Canada eTA Application Form: Every Field Explained

The short answer: four things decide whether your eTA works, and everything else on the form is routine. Get the passport number exactly right, character for character. Pick the country code that is printed on your passport rather than the one you would guess — Germany is D, not DEU. Type your email address correctly, because every message about your application goes there and nowhere else. And finish the form in one sitting with everything already on the desk, because nothing is saved and the session expires. None of the four can be corrected after you pay.

If you want the list of what to gather before you start, that is our first Canada eTA application checklist. If you have already submitted and something was wrong, start with a Canada eTA with the wrong passport number.

The rest of this page is the long version: the form as you actually see it, every screen in order, every field, the exact wording IRCC puts on the page and what that wording is asking for. Quoted text below is the official label or help text from the application itself.

Before anything: the clock is running

The form is not a document you fill in at your own pace. IRCC says it on the page before you start, and it is the single most underestimated sentence in the whole process:

Your information can’t be saved. You have limited time to complete the form.

There is no draft, no save button, no “come back tomorrow”. If you stop to look for your employer’s address, or go hunting for the passport, or take a phone call, the session expires. And when it expires, everything you typed is gone — not the last screen, all of it. You start again from the first question.

The cruelty of it is the timing. Nothing warns you at the moment you lose the work. You keep filling in screens, reach the payment page at the end, and only there does it refuse to go through — because the session behind it died while you were typing. All that careful work with passport numbers and dates, and you are back at screen one with nothing.

Two defences, both from IRCC’s own text:

Watch for the timeout box. “However, you can extend your session if you need a few more minutes. When the ‘Session timeout warning’ box appears, click the ‘Continue session’ button.” That box is the only warning you get. If you have walked away from the screen, you will miss it.

Have everything in front of you before you open the form. Passport open to the photo page, card out of your wallet, employer or school name and address, your full home address, and the dates. Do not start the form and then go looking for something.

And set the time aside properly. Fifteen undisturbed minutes, phone down, not five minutes before you have to be somewhere. Beyond the wasted effort, a string of started-and-abandoned attempts against the same passport is the kind of pattern automated checks notice — and an application pulled out of the automatic stream for a human to look at takes days rather than minutes.

There is a second, separate clock at the end. The fee summary page states: “If you take longer than 20 minutes, you will be signed out of your account.” So the payment screen has its own twenty-minute window — which is why the card needs to be on the desk, not in another room.

This is covered in full, including what to do when it happens to you, in what happens when the eTA form times out.

The other thing you cannot undo

Your answers are attached to the passport number you type in. The eTA is not a document you carry — it is an electronic record linked to that one passport. If the number is wrong by one character, the eTA exists, your money is spent, and at check-in the airline scans your real passport and finds nothing attached to it.

There is no correction procedure. The fix is to apply again, correctly, and pay again. So the passport number and the date fields deserve more of your attention than everything else on the form combined.

Getting to the form: four pages you have to pass first

The application form is not linked directly from the eTA landing page. IRCC puts three information pages between you and it, and each one carries a rule that matters once you are inside.

Page 1 — “Electronic travel authorization (eTA): How to apply.” This is where IRCC states the price plainly: “This is the Government of Canada’s official website to apply for an eTA. It only costs CAN$7.” The page also lists what you need before you start: a valid passport from a visa-exempt country or territory, a valid email address, and one of the accepted payment methods for the $7 CAD fee, which is non-refundable — Visa, Mastercard, American Express, a pre-paid Visa, Mastercard or American Express, Visa Debit or Debit Mastercard, UnionPay, or JCB.

Two eligibility notes live on this page and are easy to miss. As of May 26, 2026, some citizens of Indonesia and Malaysia may be eligible to apply for an eTA instead of a visitor visa for air travel to Canada; if you already hold a valid visitor visa, you can keep using it until it expires. And since April 26, 2022, lawful permanent residents of the United States are exempt from the eTA requirement altogether.

