Abstract: There is no exact answer to the question “How much cash can you keep at home legally in Canada”. The below article can help you to learn everything about storing cash.
Cash, alone, is not illegal. If you plan to study abroad or live in Canada, you will want to know exactly the rule of storing cash. You are wondering whether there are restrictions on the amount of cash. And this guide can help you to learn everything you need about preserving banknotes and find out the answer to this question “How much cash you can keep at home legally”
Abstract Article:
How much cash are you allowed to keep at home in Canada?
There is no such thing as keeping “too much cash” in Canada – the country has no limit on the amount of cash you can have in your home. As much as you want, the point is withdrawing or depositing more than $10,000 in cash into your bank account. Make sure that you have a safe location to store your money. Besides, you can also keep silver and gold in your home.
There is no legal limit on how much cash you can keep at home in Canada
In fact, there are some restrictions for bringing money into Canada and as a cash gift. However, there is no rule on how much cash you can store at home. It is legal to keep a large amount of cash for a long period of time as long as the source of these banknotes is listed on your tax return. There’s no limit to the amount of money, silver, and gold you can keep in your home. The important thing is how to store them properly.
Besides cash, which type of assets that you could store at home legally?
Obviously keeping cash at home comes with many risks – fire, flood, or theft. In order to keep your money safe, you can turn it into other assets such as gold and silver. Silver is good but quite bulky when its price is only $15/oz or so. Even if you only make a relatively small investment in silver, it gets heavy. You can buy a 100-oz silver bar (more than 3 kilos) for the amount of $1800.
If you have enough money to invest in “well-delivered” gold bars (400 oz in London, 100 oz in New York), you should keep them in approved stockpiles. You are allowed to store them in any place. However, when you want to sell them again, these types of assets are out of the approved custody. Remember that if the word gets out and you have a lot of gold in your home, there are all kinds of people who want to help you take care of it for longer.
What to do if the police arrest you if you keep too much cash at home in Canada?
As mentioned above, storing too much cash is not illegal in Canada. However, when the police find people who have large amounts of cash, they are naturally suspicious of the source of money. While there are many legitimate cash-based individuals, there are also some illegal cash-based ones.
Usually, if the police detect a person possessing drugs (even a small amount of drugs) and a large amount of money, they can arrest and charge this person who possesses drugs (for human trafficking) and ‘criminal possession’ due to money – the allegation is that the money inevitably comes from the drug trade.
If you are arrested because of keeping too much cash, you should hire a lawyer to help you fight in court
In some cases, the police will seize large amounts of money and accuse a person of “possessing the proceeds of crime”, even if they do not investigate any drugs or any other signs of crime. If this happens, most of you will want to hire a criminal defense attorney to help you fight in court. Or if you have not been charged with any crime, you should hire an attorney to help you file a claim in court asking for money back. Sometimes, The Criminal Code allows the police to seize your property, including cash, for up to 90 days even if no one has been charged with any crime. After 90 days, you can apply to the court to return the property.
Some frequently asked questions relating to keeping cash in Canada
Do we need to fill in any forms or documents for making large money transfers to Canada?
If you use a legitimate money transfer service provider, you will not need to provide any additional paperwork. The one main legal consideration when sending large amounts of cash is Anti-Money Laundering (AML) laws. However, your money transfer carrier will handle the required documents if you submit your identification for processing. As a general rule, you should keep all records and emails associated with money transfers in case you need them later.
If you travel to Canada with an amount of cash up to $10,000 CAD, you should report to the border service officer
If you are traveling into Canada and bring $10,000 CAD or more, you will need to report this to the authorized officer by using Form E311, CBSA declaration card, Automatic border kiosk, or main inspection kiosk. Or you can make a verbal report to the border service officer all your arrival.
Is it possible to circumvent the rules by splitting transfers into several small transactions?
Breaking down transactions into smaller amounts is known as “structuring” and considered a punishable violation when used to avoid a $10,000 CAD reporting threshold. Restructuring is something money collectors do to avoid detection. However, banks and other money transfer services are trained to detect this fraud and report it to FINTRAC.
Is it possible to break down transfers into several small transactions?
There is no legal limit to the amount of cash that you can keep at home in Canada. The important thing is how to secure your assets properly. Hope with the below information, you can clearly have the answer to the question “How much cash can you keep at home legally in Canada”.
