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

There’s a reason dogs are called man’s best friend—they, along with other household pets, become lovable and irreplaceable members of the family. Whether you’re moving to Canada, or simply looking to expand your family with a furry, feathered, or scaly companion from abroad, it's only natural to want to import a pet from your hometown or even from a country where there’s a great need for animal adoption. When bringing pets into Canad...

Duties and taxes can quickly eat into your wallet if you’re not careful. Passing on the costs to the consumer can burn bridges in the public eye, but taking on the costs yourself isn’t ideal either. If you’re importing for personal reasons, high duty costs are even more onerous — you have no choice but to pay them alone. Thankfully, by being smart, you can avoid being hit too hard by duties and other fees! Avoiding Duty Altogether: Du...

Canada is a trading nation; our total trade is worth more than 66% of our GDP, the second highest in the G7 after Germany. We’re the 12th largest export economy in the world, and at just over 35 million people, that’s an accomplishment to be proud of! Understanding our import and export markets is key to understanding the Canadian economy. What does Canada import and what do we export? What does Canada Export? The bulk of Canadian export...

Importing goods successfully means keeping track of a lot of moving parts at once (or having your customs broker partner do it!). You might get your invoice at one point, your bill of lading at another, your final landed costs months later… and wait, you did get your tariffs right… right? Here at Clearit, we take pride in taking some of the confusion out of importing. Today, we’re going to go over one of the most important pieces you hav...

The world of international trade is complicated — hundreds of laws, thousands of codes, a million little quirks… it’s no wonder so many people have so many questions. Even longtime importers might feel a little fuzzy on some of the details — that’s why we’re here to be the experts! Through our work, we see some questions come up a lot. To help out anyone with those burning customs and importing questions, we put our heads together ...

In 1961, the International Organization for Standardization (IOS) changed international trade forever. After container shipping was introduced onto the importing/exporting scene in 1956 by Malcom McLean — whose contributions to modern international trade cannot be understated — the IOS introduced standardized container sizes. With standardized measurements making loading a ship much simpler, container shipping took off. International tr...

Supply chains around the world have evolved from simple procurement and payment relationships to tangled, complex webs. Over 820,000 Canadians are employed in supply-chain-related activities overseeing thousands of trade transactions at every step of the line. Managing supply chains is costly; supply chain costs are 79% of petroleum sales, 67% of vehicle sales, and aren’t much lower for anyone else. Adding additional costs and considerations...

You’ve checked… and checked… and checked… and your shipment is still at customs. No one seems to be able to tell you why, and without your stock you’re losing money. You did everything right — as far as you know — but your shipment just is not clearing. Why? Customs delays can feel inevitable, and depending on when you’re importing, they might be.  Some factors will always be out of your control, like high mail volume or audit...

The world is smaller today than ever before. We wake up and drink coffee from Colombia, eat oranges from Florida, drive to work in cars from Korea, spend the day talking to colleagues in England, India, and Hong Kong and go home to stream television from all over the world. Everyone is connected, everything comes from somewhere else, and someone has to feed the demand. What if that someone is you? Getting involved in importing isn’t alway...

They have their own flag, their own coat of arms, a lot of power at the border. And technically, they’re a teenager, because they were only founded in 2003. They’re the Canadian Border Services Agency (CBSA), and despite how ubiquitous they are in our importing lives now, they’re pretty new on the customs scene. Our borders weren’t open and unpatrolled prior to 2003, but the founding of the CBSA did represent a shift in how customs bus...