Bringing goods across us border from Canada?

You can bring anything back to Canada you ant without staying for 24 hours unless it is illegal in Canada. However you may have to pay duty on the items depending on how much you purchased and the border services officer you deal with. Some are very strict while others are more lenient. It also depends on what it is you are bringing of course as some items have a higher duty than others do and they are more likely to charge you when those are brought into the country.

You misunderstood the Canada Border Services agent. They did not say that you are not allowed to bring back clothing you purchased in USA. They said that you are not entitled to an exemption from duty on that clothing if you did not stay at least 24hrs.

Canadians that go cross-border shopping on trips that last less than a full day can certainly buy clothing and bring it back with them. But they are expected to declare their purchases and pay any duty or taxes on those purchases.

Here's how it typically goes:

You go down to the States and pay $85 for a nice dress.

When you get back to the border, you tell them you bought a dress and show the receipt.

The dress works out to $CAD100 with exchange rates the way they are.

So you owe duty (often 18% on clothes) and possibly GST/HST on the purchase

The agent tells you that you owe $18 duty and $6 GST on your purchase

You pay $24 to the CBSA and they let you bring the dress across the border.

Your dress ends up costing CAD$124 but is still less than the $160 you would have paid at Hudson's Bay or the local boutique in your Canadian mall.

Now if you HAD stayed overnight and left after 24hrs, then you would have qualified for a $200 personal exemption on your purchases, and you would not have been asked to pay the extra duty and taxes.

Sure you can bring goods back from the US even if you've been there less than 24 hours. You just have to pay duties on them.

You must be outside Canada for at least 24 hours in order to claim your $200 duty exemption and 48 hours for your $800 exemption. Any less time and Canadian Border Services Agency may apply duties on non-gift items worth more than $40. It a border crossing is specifically busy... CBSA may not bother with $60, $80, even $100, but they can if they choose to.

Whether it's clothing or not is not the issue. You'd have had to pay duty if you had brought back $100 worth of plastic garbage bags or books or light bulbs. They have rules about how much stuff you can bring back duty-free after staying certain lengths of time and less than a 24 hour stay means you pay duty on everything you bring back. To get things back without paying duty, you have to stay longer. That's just how it is. It's true. Anything a Canada Customs officer says about what you can bring back and what duty you have to pay is true. There is no point arguing with them.

Of course you can, just make sure you have the purchase receipts for all the items.

Those are the rules. Same for all of us.