Coming Back to Canada With Your Own Bird: Why the Country You Are Returning From Decides Everything

Section 9 of the same document, which covers poultry, expressly excludes “songbirds and parrots referred to in section 13” from its certificate requirement, so this is not an oversight – it is a deliberate, narrower route built specifically for pet birds from the US.

Section 13 comes with conditions that are easy to miss:

• You must be the owner, and you must accompany the bird. A spouse, adult child or friend cannot bring your bird in under this section on your behalf.
• The declaration itself has three parts – for each bird, that it is your personal pet and not for sale; that it has not been in contact with other birds; and that it has been in your personal possession in Canada or the United States for the 90 days immediately preceding the date of entry.
• The 90-day clock runs to the date of entry, and the possession has to have been in Canada or the US specifically – time spent anywhere else does not count toward it.
• There is a household limit that is rarely published anywhere: no one in your household may have imported a bird under section 13 in the 90 days before your date of entry. In effect, this route allows roughly one pet bird per household per 90 days.

If you meet every one of those conditions, no permit and no health certificate are required for entry from the US – only the declaration. Worth checking: your specific bird and circumstances (ownership, accompaniment, 90-day possession, and household history) genuinely satisfy section 13 before you travel — we could not confirm this from an official source. Ask the Canadian Food Inspection Agency (1-800-442-2342) before you rely on it. An inspector who has reason to believe the bird is not in good health can refuse it entry, or, if it has already been admitted, order it removed from Canada or destroyed – so “no permit needed” is not the same as “no scrutiny at the border.”

If your route into Canada actually starts at the Canada-US land or air border, our companion piece on taking your bird across the Canada-US border walks through that crossing in more detail.

Two further points from the same document matter here:

• Part III states plainly that “the world is an undesignated area for regulated animals.” No country or region currently carries an equivalent-risk or low-risk designation that would soften this. Everywhere outside the United States is treated the same way for this purpose.
• The document contains no published quarantine requirement for pet parrots or songbirds – not under section 13, and not as a blanket rule for the 12(1)(a) route either. Where the document does require quarantine (for example, 30 days for swine, or quarantine from arrival for feeder calves), it says so explicitly, which makes its silence on pet birds meaningful rather than accidental. For anything arriving under a Ministerial permit, any quarantine would be set as a condition of that individual permit, case by case – not as a published standard length you can plan around in advance. Worth checking: whether a quarantine condition, and its length, would apply to your specific permit — we could not confirm this from an official source. Ask the Canadian Food Inspection Agency before you rely on it.

Neither a processing time nor an application fee for a 12(1)(a) Ministerial permit is published in a form we can quote here with confidence. Worth checking: current processing time and fee for a paragraph 12(1)(a) Ministerial import permit for a pet parrot or songbird — we could not confirm this from an official source. Ask the Canadian Food Inspection Agency before you rely on it. Build in a wide margin before you book a flight home with a bird that needs this route. If Part III of the document leaves you wondering whether the general import rules apply to your bird at all, our plain-English walkthrough of bringing a pet bird into Canada covers the CFIA side in more depth.

This is where a genuinely common assumption goes wrong. ECCC’s Certificate of Ownership looks, on its face, like the document for “my bird is coming home.” It is not. Its stated purposes are vacation, exhibition or show, living part of the year in another country, or other short-term round trips – and the form says outright: if you are moving, you need the application for import, export or re-export of live animals instead. The Certificate of Ownership is a round-trip document for a bird that goes out and comes back to the same owner in the same country; it is not built for a one-way relocation in either direction.

Which export or import form you actually need also depends on something that trips people up: your bird’s origin, not its destination. ECCC’s own form index specifies that the standard export application is for animals of Canadian origin, and that a re-export form is required for animals of foreign origin. If your bird was bred or hatched outside Canada, which is common, then an owner moving a CITES-listed bird – in either direction – need the re-export form rather than the export one. Getting this wrong is a common way to lose weeks.

A few more details worth knowing before you start:

• ECCC states a period of 40 days may be required to review a Certificate of Ownership application, and that this clock only starts once every required document has been received – an incomplete application pauses, it does not queue.
• Identification is a hard prerequisite. If your bird has no leg band, microchip or tattoo, ECCC states it cannot proceed with the assessment at all.
• For a captive-bred bird, the application asks for genealogy back to the second captive-born generation – parents and grandparents, named and identified – plus breeder details.
• The application forms are fillable PDFs meant to be downloaded and completed in Adobe Reader. ECCC warns that many phones and tablets cannot open them properly, even with the app installed – worth knowing before you try to sort this out from an airport lounge.

If you exported your bird from Canada under a CITES permit when you first left, our guide to moving abroad with a pet bird covers that outbound side and is worth reading alongside this one so the two permits line up correctly.

Once your bird does land in Canada, if you are still mid-move, unsettled into permanent housing, or simply not ready the day it arrives, boarding is worth planning for in advance rather than scrambling for it at the last minute.

