Where do I hit customs in this flight scenario?

CBP has more than 600 officers and agriculture specialists stationed at 15 Preclearance locations in 6 countries: Dublin and Shannon in Ireland; Aruba; Bermuda; Abu Dhabi in the United Arab Emirates; Nassau in the Bahamas; and Calgary, Toronto, Edmonton, Halifax, Montreal, Ottawa, Vancouver, Victoria, and Winnipeg in Canada
.https://www.cbp.gov/travel/preclearance

If you choose the Zurich-Toronto-US option, you go through Customs and Immigration in Toronto. When you land in the US, you just walk out the door.

In the other option its at Chicago.

Either way the important thing is that it is ONE ticket from Zurich to 'home'.

First question: No, you will go through customs and immigration at Toronto as you go to your connecting flight to the US.

Second question: Could be. If you are connecting on Delta, at least for the near future, Delta flights leave from the International Terminal, same for Southwest. You have to transfer to other terminals with the interterminal train. if you are on American or United, you drop your tagged bags on the belt after you exit customs. Each airline has its own belt. Forgive me, but i always drive to Chicago. I am not sure if there is an internal shuttle bus service so you can avoid security at the other terminals. I doubt it.

Just wanted to clarify some terminology for you.

• Immigration/Passport Control is what usually takes time and is for the movement of people. A Border officer looks at your passport, may ask you how long you've been gone, ask other questions.

• Customs (which many confuse with Immigration) is for the movement of goods (your suitcase) and usually takes minimal time.

If you decide on the Chicago option, you can also download the Mobile Passport app which usually helps get you thru Immigration quicker.

https://www.cbp.gov/travel/us-citizens/mobile-passport-control

Note that Toronto is special in that it's a foreign country, but it has a US customs and immigration checkpoint so that you can fly to any US destination from there. Only a few other airports have such a feature.

Even if immigration takes time, waiting for luggage to come off the belt can be the deciding factor. 2 weeks ago I was in the tail of the plane and virtually the last one off the flight, and the last one in line at Immigration. My bag was the penultimate bag loaded on the belt. so I was still waiting almost 15 minutes to get my bag and exit customs.

Oh man do I HATE Toronto for going through customs. It's busy and a bit confusing. We were on United and were told to wait in a room for our flight number to be called, we waited and waited. I finally went up to a customer service person and was told we had to get our bags in baggage claim, then run back upstairs to check them in then go back through security and then get to our gate. Never done that much running in our lives to get to our connecting flight.

If you have a good 2-3 hours between flights, do Chicago for sure. Might as well land in the US then get to your connecting flight.

I always try to allow a minimum of 2 hours to get through customs, get our bags, then get back through security and to our gate. 3 is more comfortable. If you aren't checking bags - that's the BEST way to go, you'll save a lot of time.

Whichever you choose, download the Mobile Passport Control app to help speed through the immigration process. It saved us a ton of time in Seattle, and it’s free. You just upload the travelers info, then when you arrive on your flight from Europe you answer the questions. Then you go to a special line marked MPC. We walked past hundreds of people in line in Seattle, and there was only one group in front of us in the MPC line.