Cashing a U.S. Cheque

[Fred Zed]

Bridgeman
1. Talk to your bank. Sometimes they will waive the
21 day waiting period. It all depends on how flexible
your bank manager is.

2 Money Mart will cash US checks for a small fee
- you will need some ID, also the name, address
and phone # of the person issuing the check.

 

[slaconte1978]

Where they really screw you is on the exchange rate, thats where they make the big money for doing very little

 

[fuji]

It's a big PITA and there may be no good way around it for a single cheque.

When I used to do a lot of business in the US I went and opened up an account at a US bank. I had to jump through a few hoops but was able to get one opened. Thereafter I would deposit my US cheques in my US bank account in the US (mail them in; fedex if time was of the essence).

Cheques would clear in a day via that process, I had an ATM I could draw on in Toronto (that bank has an ATM in Toronto) and I could write US cheques off of it as well, or forward it elsewhere via paypal.

But if this is not an ongoing thing for you it's a PITA to set up the US account so you're probably just screwed. Best option si to persuade the bank to release a large fraction of the cheque to you now and wait 21 days for the rest--I was able to get them to release 1/3 of a cheque for $30k once, before I had figured out to set up the US account.