Bird Sitting Toronto boards birds in the Greater Toronto Area, with daily update videos in the BST Mobile App, but it does not file permits, complete CITES applications, or act on your behalf with CFIA or ECCC – the border and permitting side of this is entirely on you and the relevant agency. For a stay measured in weeks or months rather than days, the rate per day drops, and the discount is already factored into your quote: as of this writing, medium birds (conures, cockatiels, Quakers) start at $19.75 a day, and large birds (caiques, ringnecks, pionus) at $24.75 a day – rates current at time of writing, check /pricing/ for today’s.

My Bird Has Flown To The US And Back Before With No Issues – Will It Be The Same This Time?

Only if the same conditions are met every time: you accompany the bird, you are the owner, the 90-day possession clock is satisfied on this date of entry, and no one in your household has used the section 13 route in the preceding 90 days. Each crossing is assessed on its own facts, not on your bird’s travel history. Worth checking: current eligibility for your specific trip — we could not confirm this from an official source. Ask the Canadian Food Inspection Agency before you rely on it.

Can My Partner Bring The Bird Home If I Can’t Travel With It?

Under section 13, no. The provision requires the owner to accompany the bird – it is not transferable to another household member, even one you trust completely with the bird’s care.

Do I Need A Certificate Of Ownership To Bring My Bird Home?

Only if this is genuinely a round trip – vacation, a show, or time living part of the year abroad with the same owner returning with the same bird. ECCC’s own form states plainly that if you are moving, you need the import, export or re-export application instead, not the Certificate of Ownership.

Is There A Quarantine When My Bird Comes Back From Outside The US?

The Import Reference Document does not publish a blanket quarantine period for pet parrots or songbirds. For a bird arriving under a paragraph 12(1)(a) Ministerial permit, any quarantine would be set as a condition of that specific permit rather than a fixed rule you can look up in advance. Worth checking: whether your permit will carry a quarantine condition, and for how long — we could not confirm this from an official source. Ask the Canadian Food Inspection Agency before you rely on it.

What If My Bird Is A Species Like An African Grey – Does That Change Things?

It adds a second, separate process. Alongside whichever Health of Animals Regulations route applies to your country of departure, an Appendix I species like the African grey also needs the correct CITES paperwork through ECCC – and for a one-way move, that is the export or re-export application, not the Certificate of Ownership.

How Long Should I Expect This To Take?

ECCC states a Certificate of Ownership review may take up to 40 days once a complete application is received, but no confirmed processing time exists here for a Ministerial import permit or a CITES export/re-export application. Worth checking: current processing times for a paragraph 12(1)(a) import permit and for CITES export/re-export applications — we could not confirm this from an official source. Ask Environment and Climate Change Canada (1-855-869-8670 or cites@ec.gc.ca) before you rely on it. Start earlier than you think you need to.

Every number below was checked against the agency’s own website on 27 July 2026. Government phone numbers and web pages still change without notice. If one does not connect, find the agency through its own official site rather than trusting what is printed here.

• Canadian Food Inspection Agency (CFIA) — import and export of live birds, health certificates, permits: 1-800-442-2342 from Canada and the US, or 1-613-773-2342 local and international, 8 am to 7 pm EST Monday to Friday except holidays. CFIA names services related to travelling with pets as something its area offices handle — for the GTA that is the Mississauga animal health office, 289-247-4100, 8 am to 4 pm
  · inspection.canada.ca
• Environment and Climate Change Canada — CITES permitting — export and import permits for CITES-listed species, and what documents exist for repeat crossings:
  1-855-869-8670
  · cites@ec.gc.ca
• Canada Border Services Agency — what happens at the border itself, declarations and inspection fees: 1-800-461-9999, Monday to Friday 8 am to 4 pm local time. Press 0 to reach an agent; CBSA’s published service standard is to answer within 20 minutes
• USDA APHIS — the US pet-travel hub, with separate paths for import, export and interstate movement, and the list of which birds count as pets at all:
  aphis.usda.gov/pet-travel
• US Fish & Wildlife Service — CITES and Wild Bird Conservation Act permits, applied for through the ePermits portal at fws.gov/permits. The agency contact centre is 1-800-344-9453
  · info@fws.gov

There are two things we can do. If your bird cannot travel with you — because the paperwork is still in progress, the airline will not carry it, or the timing simply does not work — we can board your bird in the GTA for as long as you need, including by the month. And if it becomes clear the bird genuinely cannot come with you, we can help you rehome it to a good home rather than leaving you to sort that out alone.

We publish this guide because our boarding clients ask us about it constantly, and because the answer is genuinely hard to assemble from the primary sources.

• 27 July 2026 — We had listed 1-800-358-2104 as the US Fish & Wildlife Service Office of Law Enforcement number. That number is widely repeated online but does not appear anywhere on the current fws.gov, so we have replaced it with the contact route the agency does publish — the ePermits portal and its agency contact centre. Every other number in that section was re-checked against the agency’s own website the same day, and CBSA’s border information line has been added.
• 27 July 2026 — We wrote that most pet parrots kept in Canada were bred or hatched elsewhere, and used that to steer readers toward the re-export form. We have not sourced any such figure, so the sentence is now conditional on your own bird’s origin rather than on an assumed majority.