What are duties and Taxes & How do i pay for them?

 To those who are not familiar, duties can be somewhat of a mystery and seem extremely arbitrary -but there is in fact good reason for them. Duty is put in place to protect Canadian industry and is established by the Canadian Department of finance. Duty rates may vary greatly from one product to another, depending on that products manufacturing in Canada.  If your imported goods are manufactured in Canada, the United States, or Mexico and are accompanied by a North American Free Trade Agreement (NAFTA) Certificate, your goods will cross DUTY FREE

Taxation on imports are a little more simple.  As a general rule of thumb, commercial import taxation is 5% across the board. As a commercial importer, you are not subject to provincial tax and can claim your your GST through input tax credits – effectively bringing your commercial import tax to 0%.

 If the goods you plan to import are for personal use, you will be subject to provincial taxation as well as federal, and have no recourse to take for claiming taxes paid. 

Canada Border Services Agency (CBSA) collects Duties and Taxes on behalf of the Canadian Government – but in most cases, duties and taxes are paid directly to the broker who then forwards duties to the CBSA and taxes at the end of each month on their K84. 

CBSA accepts the following forms of payment:

  • Visa, American Express, MasterCard
  • Debit Card
  • Personal cheque (if the amount owing is less than $2,500.00)

Clearit.ca accepts the following forms of payment:

  • Visa, Mastercard (all payments processed via secure online processing)
  • Debit Card (all payments processed via secure online processing)

Are you eligible for Personal Exemptions?

As you are probably aware, Canadian citizen you are eligible for personal exemptions when returning to Canada. This means you may bring goods of a particular value into Canada without paying the usual duty and tax. For more information on personal Exemptions, Please click here

duty and taxes

  To better prepare yourself, you can use Clearit.ca’s Duty & Tax Calculator  in order to provide you with a complete detailed quote – for bother personal and commercial goods.