NEXUS conditional approval after 15 months

On May 11, 2022, I applied for NEXUS after becoming a member of Global Entry in March of that year. I was planning on moving to Seattle and anticipated driving across the border to Vancouver every other month. From prior experience, I knew crossing the border could take a few hours each way. To facilitate maximizing my time in Vancouver, I wanted to apply for NEXUS as soon as possible. Waiting to get NEXUS turned out to be a real test of my patience.

What is the NEXUS program?

NEXUS is a trusted traveler program jointly operated by the United States and Canada for expediting entrance into both countries. To become a member of NEXUS, you apply at ttp.dhs.gov, wait for your background checks to be completed, and then complete an interview with CBP and CBSA officers. Memberships last 5 years. A membership costs $50 for adults and is free for children.

NEXUS is valid for all modes of transportation.

When crossing the border by land in a passenger vehicle, NEXUS members are eligible to use dedicated NEXUS lanes to enter the U.S. and Canada. The interviews to cross the border are much shorter, typically only asking if you have anything to declare.

For air travel, the NEXUS program also gives all Global Entry benefits despite only being half the cost. In Canada, the same analogous benefit exists for NEXUS members at special NEXUS kiosks at Canadian immigration. I have yet to find a counterexample to this, but all NEXUS members should be eligible for TSA PreCheck too.

NEXUS is also the only way to receive expedited entry into Canada via commercial air travel, as the previous CANPASS Air program was discontinued a decade ago.

Last but not least, NEXUS also gives you access to SENTRI lanes when returning to the U.S. by land from Mexico.

Getting conditional approval

After applying, I expected to be conditionally approved within a few months. After all, I already had a Global Entry membership and all that needed to be done was a Canadian background check. Right?

Nope!

Ultimately, my conditional approval came almost 15 months after my application date. To be exact, it took 1 year, 2 months, and 29 days. Obviously, this is a ridiculous wait, but it’s apparently due to the lingering effects of the COVID-19 pandemic.

As I learned by calling the Canadian NEXUS line, I had been approved by the Canadians in June 2022, but the U.S. side had been held up with processing my application for over a year!

To be fair, as ludicrous as the wait is, the U.S. government did publish information about the delays a few months after I applied. As of August 2023, on the Trusted Traveler Program application website, the published estimated wait for conditional approval says 12-15 months.

Looking at online threads, the wait had indeed been 15 months for unlucky applicants like me. Someone who applied at the end of April 2022 was approved at the end of July 2023. From prior experience, the CBP tends to release waves of approvals at least twice a month on either a Tuesday, Wednesday, or Thursday. I therefore anticipated my approval to come on Wednesday, August 9 or Thursday, August 10. My hunch ended up being almost right on the money.

Scheduling an interview

The next step was to schedule the actual interview. The first page I arrived on was to choose between an in-person and a remote interview.

Unfortunately, there were no remote appointments available. (Clicking on August 24 on the below screen yielded no appointments available for selection.)

I then went to the in-person scheduler to find available appointments at Blaine, WA. I was able to choose an appointment for a date nearly two months later: Friday, September 29, 2023.

Using Appointment Scanner

Appointment Scanner is a tool that sends you notifications whenever it detects a new appointment has opened for your selected enrollment centers. It is a third-party platform not endorsed by the CBP.

For a one-time fee of $29, you get one month of alerts for new appointments that appear for your selected enrollment centers.

Since I live in Seattle, the closest NEXUS enrollment center to me is the one in Blaine, Washington. That is the city right next to the Canadian border. It’s a two hour drive from my residence, and while I’m not exactly a huge fan of the drive, who am I to say that when I already make the drive to Canada every other month?

How Appointment Scanner reduced my appointment wait time

The first appointment I got was for Friday, September 29, 2023 at 4pm. I was not too thrilled about having to wait another 1.5 months to finally be approved for NEXUS. However, only 30 minutes after I paid the $29 plus sales tax for Appointment Scanner, I got a text about an appointment that had opened up on Friday, August 18 at 4pm. I was already at my computer and had the TTP portal pulled up, so I quickly clicked and managed to snag the spot!

This $29 was totally worth it. It’s not a joke, it’s the real deal. For me, I got lucky with this service and got the full value out of it.

That being said, I’ve now changed the appointment scanner to look for spots in the Montréal enrollment center because I’m going to be visiting there between August 14 and 16. If none appear, that’s fine by me. (If anything, Blaine is a more sure-fire bet in case I can’t make it to Montréal for some reason. However, I still have a whole month left for my subscription, so I might as well use it to its maximum potential!)

I will say that the Appointment Scanner is not a panacea. If there are no appointments opening up, the Appointment Scanner will not magically go behind back doors to pull new ones out of thin air. Only when new appointments are released or when people cancel their existing appointments does Appointment Scanner send you information on getting the appointment.

Final thoughts

The NEXUS program provides the most privileges among the various trusted traveler programs administered by the CBP. However, the wait times for conditional approval are unreasonably long. Getting conditional approval is just half the story, though. Applicants must then find an interview slot, which may be booked for months on end at popular locations. Thankfully, Appointment Scanner is a really nifty tool to detect when people cancel their appointments and allows one to find a sooner appointment slot. It not only helped me find a sooner appointment, it helped me find the very first appointment that was ideal for me.

I know that the effort spent for getting NEXUS will be worth it. The time I waste crossing the border could be much better used enjoying Canada. After I get NEXUS, I’ll feel much less inertia for going to Canada because I won’t have to worry about waiting to cross the border anymore.