Bringing Food into Canada from the United States 

These days, many airlines offer less in terms of meals on flights, making it a bit more common for people to pack snacks or a lunch. 

Here are some tricks for bringing fruit and vegetables across the Canadian border. 

1. Declare that you have food on the declaration form. Failing to do so is lying and can get you into more trouble including delays, fines or more. 

2. Wash your fruit and vegetables so that there is no soil, pests, leaves, branches and/or plant debris left. However, be sure to keep the sticker on your fruit as this identifies where the fruit is from. There are some restrictions on some fresh fruit and vegetables from California, Idaho, Oregon, and Washington. 

3. Cut up your fruit. The main concern is that you are bringing an insect in your fruit. If the fruit is cut up then you would likely notice if a worm is in there. 

4. You are allowed up to 15 packages weighing no more than 250 kilograms of fresh fruits and vegetables per person (excluding potatoes). You are allowed to bring one bag up to 4 kilograms of US number 1 potatoes (per traveller) and you must keep the potatoes in their original commercial packaging. 

5. Note that British Columbia (BC) has some restrictions on fresh apples, stone fruit (plums, cherries, peaches, etc.) and potatoes. 

To be 100% certain of what food you are allowed to bring into the country, use the Government of Canada’s Automated Import Reference System (AIRS).