Trying to place an order from an American website to ship to Canada...taxes and fees question?
I'm trying to order something from a US based website to ship to my door in Canada. The website says this about shipping to Canada "All US order prices are in USD and are subject to custom fees at the Canadian border." I'm trying to avoid having to pay extra money (custom fee??) at the door once the parcel is delivered, other than the flat shipping rate I am already being charged. I have no idea how this works. I'm paying with pay pal and understand the currency conversion, but how do I know if I will have to pay the delivery guy at the door or not? The order is over $120 USD and I think is delivered via UPS? I once ordered a dress from China to be shipped to my Canadian address and ended up having to pay like $20-$60 extra on top of everything because of customs or something. I don't know how this works. Help?
bw0222015-04-02T21:12:05Z
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There is no way to avoid paying duties on packages shipped to Canada. Packages of $40 or more are subject to duties. Canadian Border Services Agency may choose not to assign duties on slightly higher packages, but this typically only applies when extremely busy (such as the Christmas season) and certainly would never apply to something even approaching $100 (Cdn.). Standard duties are the GST and PST (or HST) of the province being shipped to.
If you can find an unscrupulous vendor, you could ask them to make a phoney invoice for less than $40. Of course, if caught lying, CBSA can impose fines of many times the value of the item, keep the item, subject every future package from that address (or to your address) to additional searches, or imply block future packages. Few vendors would have any reason to risk that. It can also get them kicked off eBay or Amazon.
You could try to find the item in Canada or from a Canadian version of the web site. However, they'll typically then be charging the GST+PST and typically it is more expensive.
If you have a friend in Alberta, you could ship it to them (they only pay GST) and then have them reship it to you (or pick it up there). That is far more likely to cost you more than 7%-10% (depending upon your province).
If you have a friend in the United States, you should ship it to them. Then drive down to the US and pick up the package there. If you remain in the US for longer than 24 hours you have a $200 personal exemption on goods brought back into Canada. After 48 hours, you have an $800 exemption. Or you could just lie to the border and not declare it -- risking fines of $800 or several times the value of the items, plus having your name entered such that each and every time you cross the border you'll be subjected to secondary searches.