A large share of the people who come to GetETA are not the travellers themselves. They live in Canada, and they are arranging an eTA for someone back home: parents coming to see the grandchildren, a sister coming for a wedding, elderly relatives who do not use the internet and would never manage a government form in English. This is a good thing to do for them — and it goes wrong in one very specific way.

The mistake: data over the phone

“Mum, read me your passport number.” Mum reads it. She says “O” where the passport has a zero. She reads the issue date when you asked for the expiry date. She gives you her maiden name because that is what she thinks of as her name, while the passport has her married one. You type it all in with full confidence, pay, and the eTA either gets refused or — worse — looks approved and then does not match her passport at the airport in Warsaw or Manila or Lagos.

Every one of these is a real case. Over the phone, a passport is just a list of numbers read by someone who cannot see your screen, often in a second language, often while doing something else. It is the single least reliable way to fill in an eTA.

The rule: a clear scan of the passport, or nothing

Before you type a single field, get a clear photo or scan of the passport photo page from your relative. Not a verbal read-out. Not “I know her details”. The actual page, readable, all four corners visible, no glare over the numbers.

How to get it from someone who is not technical:

  • Ask them to have a younger neighbour, grandchild or the local photo shop take it. One flat, well-lit photo of the open passport page.
  • WhatsApp, Viber, Telegram, email — any of them is fine, as long as you can zoom in and read every character.
  • If the photo is blurry, ask for another one. Do not guess a digit. A guessed digit is a refused eTA and a two-week wait for the corrected one.

Then fill in the form from the image, one field at a time, checking the machine-readable line at the bottom for the spelling of the name and the passport number.

What actually matters on the form

Relatives — and the people helping them — often worry about the wrong things. The airline check and the approval both hinge on the passport fields: names exactly as printed, passport number, date of birth, issue and expiry dates, country of issue, gender. Those must be perfect.

Everything else is context, not a test:

  • Job and employer. Put in what is true. If your father is retired, write “retired”. If your sister is between jobs, “unemployed” is an acceptable answer. Having a job at home is a mild plus — it shows a reason to go back — but nobody is refused an eTA for being retired or a homemaker. Do not invent an employer to “look better”; a false answer is the one thing that genuinely causes trouble.
  • Address and phone. Theirs, in their country. Not yours in Canada.
  • Contact email. Yours is fine if you are managing the process — just remember every approval will land in your inbox, so check spam and forward the eTA number to them.
  • Funds, invitation, your status in Canada. The eTA form does not ask for any of it. You do not need to attach an invitation letter, bank statement or proof of your own residence. Save that for the border officer’s questions on arrival, if asked at all.

Background questions — answer for them honestly

The form asks whether the traveller has ever been refused a visa, been removed from a country, been convicted of a crime, or has a serious health condition. Ask your relative these questions directly before you answer. A “yes” does not mean refusal — it means a person looks at the file, and for some cases it means a visitor visa is the right document instead of an eTA. A “no” that turns out to be false is far worse than any “yes”. See what a refusal means and what to do.

Elderly parents and “one eTA for both”

  • Each parent needs their own eTA, on their own passport. There is no joint application.
  • Check that their passports are valid for the whole trip. An eTA on a passport that expires next month expires with it.
  • If one of them renewed their passport recently, the old eTA (if any) is dead — it does not transfer.
  • Do the two applications one at a time, with only one passport image open. Mixing two people’s data on one form is the most common family error — the checklist for families with several passports applies here too.

Timing

Apply as soon as they decide to come, before you or they book anything non-refundable. Most eTAs are approved within minutes, but if one needs a manual review it can take days, and a corrected application after a mistake can take weeks. The order that avoids the scramble: tickets first or eTA first. Then, a few days before the flight, run a status check on their passport so you know the eTA exists — and send them the eTA number to keep on their phone or on paper.

Or hand us the scans

If you would rather not be the one who typed a wrong digit for your mother’s trip: send us the passport photos, and we do the rest — one passport, one form, cross-checked by a person before it is sent, status watched until it is approved, and you are told the moment it is. Start here. Two parents, a sister and her kids? Send all the scans; we will sort them one by one.

Official information: eTA facts