorable I can transfer from My US fund account to the Thai Baht account when I see the rate is high. I don't even have to go to the bank, I keep a Thai Based sim card in my phone also ( AIS, great service for about 4.00 US a month) But international text messages are free with the service, and the Banking app uses text messages to verify transactions, so as long as I can receive text messages I can conduct banking from the comfort of my couch here in Las Vegas.

[Rotnkid 33]

8 hours ago, mika__ said:

Hi everyone

 

 

I am moving to the USA to California near the end of November here on my IRI visa I just got recently. Ill be moving there from Canada.

 

 

My question is that I am completely  confused on how to go about doing is:

 

• How do I bring my funds with me to America? Im currently with RBC bank in Canada here and I dont know how to bring my money when I move. 

 

• I obviously dont have a bank down in California yet so when I cross the border to the USA do I open up a bank account down there asap and then wire transfer myself from my RBC bank (while im in the USA) all my money to my new bank ill have in America? (if I can do that?) Can I do that/should I do that?

 

• Should I leave my RBC bank account open/leave some money in there for awhile while im living in the USA?

 

 

Im curious to know what some of you did/experiences

any advice would be highly appreciated because I have no idea what to do in this area at all. (I have an appointment with my bank coming up but I just want some advice off here too)

 

Thanks!

Hello, I moved here from Canada in May 2019. I had my money in RBC bank Canada too. Here is what I did.

While in Canada, I went to my RBC bank and they opened an RBC US account for me  (Just took a few minutes to do that) and I transferred a little money into that US account (their exchange rate was not that great). They gave me a debit card for that US account too right away. I left some money back in my Canada account (for any unexpected expenses like paying tax, and that was a good thing as I did need to return some Ontario trillium benefit credits back to CRA after I moved here and I could just transferred it from that account easily).  The rest of the money which was a big amount, I split into 3 and made it as 3 bank drafts in Canadian currency and brought it with me. At the buffalo land border, I presented the 3 bank drafts along with the filled out form for declaring the money but they didn’t take it from me. They just glanced at it and returned the form back to me saying they didn’t need it. I don’t know why and I was trying to hand it back to them as I wanted to make sure they had proof that I declared the money I was bringing in as it was a big amount;  but they wouldn’t take it. I guess it is because they will have a record of the money movement when the Canadian bank actually transfers the money to the US bank when I deposit the bank drafts here. 

The reason for bringing the drafts in Canadian currency was so that I could deposit it whenever I saw that the currency conversion rate was better (as they convert it to US currency when depositing in the bank here). I could have taken the bank drafts as US currency(RBC canada was insisting on it), but in that case they would convert it all that day itself into US currency and then make the draft and their exchange rate was bad. I had opened a TD bank account in the US after coming here and I deposited the RBC drafts there on different days. I also pulled out all the money from the TFSA and RRSP as I didn’t want to pay taxes on those here (savings on TFSA is not tax free in the US). 
RBC US has very few physical branches in the US, but you can use their debit cards in most of the ATMs.

Using services like transferwise etc. as mentioned above are very good suggestions. Unfortunately I didn’t have the time to look into those options before moving here, so I have no experience with that  . By the way, if you go to the Canada forum on VJ, there is a thread dedicated to this topic, if I remember right. It was very helpful for me . I suggest you  read through it when you get some time before the move. Actually there is a lot of good information regarding different topics related to move from Canada on the Canada forum.

Best wishes for the move!

 

[Mike E 11,742]

58 minutes ago, Loren Y said:

 

5. I would love to know what law you are breaking by breaking a large transfer into smaller ones.

https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Structuring
 

In 1986, the U.S. Congress enacted section 5324 of Title 31 of the United States Code,^[5] which provides (in part):

No person shall, for the purpose of evading the reporting requirements of section 5313 (a) or 5325 or any regulation prescribed under any such section, the reporting or record keeping requirements imposed by any order issued under section 5326, or the record keeping requirements imposed by any regulation prescribed under section 21 of the Federal Deposit Insurance Act or section 123 of Public Law 91–508—[...] (3) structure or assist in structuring, or attempt to structure or assist in structuring, any transaction with one or more domestic financial institutions.
 

Btw I didn’t spent 5 hours in secondary.  I normally budget 3 hours for international flights, especially trans border flights because one has to go through preclearance in Canada.  The lines can be long.   The additional two hours was dealing with the money declarations for CBSA (including finding the landslide office) and CBP including waiting in CBP secondary.   

[nasse_forelle 4]

17 hours ago, mika__ said:

Hi everyone

 

 

I am moving to the USA to California near the end of November here on my IRI visa I just got recently. Ill be moving there from Canada.

 

 

My question is that I am completely  confused on how to go about doing is:

 

• How do I bring my funds with me to America? Im currently with RBC bank in Canada here and I dont know how to bring my money when I move. 

 

• I obviously dont have a bank down in California yet so when I cross the border to the USA do I open up a bank account down there asap and then wire transfer myself from my RBC bank (while im in the USA) all my money to my new bank ill have in America? (if I can do that?) Can I do that/should I do that?

 

• Should I leave my RBC bank account open/leave some money in there for awhile while im living in the USA?

 

 

Im curious to know what some of you did/experiences

any advice would be highly appreciated because I have no idea what to do in this area at all. (I have an appointment with my bank coming up but I just want some advice off here too)

 

Thanks!

Open a Revolut account .link to both Canadian and US bank accounts . Easy pieasy. 

[Damonlee 91]

21 hours ago, mika__ said:

Hi everyone

 

 

I am moving to the USA to California near the end of November here on my IRI visa I just got recently. Ill be moving there from Canada.

 

 

My question is that I am completely  confused on how to go about doing is:

 

• How do I bring my funds with me to America? Im currently with RBC bank in Canada here and I dont know how to bring my money when I move. 

 

• I obviously dont have a bank down in California yet so when I cross the border to the USA do I open up a bank account down there asap and then wire transfer myself from my RBC bank (while im in the USA) all my money to my new bank ill have in America? (if I can do that?) Can I do that/should I do that?

 

• Should I leave my RBC bank account open/leave some money in there for awhile while im living in the USA?

 

 

Im curious to know what some of you did/experiences

any advice would be highly appreciated because I have no idea what to do in this area at all. (I have an appointment with my bank coming up but I just want some advice off here too)

 

Thanks!

Hi there, from Canada, used to work in banking (I worked for TD). Since you bank with RBC, I’d suggest you go to your local branch or call RBC to open an cross border banking account with them. That will provide you with a US debit card, and access to transfer funds easily without any transfer fees. Once you arrive in the United States, should you choose to open an account with a US institution, at that point you can actually transfer those funds online from bank to bank. 
 

The only reason you would want to keep your Canadian RBC account open is if you still have Canadian bills to pay. Otherwise you could close it, or leave a little money in there for when you visit in the future you’ll have access to Canadian currency.

 

Best of luck, welcome to the United States (soon!), and please feel free to PM me if you have any other banking related questions.

 

Damon