Students and Work-Permit Holders in Canada: Your Bird and Your Status

If you’re in Canada on a study or work permit and wondering whether that status changes what your bird needs at the border, here’s the correction to make first: it doesn’t. Section 13(1) of the CFIA Import Reference Document — incorporated by reference into the Health of Animals Regulations — lists exactly what’s required to bring a pet parrot or pet song bird into Canada, and your immigration status is not on that list. What decides your bird’s route is where the bird is travelling from, not what visa you’re holding.

What section 13(1) actually asks for

Section 13(1) sets out conditions under which “a person may import” a pet bird of the parrot family or a pet song bird. Read closely, it asks for four things: the person importing the bird must be its owner, must be accompanying the bird, must make a declaration to a Customs Officer at the place of entry, and must meet a 90-day possession requirement and a household limit (both covered below). Nowhere in that list is a question about the owner’s immigration status. A study permit, a work permit, a visitor record — none of it appears in the clause. That’s worth stating plainly because most people assume otherwise, and act on that assumption instead of on the text.

The split that matters: the United States, and everywhere else

Section 13 applies only to imports from the United States. If your bird is arriving from anywhere else — and for a large share of this audience, that’s exactly the case: India, Nigeria, the Philippines, China, Brazil, Pakistan — section 13 doesn’t apply to it at all. Section 13(3) routes that bird instead to paragraph 12(1)(a) of the Health of Animals Regulations: a Ministerial import permit, with conditions set case by case rather than published as a blanket rule. That means nobody — us included — can tell you in advance what your permit will say, how long it will take, or whether it will be granted. Our guide to bringing a bird to Canada from outside the US walks through that route in more detail, and our complete CFIA import guide covers both paths side by side.

The 90-day possession limb (and why flying through the US doesn’t fix it)

Even for a bird that does qualify under section 13, the declaration must state that the bird “has been in the owner’s personal possession in Canada or the United States for the 90 days immediately preceding the date of entry.” Read that limb carefully: it’s not 90 days of ownership generally, it’s 90 days of possession specifically in Canada or the US.

A student who has owned their bird for five years back home has not met that limb, because the possession wasn’t in Canada or the US — no matter how long the ownership has been. And routing the bird through the United States on the way in doesn’t convert it into a section 13 pet bird either: the clause asks where the bird was possessed for the 90 days before entry, not which country the flight happened to connect through. If your bird’s 90 days of possession weren’t in Canada or the US, section 13 isn’t your route, and paragraph 12(1)(a) is.

The household limit, and a question we can’t answer for shared housing

Section 13 also caps how often a household can use this route: no member of the importer’s household may have imported a bird under section 13 during the 90 days immediately preceding entry, “or since hatching.” In practice, that’s roughly one bird per household per 90-day window by this route.

Here’s what we genuinely can’t answer: students very commonly live in shared housing with roommates who aren’t family. Whether a shared house of unrelated tenants counts as one “household” for this clause, or whether each tenancy is treated separately, isn’t something we can resolve from the text. Don’t guess in either direction on this one — ask the CFIA number at the bottom of this page before you rely on an assumption. A wrong guess here is a refusal at the border, not a paperwork inconvenience.

Two fees that share a number

Two different agencies charge two different fees, and one of the numbers is identical — which is exactly the kind of coincidence that leads people to think they’ve paid once when they’ve actually paid for something else.

Fee	Amount	What it actually covers
CFIA import permit application fee	$43.12 single use / $73.90 multiple use	Consideration of a paragraph 12(1)(a) import permit application — not approval, and not a preview of what conditions the permit will carry
CBSA border inspection fee	$43.12 first animal + $7.38 each additional animal (fee code 1050, “Other: individual animals not elsewhere mentioned”)	Inspection at the border

The $43.12 CFIA fee buys consideration of your application, nothing more. The $43.12 CBSA fee is a completely separate charge for the border inspection itself. Depending on your route, both can be payable. Both figures re-index on 31 March each year under CFIA’s Fees Notice and CBSA’s fee schedule, so treat what’s above as a snapshot and confirm the current amount before you budget or pay.