Page 2 — “Important reminders.” This is the page people skip, and it is the most useful one on the whole path. Five of its points change how you should approach the form:

• One person at a time. “You can only apply and pay for one person at a time. For example, for a family of three, you will need to complete and submit the form three times.” Three forms, three payments, three separate eTAs.
• An eTA does not allow you to work or study in Canada. Most people need a work permit or a study permit. If IRCC approves one, it issues the eTA automatically — you do not apply separately.
• Print your receipt. “Make sure you print your receipt right away. You won’t be able to print it later or receive a copy of it.” This is the single most consequential sentence on the page, and it applies to the Transaction Approved screen described further down.
• Email updates and approval. “You will hear from us by email only. Check your junk mail folder.” There is no portal that tells you the outcome, no SMS, no letter.
• Your information cannot be saved. The form has no draft and no save button. “You have limited time to complete the form. However, you can extend your session if you need a few more minutes. When the ‘Session timeout warning’ box appears, click the ‘Continue session’ button.” Gather everything before you begin, because a timeout costs you the whole form.

Page 3 — “Final instructions to apply for an eTA.” A two-question wizard. First: “I’m applying for an eTA with a passport issued by:” — Austria, France, Mexico, or Another country. Then: “What do you plan to do in Canada?” — visit as a tourist or visit family, transit through Canada by air, attend a meeting or conference, study, or work. Your answers do not go into the application; they only select which instructions IRCC shows you next.

What it shows is worth reading, because it is the only place IRCC explains how to read a passport number:

• Use the number at the top of the passport information page — the page with your photo. Not the number on the first page, and not the number at the bottom of the photo page.
• “Most passport numbers are 6 to 9 characters long. If the number you plan to enter is much shorter or longer than this, check that you are using the right number.” Austrian passports are usually 8 characters — one letter and seven numbers. French passports are usually 9.
• “Be extra careful with the letter O and the number 0, and the letter I and the number 1.”
• No special characters, no hyphens, no spaces. Include any preceding characters.
• For the country code, look on the same page for the field named “Code,” “Issuing country” or “Authority.” IRCC’s own warning: “Some countries have multiple options and some codes are very similar.”

And the reason all of this is on a page of its own: “If you enter the wrong passport number OR country code, you may not be able to board your flight to Canada. You may only find out at the airport if you made a mistake. You’ll have to reapply for an eTA at the airport. Depending on your situation, it may not be possible to get an eTA at the last minute.”

IRCC also publishes a full help guide as a PDF in 20 languages from this page — Arabic, Bulgarian, Chinese (simplified and traditional), Dutch, English, Filipino, French, German, Greek, Hungarian, Italian, Japanese, Korean, Polish, Portuguese, Portuguese (Brazil), Romanian, Spanish and Thai. The form itself is only in English and French.

Page 4 is the form. Everything below is inside it.

Screen 1: Are you applying on behalf of someone?

The very first page is titled “Application for an Electronic Travel Authorization (eTA)” and asks one question:

Are you applying on behalf of someone? (required)

The dropdown offers exactly two answers: Yes and No. This is not a formality and it is not asking who is typing. It sets who IRCC treats as the applicant and who they contact.

The help button on this question defines what IRCC means by a representative:

A person who has the permission of someone wanting to travel or immigrate to Canada to conduct business with IRCC on their behalf. The representative can be paid or unpaid. When someone appoints a representative, they may also authorize IRCC to share information from their case file with this person.

Note paid or unpaid. A family member doing it for free is a representative in the same sense as a professional one.

• Answer no if you are applying for yourself, even if a relative is sitting next to you helping. The person whose passport is being used is the applicant.
• Answer yes if you are filling the form in for someone else — a child, a parent, a spouse who does not use a computer, or a client if you do this professionally. You will then be asked for your own details as the representative.

Parents applying for a child answer yes. Every child needs their own separate eTA, including infants, and it is linked to the passport of that child — you cannot add a child to an adult application.

Screen 2: Your travel document

Before it asks for any personal detail, the form establishes what document you are travelling on.

What travel document do you plan to use to travel to Canada? (required)

The dropdown offers nine document types, and the help button on this question defines each one:

The distinction between official and service is the one people get stuck on, and the help text resolves it in the plainest possible way: look at the front cover of the passport and use the word printed there.

