Clearit.ca's Blog on Customs Brokerage and News Updates

The Supply Chains Act, created to increase industry awareness and drive business to improve their practices around forced labour in Canadian supply chains, comes into force on Jan. 1, 2024, with the first report due on May 31, 2024. Background The International Labour Organization estimates that there are approximately 27.6 million victims of forced labour worldwide, including 17.3 million in the private economy. There ...

The Canada Border Services Agency (CBSA) has released a new toolkit to help guide businesses through the process of registering for the CARM Client Portal – an action that must be done before May 2024. Download the CARM Toolkit here The toolkit includes: A flow chart to help small and medium businesses understand if they need to register on the CARM Client Portal 5 Steps to register your business on the CBSA Assessment and Revenue...

Canada, in coordination with its G7 partners, will impose new import restrictions on Russian diamonds and diamond jewellery products. According to a joint statement issued by the G7 countries, import restrictions on non-industrial diamonds that are mined, processed, or produced in Russia will be introduced by Jan. 1, 2024. This will be followed up by further phased restrictions on imports of Russian diamond products processed in third countri...

The Canadian Border Services Agency (CBSA) is giving the import community advance notice of upcoming changes to Canada’s unilateral tariff preference programs for developing countries, which will involve amendments to the Customs Tariff legislation and related regulations, effective January 1, 2025. To complete the renewal of Canada's tariff treatment programs, the Commonwealth Caribbean Countries Tariff (CCCT) – code 07, the Le...

A new CUSMA ruling seems to have put an end to the long-running dispute between the U.S. and Canada over tariffs on dairy imports. The CUSMA dispute panel determined that Canada had not acted unreasonably, and under the Canada-United States-Mexico-Agreement, Canada has the right to maintain tariff rate quotas (TRQs) on the following 14 types of dairy products: milk, cream, skim milk powder, butter and cream powder, industrial cheeses, cheeses...

The Canada Border Service Agency (CBSA)’s CARM Engagement team is offering a new series of webinars starting in 2024, including sessions tailored to small-medium sized businesses, CARM Release 2, and an Open Mic webinar to talk all things CARM with the agency. CARM is a major transformative project which is changing the way CBSA assesses and collects duties on goods and services being imported into Canada. More information on the webina...

The Canadian Border Service Agency (CBSA) has announced that on April 15, 2024, the ACROSS Service Options (SO) 257 (EDI RMD) and 117 (Paper PARS) will be decommissioned and will no longer be in service. According to CBSA, This change will not require external commercial clients to upgrade their existing systems. Brokers and importers are encouraged to use SO 911 (Integrated Import Declaration) to obtain release of goods and stop using SO ...

The Canadian Food Inspection Agency (CFIA) has issued a Notice for those who import manufactured foods into Canada with a Safe Food for Canadians license (SFC license). On February 12, 2024, the CFIA will activate the automatic verification of SFC licences for imports of manufactured foods. Food import transactions will be automatically rejected unless a valid SFC licence is declared. A SFC licence is valid if it is: active (...

The Canada Food Inspection Agency (CFIA) has regulated the invasive species spotted lanternfly (Lycorma delicatula, Hemiptera: Fulgoridae) since 2018 in an effort to prevent its introduction and spread into Canada. It can feed on more than 100 species of trees and plants, and poses a significant threat to the grape, tree fruit, wine, and ornamental nursery industries. The spotted lanternfly is native to Asia, but has been detecte...

An intense and prolonged drought in Panama has caused a worldwide shipping backlog as hundreds of ships wait to cross the canal, and logistics experts are predicting that the impact will likely continue for the rest of the year and into 2024. The Panama Canal is the primary route for 57% of the total cargo transported in container ships from Asia to the east coast of North America, and around 6% of all global maritime commerce relies on the c...