Getting your bird back out is the part everyone forgets

A study or work permit ends. That’s the whole reason this article exists, and it’s the section most guidance on this topic skips entirely.

If your bird is CITES-listed, leaving Canada again requires an Environment and Climate Change Canada (ECCC) permit — but check which one, because there are two. ECCC’s own form index describes the export application as being for live animals of Canadian origin, and directs owners of foreign-origin animals to the re-export form instead. A bird you brought into Canada from abroad is foreign-origin, so most readers in this situation need the re-export form, not the export form. Our species-by-species CITES lookup is the place to check whether your bird is listed at all before you go further.

Timing has a genuine conflict worth naming rather than smoothing over: ECCC’s published service standard commits to a decision within 35 calendar days for this permit category, but ECCC’s own application form page separately states that a period of 40 days may be required. We’re not going to pick one for you — plan on the longer figure, 40 days, and treat 35 as the floor rather than the ceiling. Two mechanics matter alongside those numbers: the clock starts when ECCC receives the application, not when you mail it, and if the application is incomplete, ECCC doesn’t just queue it behind others — the time limit pauses entirely until the missing information arrives. A permit application submitted with a gap in it can sit for far longer than 40 days through no fault of the published standard.

Two more things lose shipments if they’re missed. First, the permit has to be validated by a CBSA officer at the point of exit, at box 17 on the form — this is a condition of the permit, not a formality. Second, ECCC issues no retroactive permits: if your bird leaves without one, you cannot apply for one afterward to cover a departure that’s already happened. Put together, a bird brought into Canada on a temporary permit can be the hardest thing to take home again — and the time to learn that is before the flight in, not the flight out.

Two things we won’t soften

First: under section 13 of the Import Reference Document, if an inspector has reason to believe a bird is not in good health, they may refuse it admission — or, if it has already been admitted, order it removed from Canada or destroyed. That power sits on the inspector’s judgment about health at the time, not on a test result alone.

Second: you may see a “45-day quarantine” figure circulating for pet birds entering Canada. We’re not repeating it, because the Import Reference Document contains no quarantine requirement for pet parrots or pet song birds. The same document specifies quarantine explicitly where it does apply elsewhere — 30 days for swine under section 7, quarantine from arrival for feeder calves under section 17 — which makes the silence on pet birds look deliberate rather than incomplete. If your bird is on the paragraph 12(1)(a) route, any quarantine would be a condition set in that individual permit, not a published blanket rule, so it’s worth confirming directly rather than assuming either way.

Where boarding actually fits — and where it honestly doesn’t

We’ll say the unflattering part first: if your bird is on the paragraph 12(1)(a) route and you’re here on a two-year permit, the honest answer is often to leave the bird at home with family and not move it twice. That doesn’t sell anything, but it’s true more often than not for this audience.

Boarding is genuinely relevant in one narrower case: a bird already in Canada whose owner is between housing, or whose permit is ending and who needs somewhere stable for the bird to live while a CITES re-export application runs its 35-to-40-day window. That’s the situation our long-term boarding guide is written for. To be clear about what we don’t do: Bird Sitting Toronto doesn’t file permits, complete applications, liaise with CFIA, ECCC or CBSA on your behalf, or give immigration advice. We board birds; we don’t move them across borders or make an application succeed.

