How Much Cash Can I Fly With?

You can fly with any amount of cash, but more than $10,000 crossing the U.S. border must be reported to CBP on FinCEN Form 105 — the total for your whole family. Canada: declare CAN$10,000 or more. Coming home, a U.S. resident gets $800 duty-free after 48 hours away.

How to use it

Choose Cash or Duty-free coming home. For cash, pick the trip and type what all of you carry together, in dollars (Canadian dollars on a Canadian route). For duty-free, pick the country you live in and return to, how long you were away and from where, then what you bought, the alcohol and the tobacco. The answer quotes the law and the border agency, each linked to its page.

Cash: the rule, in the law’s words

31 CFR 1010.340: a report is due for “currency or other monetary instruments in an aggregate amount exceeding $10,000 at one time from the United States to any place outside the United States, or into the United States from any place outside the United States, shall make a report thereof.” CBP: “Federal law mandates that when entering or leaving the United States you must report amounts exceeding $10,000 to U.S. Customs and Border Protection (CBP).” And “When families or groups are involved, the $10,000 threshold applies to the total amount they are carrying or sending collectively, not per individual.”

Canada, from the CBSA: “There are no restrictions on the amount of money you can bring into or take out of Canada, nor is it illegal to do so.” “However, any time you cross the border, you must declare any currency or monetary instruments you have in your possession that are valued at CAN$10,000 or more.”

Duty-free allowances at a glance

The U.S. conditions, from CBP: “You are returning from an overseas stay of at least 48 hours. This time limit does not apply if you are returning from Mexico or from the U.S. Virgin Islands.” “You have not used all of your exemption allowance, or used any part of it, in the past 30 days.” When the $800 does not apply, 19 CFR 148.51: “The exemption shall be allowed only when the aggregate fair retail value of all articles not otherwise entitled to an exemption does not exceed $200.”

Worked examples

A family of four flying to Europe with $3,000 each. $12,000 together is more than $10,000: report it, on one FinCEN Form 105.

Back from Italy after a week with $950 of shopping and 2 liters of wine. Declare it: over your $800 duty-free exemption — by $150 in goods and 1 liter of wine.

A day in Tijuana, $150 of shopping. The 48 hours do not apply to Mexico: Duty-free: $150 of your $800 exemption.

A weekend in Buffalo, back to Toronto with CAN$250 of clothes. No exemption: over CAN$200, duty and taxes on the whole amount — the 48-hour exemption needs 48 hours.

Common mistakes

• Counting per person. Cash is counted for the whole family together; duty-free exemptions are each person’s own, and the CBSA says “You cannot combine your personal exemptions with another person’s or transfer them to someone else.”
• Splitting $12,000 between two bags. The rule is the total “at one time”, however it is carried.
• Thinking duty-free shop goods are duty-free at home. CBP: “Goods purchased in a duty free shop are not automatically free of duty upon your return to the U.S.”
• Going over $200 on a short trip. Under the $200 rule, one dollar over makes all of it dutiable: “No article accompanying a person arriving in the United States will be exempted from duty or internal revenue tax under section 321(a)(2)(B), Tariff Act of 1930, as amended, if any article accompanying such person is subject to duty or tax”.

Plan the trip

Read international travel tips, Canadian and U.S. dollars compared, what is cheaper in Canada and things to do in Cancún. Then check what TSA lets through security, driving across the border, the border wait now and tipping abroad.