Posted on January 24
8 mins to read

Transporting your Car to Florida

Featured

Many Canadians choose to spend all or part of the cold winter months south of the border in sunny Florida. Known as snowbirds these seasonal travellers take advantage of our US neighbour’s sunny, warm climate during Canada’s cold winter months. Safe Auto Canada provides a premium car shipping service from all destinations in Canada to the USA including Florida, Arizona, Texas and others. Our simple straightforward guide will tell you everything you need to know when transporting your car to Florida.

Open Transport VS Enclosed Transport

Transporting your car to Florida with Safe Auto Canada is the fastest and safest way to move your vehicle from point-to-point in North America. When driving to Florida you can make it in as little as 23 hours without stops. But you’re human and that simply isn’t time or cost effective. Driving 8 hours a day it will take you 3 days of driving minimum, the cost of hotels, as well as the cost of fuel and food. Safe Auto has several teams of skilled drivers along with a fleet of enclosed transport haulers to take your vehicle securely to the destination of your choice. Enclosed car transport ensures that your car is not submitted to the elements while in transit.

Open Carriers expose your vehicle to the elements for the duration of its trip. While less expensive they may expose your vehicle to elects you don’t want it to come into contact with, such as dirt, rocks, ice snow and road debris. Open Carriers also load and secure cars very differently than our custom enclose trailers. An Open Carrier requires the driver to drive up a series of ramps to load your vehicle. Our custom enclosed trailers use a hydraulic lift to lift the vehicle into position, then are driven straight on. This is especially helpful for lowered and sports cars but is safer for any car being loaded.

Documentation

Once you have chosen Safe Auto to transport your vehicle over the border, you will require documentation to do so. Working with us and our associated customs brokers will help you get all of your documents in order for the American Border as well as the Canadian Border for returning clients. Both borders have their own unique requirements for crossing.

Here is a list of the required paperwork to transport a vehicle over the border:

-A complete Customs and Border Patrol (CBP) form 3299

-A photocopy of the vehicle registration

-A copy of the vehicle owners drivers licence and passport

-A signed letter of permission allowing our carrier to move the vehicle on your behalf

-Proof of current Canadian residence with a copy of a recent bill including your full name and address.

-Proof of commercial flight or other details to meet the vehicle once it and you arrive

The 3299 form heads up the border package for every vehicle. It will list the vehicle, including any and all items inside of the vehicle being transported. Perhaps you are going to Florida for 4-6+ months and would like to bring clothing or luggage with other personal affects. This is absolutely allowed, and can be convenient when travelling by plane as it is one less additional piece to concern yourself with. It is imperative that you list all items being placed into the vehicle on the 3299 for border security. And please, do not attempt to transport any firearms, explosives, drugs or WMDs over the border. Failure to be truthful or complete with your reporting can result in your vehicle being impounded or denied entry.

How long are you allowed to stay in the USA?

As a Canadian resident you are allowed temporary US residence of less than 1 year.

Now what?

At this point you are probably asking yourself, what do I do next? Where do I find these forms and how do I guarantee I have completed the border crossing package correctly? Simply call us or email us and we’ll take care of everything.

https://safe-auto.ca/contact/

Vehicle Preparation

Please make sure your vehicle is clean before pickup. When we arrive we will take pictures of the entire car as well as any damage, scratches, chips etc that may exist. This will be time and geo stamped and act as our Bill of Lading for the car. On delivery we will repeat this process. This ensures that the car you receive is in the exact shape it was when we picked it up. Also its a good idea to have a look through the car to make sure there is nothing inside that you don’t remember in it. Let’s remember that it is crossing an international border.