Sorry to post this here but I have some questions about Canadian customs charges on items shipped to Canada. Recently sent a sleeping bag back to Canada to person I bought it from on this forum. He says there are fairly large customs charges on it. Anybody know anything about this? This plus the expensive shipping costs I've already paid have made this a painful deal.

Edited by evaneis on 05/08/2012 12:41:26 MDT.

If you send an item from the US to Canada and didn't state it was a sample/gift/return on the customs form, the receiver will be responsible for various charges depending on the item, value, brokerage, etc. Basically, customs thinks he bought that sleeping bag from you and will charge him accordingly.

Can't help you with the paypal issue.

What shipping method did you use to send the package back. If you used a ground based Courier (UPS, FED EX, DHL. If you ship air brokerage is geneally included) then their can be a large brokerage fee even if no duties are applied. This is usually applied based on the value of the product. Usually the minimum is around $30 plus whatever taxes and duties are applied which would be 5% for GST and (I think) 12% for textiles though it might be higher and could have been assessed in a different catagory. It can make a difference if you put Camping gear or sleeping bag as it can move it into a different duty category and end up costing more.

If you used USPS and put the true value on the package the most he should be paying is a $5 brokerage plus GST but I have never paid this on packages worth less than $200. For some reason they don't charge the duty they could on those packages but you can't guarentee that they wouldnt.


So questions for you do determine if the duty charge the seller is telling you about is reasonable.

What carrier did you ship through.
What value did you put on the customs slip
What item did you list as being in the package on the packing slip.

Generally to avoid these costs always ship USPS even if the shipping is slightly more expensive.

Thanks for these responses. I shipped US Post Office, listed it at $300 value and as a sleeping bag. Looks like I may be looking at a pretty big Canadian customs charge plus the very expensive shipping both ways. What a bummer.

I cannot speak to the paypal thing, but my shipping experience living in Canada has been similar to the folks above.
Here are some figures:
With the regular public postal system (so, from the US, that would be sent by USPS), the last time I checked, I believe the anything with a declared value over $20 would charged duty etc, unless it is a gift, in which case it can have up to $60 without being charged most duty/tax. This could have changed since I last checked.
I usually estimate that, when I receive my package, I will have to pay the delivery person about $20 for every $100 of declared value. (That is in addition to whatever shipping and other fees I have already paid.) Sometimes it has been more, sometimes less. For all I know, that percentage could be higher for higher declared values-- I think my orders have never been higher than $150 declared value, so I do not know.
Another figure I seem to remember is that when ordering from the U.S., shipped by USPS, the shipping charges + duties to Canada often result in my total cost being around 1.5 times what it would be if I were shipping to the U.S.
Shipped by UPS etc, for smaller things, the shipping can double the item price! But it looks like your shipping was through USPS.
Hope that helps.

Edited by emilyb on 05/08/2012 13:03:47 MDT.