A Travel Document is a single-use visa that gets stuck in your passport and allows you to enter Canada without a PR card and it’s mainly used by the citizens of countries that need a visa to enter Canada. However, I’m a British citizen with a passport, so I don’t need a visa to enter Canada (for visiting, anyway). People on the British Expats forum say “if you’re British and think you need a Travel Document, you really don’t” and there are various personal experiences of people not requiring it or confusing immigration officials by being British and having one.
However, if we’re being technical, all returning permanent residents without PR cards do require a Travel Document. There can also be issues with airlines not allowing people to board their flight if they hold a one-way ticket but don’t have a PR card. The airline could face big costs if they have to send you back to the UK as Canada haven’t let you in.
Also, in our personal experience, the last time we visited Vancouver (after I had landed and activated my PR status, but we were just over for a holiday), the immigration officer at the “returning residents” line said that I should have got one.
Bearing all that in mind, I decided to get a Travel Document just to be on the safe side!
As usual, the form is on the CIC website – it’s fairly self-explanatory, although I had the additional step of explaining my new married name and passport number. Two bits were rather irritating though – I needed new passport photos taken and they wanted the originals of various important documents to be sent!
After thinking I had been so clever in getting extra photos the last time, this form requires a very slight difference in measurements:
We also needed to send our actual passports and marriage certificate – seems a bit silly when the actual permanent residency application just needed photocopies of things.
Since I applied for permanent residency, a new Canadian Visa Application Centre has opened in London and it does all the processing of applications. This added an extra form, so you consent to a third party dealing with your stuff. The Travel Document application cost £32, which was only payable by postal order (I suspect this may be the only time in my life I have to get a one!), plus they needed a pre-paid self-addressed Special Delivery Envelope.
So with fees and photos, the whole application has cost around £50 – if it all goes through okay, that’s a cheap price for peace of mind. On the other hand, I do now have seven working days of stressing about VFS losing our passports or marriage certificate!
