Cross-border
Flying and teaching across the border
The US and Canada recognize a lot of each other's aviation paperwork and almost none of each other's immigration paperwork. What you can do on the other side depends mostly on your citizenship, so there's a guide for each. Pick yours; each one covers both the student side and the instructor side.
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Canadian citizens
Training or teaching in the US: TSA clearance, visitor-status limits, and what your Canadian paper is worth down south.
Read it →🇺🇸
American citizens
Training or teaching in Canada: study permits, flight training units, and what your FAA paper is worth up north.
Read it →🇨🇦🇺🇸
Dual citizens
The immigration layer disappears for you. The licences, medicals, and instructor ratings don't.
Read it →The one idea behind all three
Four different systems have an opinion about you, and they don't talk to each other. Aviation authorities (FAA, Transport Canada) care about your certificates and will convert most of them. Security screening (TSA's Flight Training Security Program) cares about your citizenship, not where you live. Immigration (CBP, IRCC) cares about why you're in the country and whether training counts as study or work. And the aircraft registry decides whose rules apply in the cockpit: an N-registered aircraft follows FAA rules and a C-registered one follows Canadian rules, whichever side of the border it's parked on. Clearing one system does nothing for the others, which is where most of the surprises in these guides come from.