Nexus Permit Fee to Jump by 140% This October

A motorist scans a Nexus card as another speaks with a Canada Border Services Agency officer at a primary inspection booth at the Douglas-Peace Arch border crossing in Surrey, B.C., on Feb. 5, 2020. The Canadian Press/Darryl Dyck

Travellers who cross the Canada-U.S. border frequently will have to pay more than double to apply for a Nexus card for speedier clearance starting this October, a federal legal notice recently confirmed.

The cost to enrol in the Nexus trusted-traveller program will increase from US$50 to US$120 effective Oct. 1, Public Safety Canada announced in a notice published in the Canada Gazette on July 3, as first covered by Blacklock’s Reporter.

The change will also see the bilateral program charging fees for minors if their parents or guardians aren’t enrolled or applying, said the regulatory impact analysis statement accompanying the notice.

The five-year permit is designed to allow quicker border crossings into Canada and the United States for low-risk, pre-approved travellers. The program is jointly run by the Canada Border Services Agency (CBSA) and U.S. Customs and Border Protection (U.S. CBP), with revenues split between the two agencies. Under Nexus, travellers pay a fee to apply for pre-clearance background checks on a promise of expedited passage at airports, land borders or marine crossings.

The current application fee for a five-year permit was set two decades ago and can no longer cover the cost of the program, the analysis statement said.

“The costs of processing a NEXUS application have .... increased in the 20 years since the program’s inception; revenues have not kept pace.”

‘Growing Gap’

CBSA announced news of the fee hike in April, saying that the increase was “subject to approval of regulatory amendments in the United States and Canada.”

When the legal notice was published in July, the public safety department said no consultations were undertaken.

“Consultations would not change the need for alignment with the U.S. fee, including the new posture on minors, nor the need to improve the cost effectiveness of the NEXUS program,” the analysis statement said.

It said applications to the Nexus program have “grown significantly” since its launch two decades ago. The volume prompted the Canadian and the U.S. governments to make “significant investments” in physical infrastructure and program administration.

“As of February 2024, there were nearly 1.8 million NEXUS members — 78% of whom were Canadian citizens,” the analysis statement said. “In recent years, NEXUS highway lanes were added to 14 new Canadian locations, while airport kiosks were replaced across Canada.”

The federal government has allocated public funds to back those investments, but the amount was not sufficient to support them, according to the notice, which added that “the [Nexus application] fee has not increased since the program’s inception.”

The CBSA in a 2016 internal audit said the Nexus program remained popular. Its records indicated that the program had a total of 77,724 members in the 2004-05 fiscal year, and the membership has “increased year over year” ever since.

The public safety department’s analysis statement also said the CBSA and U.S. CBP have identified a “growing gap” between the program’s revenues and costs.

“This deficit compromises both organizations’ ability to adequately fund operations or invest in processing capacity supporting the NEXUS program,” it said.

The notice did not detail the program’s current deficit.

The Nexus registration was halted in Canada in 2022 and put on hold for nearly a year, due in part to a clash over U.S. agents’ right to carry guns on Canadian soil, among other legal protections.

A compromise was reached in January 2023 that allowed Canadian border agents to interview Nexus applicants separately from U.S. agents at eight Canadian airports, rather than together like before the COVID-19 pandemic.

The CBSA said in April this year that ever since the program reopened in April 2023, the agency has received over half a million applications, while noting that the proposed fee increase would help it keep up with the high demand.

The Canadian Press contributed to this report.