What we can’t answer for you

• Whether unrelated roommates in shared student housing count as one “household” for the section 13 limit — Unconfirmed: we could not verify this against an official source — specifically, how CFIA defines “household” for shared/unrelated tenancies under section 13. Please confirm with the Canadian Food Inspection Agency at 1-800-442-2342 before you rely on it for your own bird.
• How long a paragraph 12(1)(a) import permit application actually takes to process — Unconfirmed: we could not verify this against an official source — specifically, typical processing time for a paragraph 12(1)(a) Ministerial import permit. Please confirm with the Canadian Food Inspection Agency at 1-800-442-2342 before you rely on it for your own bird.
• What conditions a temporary resident’s paragraph 12(1)(a) permit typically carries, including whether quarantine is imposed — Unconfirmed: we could not verify this against an official source — specifically, typical conditions attached to a paragraph 12(1)(a) permit for a pet bird, including any quarantine condition. Please confirm with the Canadian Food Inspection Agency at 1-800-442-2342 before you rely on it for your own bird.

We have no source for any of these three and won’t fill the gaps with a guess. Ask CFIA directly using the number at the bottom of this page.

Frequently asked questions

Does my student or work permit type change the paperwork my bird needs?

No. Section 13(1) of the Import Reference Document lists the conditions for bringing a pet parrot or song bird into Canada from the US, and immigration status isn’t one of them. What decides your route is where the bird is travelling from.

My bird is coming from outside the United States. Does section 13 apply to it?

No. Section 13 covers imports from the United States only. A bird arriving from anywhere else falls under paragraph 12(1)(a) of the Health of Animals Regulations, a Ministerial permit with conditions set case by case.

If I fly my bird through the US on the way to Canada, does that make it a section 13 bird?

No. Section 13 asks where the bird was possessed for the 90 days before entry, not which country the connecting flight passed through. A bird that hasn’t spent that 90 days in Canada or the US doesn’t meet the possession limb regardless of routing.

Can two roommates in the same house each bring in a bird under section 13?

We can’t say. The clause limits imports to one per “household” in a 90-day window, but whether unrelated roommates count as one household or separate ones isn’t something the text resolves. Confirm with CFIA before relying on either assumption.

Will my bird be quarantined when it enters Canada?

The Import Reference Document has no published quarantine requirement for pet parrots or song birds, unlike swine or feeder calves, which it does quarantine explicitly. If your bird is on the paragraph 12(1)(a) permit route, any quarantine would be a condition of that specific permit rather than a blanket rule, so it’s worth confirming directly.

Do I need a different CITES form to take my bird out of Canada than the one I needed to bring it in?

Likely yes. ECCC’s export form is for animals of Canadian origin; a bird brought in from abroad is foreign-origin, so most readers in this situation need the re-export form instead.

How much time should I leave for the CITES permit before my permit expires?

Plan on 40 days rather than the 35-day service standard, since ECCC’s own form page states 40 days may be required. The clock only starts once ECCC receives a complete application — an incomplete one pauses the clock until it’s fixed.

Can Bird Sitting Toronto handle my import or export permit for me?

No. We board birds and help with rehoming when a bird genuinely can’t travel. We don’t file permits, liaise with CFIA, ECCC or CBSA, or give immigration advice.

If your permit is ending and your bird needs somewhere stable to stay while a CITES re-export application is processed, or you’re between housing during a move, that’s the situation our boarding is actually built for — get a quote here.

Related guides in this series

• Importing a Pet Bird to Canada: The Complete CFIA Guide (2026)
• Moving Abroad and You Can’t Take Your Bird: Board, Rehome, or Wait
• Long-Term Bird Boarding While You Relocate: 30, 60 and 90+ Days
• Taking Your Bird from Canada to the United States: Driving vs Flying
• Bringing a Pet Bird to Canada From Outside the US: Why You Need a Permit
• The CFIA Import Permit for a Pet Bird: How to Apply and What to Expect

Who to call before you travel

Confirm every requirement below with the agency itself. These are the people who
can actually authorise your bird’s movement — we cannot.

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

What we can and cannot help with

We cannot help with paperwork. Bird Sitting Toronto is a bird
boarding and care business. We are not a customs broker, an immigration consultant, a
veterinary practice or a legal adviser. We do not file permits, complete applications or
deal with any agency on your behalf, and we cannot guarantee any outcome at any border.
Everything on this page is information only.

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.