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I am currently a resident of Germany, which is a country in the Schengen region. As a result, I can conveniently make short trips (e.g. weekend trips) to other Schengen countries without needing to do any paperwork.

I have noticed that visa application forms for many countries ask for a detailed travel history, including dates of visit, location, and purpose. Specifically, I recently encountered this when applying for a Canadian visitor visa, where I was asked to list all visits in the past five years.

In this situation, do I need to list every single trip to neighbouring Schengen countries separately? I also may not always have any documented proof for all the visits, e.g. if done by private vehicle or by foot. The number of trips in the past five years would also be high, likely in the order of 20-30.

How should this be handled?

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    Do you need the visitor visa even? I'm from Austria and only needed an eTA last year, which is easier and cheaper if you are eligible. And my common sense would say those (short term) visits are not relevant. Immigration officers won't deny you entry because you didn't list a trip to eat ice cream in France for a day :)
    – kirbby
    Commented Aug 14 at 11:47
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    @kirbby The OP wrote they need a Canadian visa. In all likelihood, their citizenship makes them ineligible for an eTA (OP wrote they're a resident of Germany, not a citizen).
    – Johnnyjanko
    Commented Aug 14 at 14:15
  • @kirbby Yes, I am a citizen of a country that requires a visitor visa.
    – GoodDeeds
    Commented Aug 14 at 14:20
  • I used to live near a border, and would do "International Food Shopping" twice a week. I would list this as "Routinely visit supermarket in XXX, over a period of N years". It's unreasonable to expect the minutiae of each visit in these sorts of situations.
    – Kingsley
    Commented Aug 15 at 1:57
  • Every travel between country of nationality and country of residence is also pretty annoying to add but I gave UK a complete list (of ~10 iirc) and they were satisfied with that.
    – ave
    Commented Aug 15 at 16:06

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It is up to you to balance between the risk of your application being deemed insufficient and the effort to honestly reconstruct all your itineraries in the past five years to neighbouring countries (which you may honestly not be able to accurately recall, or can be mistaken), depending on your personal circumstances and risk tolerance.

Depending on the circumstances, you can attach an explanation (the full history does not fit anyway on the form) letter, listing all countries you regularly visit, justifying the circumstances (e.g., you live in a border region, you are a cross-border commuter, etc.), and providing as much reasonably useful information as you can (e.g., the frequency of your visit, statement that you cannot accurately recall, rough estimates of the date and duration of your visit).

This does not guarantee that the IRCC will be satisfied with this level of information (though in the past there were cases where it is accepted with this level of detail for e.g. cross-border commuters; it is not helpful for the visa officer to know the exact details of every trip to France a Monaco or Geneva resident makes) or that your application would not be refused. However, if you provide reasonably detailed explanation for your travel history, even though it is not to a single-trip precision, you would unlikely be "directly or indirectly misrepresenting or withholding material facts relating to a relevant matter that induces or could induce an error" in the processing of your visa application.

You should however accurately list your trips where reasonably detailed data is available (e.g., electronic record from the U.S. via I-94 records) and of course any trip you made to Canada, as well as any trips with significant durations.

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