Choose the document you will physically hand over at the airport. If you hold two passports, this must be the one you actually intend to travel on, not the one that is most convenient to type in. The eTA attaches to this document and nothing else. All nine options, with IRCC’s full definition of each, are in which travel document type to select.

Select the code that matches the one on your passport. (required) Find this code on your passport information page - see the field named “Code”, “Issuing country”, “Authority” or “Country code”.

This is the country code printed on the photo page. The help text names four different labels because passports from different countries print it differently — look for Code, Issuing country, Authority or Country code on your own document and copy what is there. Do not work it out from memory or from the country name.

Two things about this list are worth knowing before you open it.

It is not three letters for everyone. Germany appears as D (Germany, Federal Republic Of) — a single letter, not DEU, because that is what a German passport prints. China appears three times: China, China (Hong Kong SAR) and China (Macao SAR), all coded CHN. The United Kingdom appears six times, one per nationality class — GBR (British citizen), GBD (British overseas territories), GBN (British National Overseas), GBO (British overseas citizen), GBP (British protected person) and GBS (British subject) — and the right one is the one printed in your passport, not the one that sounds closest. There are also codes that are not countries at all: EUE for the European Union, UNA and UNO for United Nations documents.

The list does not filter by eligibility. It contains all 214 entries, the entire world, including countries whose citizens need a visa rather than an eTA. Finding your country in this dropdown tells you nothing about whether you qualify. The form will accept the selection and take you to the next screen either way — eligibility is decided elsewhere, not here. If you are unsure whether an eTA is the right document for you, settle that before you pay, because the seven dollars is not refundable.

What is the nationality noted on this passport? (required) See “Nationality” on your passport information page

Again, read it off the page rather than reasoning about it. Nationality as printed on the passport and the country that issued the passport are usually the same, but not always — and the form asks for both separately for exactly that reason.

The country-code dropdown is covered on its own, with the multi-entry countries listed out, in which passport country code to select.

Passport details of applicant

This is the screen that decides whether your eTA works.

Passport number (required) Enter the passport number exactly as it appears on the passport information page.

“Exactly” means exactly. Include letters, include leading zeros, and do not add spaces that are only there for print spacing. The characters most often mistyped are 0 and O, 1 and I, and 5 and S. Hold the passport next to the screen and read it character by character rather than from a photo or from memory.

Passport number (re-enter) (required) You cannot copy and paste into this field.

The paste block is intentional. It exists precisely because a copied typo is still a typo, and re-typing is the only check that catches it. Type it again from the passport, not from the field above.

Surname(s) / last name(s) (required) Please enter exactly as shown on your passport or identity document.

Given name(s) / first name(s) Please enter exactly as shown on your passport or identity document.

Use the spelling on the passport, not the everyday version of your name. No accents if the passport has none, no shortened forms, no reordering. If your passport shows all your names in the surname field and leaves given names blank, mirror that — leave given names blank. The given-name field is not marked required for this reason.

Date of birth (required) — Year / Month / Day (required)

Note the order. The form is Year first, and a habit of typing day first is an easy way to enter an impossible date without noticing.

Gender (required)

Select what is printed on the passport.

Country/territory of birth (required)

City/town of birth (required) If there is no city/town/village on your passport, enter the name of the city/town/village where you were born.

Some passports show only a country or a region as place of birth. The help text tells you what to do: enter the actual city, town or village where you were born, even though it does not appear on the document.

Date of issue of passport (required) — Issue date Year / Month / Day (required)

Date of expiry of passport (required) — Expiry date Year / Month / Day (required)

Both are on the photo page, and both are read in Year / Month / Day order here. An eTA is valid for up to five years or until the passport expires, whichever comes first — so the expiry date you type here also sets how long your authorization lasts.

Personal details of applicant

Additional nationalities Indicate which countries/territories you are a citizen of. Nationalities — Country/territory — Action

If you hold more than one citizenship, list the others here. This is a genuine question, not a formality: a second citizenship can change whether you need an eTA at all, and omitting one you hold is a misstatement on an application you are about to sign.

