Canada Visitor Visa

Key parameters
Limit	6 months
Period / Window	Per visit
Counting	Any part of a day
Additional requirements	eTA or visa by nationality, no work

Two separate questions decide your position, and mixing them up is the usual source of confusion.

What you need to travel turns on nationality. Visa-exempt nationals flying to Canada need an electronic travel authorization (eTA), valid up to 5 years or until the passport expires. Visa-required nationals need a temporary resident visa applied for in advance. Arriving by land or sea, visa-exempt travelers generally need neither, though the visa requirement still applies to those who need one. United States citizens sit outside both requirements entirely, whichever way they travel.

How long you can stay is decided separately, at the border, by a Canada Border Services Agency officer. The default is 6 months, but the officer can grant less and will mark the passport accordingly. The rule that catches people is the opposite case: no stamp means 6 months from the day you entered, so an unstamped passport isn't open-ended — it's a six-month clock you have to track yourself.

Visitor status carries no right to work and no right to study beyond very short courses. Both require their own permits, applied for separately.

• An eTA's validity is not your stay limit. A five-year eTA lets you keep travelling for five years, each arrival still subject to a six-month admission decided at the border.
• A visitor record is not a visa. It extends how long you may stay, but it doesn't let you re-enter — if you leave Canada, you need your original eTA or visa to come back.
• Parents and grandparents can stay far longer. A super visa lets the parent or grandparent of a Canadian citizen or permanent resident stay up to 5 years per entry, extendable by up to 2 years from inside Canada. It carries its own medical and private health insurance conditions.
• Border officers can admit you for less than 6 months. A short admission is entirely within their discretion, and the date they write is the one that counts.

Staying past your authorised date ends your status, and every later application is assessed against a record that now shows non-compliance. Enforcement leads to a removal order — most often an exclusion order, barring return for 1 year from the date it is enforced, or 5 years where it was made for misrepresentation. Professional advice is strongly recommended in situations like this.

A visit with no stamp

You fly into Toronto on an eTA and the officer waves you through without stamping your passport. Nothing in your documents shows a date, but you're admitted until six months from that day, and it's on you to know when that falls.

Extending with a visitor record

Four months into a six-month stay you decide to stay longer. You apply for a visitor record about a month before your status expires, remain in Canada, and hold implied status while the application is decided.

An eTA misread as permission to stay

You hold a five-year eTA and assume it covers a long stay. It only covers repeated travel over those five years — each arrival still gets you six months at most, so a nine-month stay would put you out of status from month seven.

• Immigration, Refugees and Citizenship Canada — Visit Canada
• IRCC — Electronic Travel Authorization (eTA)
• IRCC — Extend your stay as a visitor