Marital status (required)

Have you ever applied for or obtained a visa, an eTA or a permit to visit, live, work or study in Canada? (required)

Read the verbs. It says applied for or obtained, so a refused application counts, an expired eTA from a previous trip counts, and a study or work permit counts. If you have ever had any Canadian immigration record, the honest answer is yes. Answering no when a record exists is the version of this mistake that causes trouble, because IRCC can see the record and you have just told them it does not exist.

Employment information

Occupation (required) Select the option that best describes your current employment situation.

Job title (required) Select the option that best describes your job.

Both are picked from lists, not typed freely, and the help text on both says the same thing: best describes. There is no exact match for most real jobs. Choose the closest option and move on — this field is descriptive, not a claim being verified.

If you are retired, a student, unemployed or not working, those are options in the occupation list. Use them rather than entering a former job.

Name of employer or school, as appropriate. (required)

Country/territory (required)

City/town (required)

Since what year? (required)

Students enter their school here. If you are retired or not working, enter what applies to your situation rather than leaving the field blank — the form will not let you past it empty.

Contact information

Preferred language to contact you (required)

Two options: English or French. This sets the language of every email IRCC sends you about this application. The form itself is available only in those two languages — field descriptions exist in eighteen more, but the form you fill in does not.

Email address (required) Please enter a valid email address. It will be used to contact you about your application.

Email address (re-enter) (required) You cannot copy and paste into this field.

Everything that happens after you pay arrives here: the confirmation, the approval, and any request for more information. A typo in this field is one of the two usual causes of the “my eTA never arrived” problem — the other being that the approval email went to spam.

Use an address you can open from your phone while travelling, not a work address you lose access to. And check the spam folder before concluding that nothing came.

Residential address

Enter your permanent home address. Do not enter an address where you live temporarily.

The instruction is explicit. Not a hotel, not a holiday rental, not the address you will be staying at in Canada — your permanent home.

Apartment/unit number (if applicable)

Street/civic number or house name (required)

Street address/name (required)

Street address/name line 2 (if applicable)

City/town (required)

Country/territory (required)

District/region

The house number and the street name are separate fields. If your address has no number and is identified by a house name, that goes in the number field — the label says “Street/civic number or house name”.

Travel information

Do you know when you will travel to Canada? (required) This information may help us to process your application. If you do not know when you will travel to Canada, please select “no”.

This is optional information, and the help text says so plainly: if you do not know, select no. You are not committing to a date, and an eTA is not tied to the dates you enter — it stays valid for its full term regardless of when you actually fly.

Say no if you are applying ahead of booking. Say yes, with dates, if you have a booking and particularly if you are travelling soon.

Background Questions

Four questions, and they make people nervous. The nervousness is the problem: a yes answer does not automatically refuse anything, but a false no is misrepresentation, and that carries a five-year consequence spelled out on the declaration screen you are about to sign.

Have you ever been refused a visa or permit, denied entry to, or ordered to leave Canada or any other country/territory? (required)

Any country, not just Canada, and ever, not recently. A refused visa application years ago in a country you no longer think about is still a yes. Being turned back at a border is a yes. This is a routine question with a routine answer; a past refusal by itself is not a bar to an eTA.

Have you ever committed, been arrested for, been charged with or convicted of any criminal offence in any country/territory? (required)

Read all four verbs. Committed, arrested for, charged with, convicted of — an arrest that led nowhere still counts, and a charge that was dropped still counts. A conviction that was later pardoned or expunged in your own country is a case worth answering carefully rather than assuming it has disappeared from view.

In the past two years, were you diagnosed with tuberculosis or have you been in close contact with a person with tuberculosis? (required)

Narrower than the others: only tuberculosis, and only the past two years.

Do you have one of these conditions? (required)

A short medical list, shown on the screen. Read the list rather than the heading — the heading tells you nothing on its own.

Then the free-text box, which is where most people stop and search for the sentence word for word:

Please briefly indicate if there are additional details pertinent to your application. For example, an urgent need to travel to Canada. Provide relevant details to avoid delays in the processing of your application.

Nothing has been requested of you. This box is on the form, shown to everyone, before any officer has seen your file. It is optional, and an empty box is not a mark against you. There is no evidence that writing something in it makes a decision come faster.

Use it only when a fact genuinely applies and the rest of the form has nowhere to put it. The most common real use is the example the prompt itself gives — you need to travel sooner than normal processing allows. If that is you, write the dates and the reason in a sentence or two, plainly. The prompt asks for relevant details specifically to avoid delays, so relevance is the test, not length.

Privacy notice and the declaration

The privacy notice explains that your information is collected under the Immigration and Refugee Protection Act, may be shared with other federal institutions, law enforcement, provincial governments and foreign governments, and may be processed using automated and analytical tools. It is worth reading once; it does not require anything from you but acknowledgement.

The declaration is the part that has teeth:

I declare that the information I have given in this application is truthful, complete and correct.

I understand that any false statements or concealment of a material fact may result in my inadmissibility to Canada and may be grounds for my prosecution or removal.

I also understand that should I be found to be inadmissible for misrepresentation under section 40 of the Immigration and Refugee Protection Act, I may be ineligible to apply to certain IRCC programs for a period of five years.

I agree that by typing my name and clicking sign, I am electronically signing my application.

You sign by typing your name. The name you type should match the name on the passport you entered.

This is also the last screen before payment, and the opening instruction from IRCC applies here more than anywhere:

Before you submit an application, review it carefully. Make sure it is complete and accurate. Entering incorrect information could lead to a delay or even a refusal of an eTA application. It could also prevent you from boarding your flight or boat.

Go back through the passport number and the dates now. After the next screen, you cannot.

Summary of fees and payment

You then see a fee summary table listing one item — Electronic Travel Authorization (eTA), quantity 1, $7.00 CAD — and a total of $7.00. The page states plainly:

This is not a receipt

and warns about the clock:

If you take longer than 20 minutes, you will be signed out of your account. After you pay, your application will be automatically submitted, even if you have been signed out.

Two practical consequences. Have your card ready before you reach this screen, because twenty minutes is generous but not unlimited. And note the second sentence: submission is automatic once payment goes through, so being signed out afterwards does not mean the application was lost.

The fee is seven Canadian dollars. That is the whole government charge, per person, and it is not refundable — including if the application is refused.

Then you click Transmit and pay.

After payment: Transaction Approved

The screen that comes back says Transaction Approved, with a green check, and shows an Order ID, the contact email you entered, and the payment details — amount, last four digits of the card, transaction type, authorization code and reference number.

Understand what this screen is and is not.

It is proof that your payment went through and your application was transmitted. Save it before you close the tab — this is the receipt IRCC warned you about three pages earlier: “Make sure you print your receipt right away. You won’t be able to print it later or receive a copy of it.” Print it, or save it as a PDF, or screenshot it. The Order ID and reference number are your evidence of payment if anything needs to be traced later, and there is no way to get them back once the page is gone.

It is not your eTA, and it is not an approval. No decision has been made at this point. Your application has simply been submitted and paid for.

What arrives next, by email, is a confirmation that the application was received — and then, separately, the decision. Most eTA applications are approved within minutes, but some are held for review, and a small number generate an email asking for a document or a clarification. That later email is a real request from an officer and does need an answer; the free-text box you saw on the form was not.

The short version

If you read nothing else on this page:

1. Have everything on the desk before you open the form. Nothing is saved, and a session that expires costs you the whole form, not the last screen.
2. Type the passport number from the passport, twice, character by character. Everything else on the form can be imperfect; this cannot.
3. Check the email address. Every message about your application goes there, and nowhere else.
4. Answer the background questions honestly. A yes is routine. A false no is misrepresentation, with a five-year consequence you sign for by name.
5. Leave the “additional details” box empty unless something genuinely applies.
6. Save the Transaction Approved screen — and remember it is a receipt, not an approval. What that screen means, and why you cannot get it back later, is covered in Transaction Approved is not an approval.

If you have already submitted and the passport number was wrong, go straight to what to do about a Canada eTA with the wrong passport number.