Canadian customs updates, CARM guidance, and trade compliance insights for importers.
A CBSA trade compliance verification is a review of past entries to check whether you declared tariff classification, value for duty and origin correctly. CBSA calls it a verification. Most importers call it a customs audit. Same thing.
Every product you import into Canada must be declared under a 10-digit tariff classification number. That number sets your duty rate, decides whether a free trade agreement or surtax applies, and tells the CBSA which permits to check. Get it wrong and you can pay too much, too little, or face penalties years later. This guide explains how HS classification in Canada works, how to find the right code step by step, and what to do if a code on a past entry turns out to be wrong.
A letter from the Canada Border Services Agency (CBSA) announcing a trade compliance verification can feel like an accusation. It isn't. It is a structured review of your past import declarations, and how you respond in the first few weeks largely decides the outcome. This guide explains what a CBSA customs audit looks at, how a strong customs review response is built, and where professional customs audit support changes the result.
Unhappy with your customs broker? You're not locked in. Since CARM, the link between you and your broker lives in your own CARM Client Portal account, and you control it. That makes switching simpler than most importers expect.
September 2026 has been a heavy month for Canadian importers. A new surtax on US goods took effect on September 8. Washington answered with 50% duties on some Canadian exports. Meanwhile, CARM keeps shifting paperwork from brokers to importers. Below, we answer the 20 questions we're hearing most right now. Each answer is short and practical, and we flag where it pays to get help.
Customs questions rarely arrive one at a time. A shipment gets held, a supplier quotes DDP, and your accountant asks about GST credits, all in the same week. So we've put the 20 questions our clients ask most often in one place. Each answer is short and practical. Where the rules get complicated, we point you to a detailed guide.The Complete Guide to Canada Import Compliance in 2026
Every commercial importer enrolled in Release Prior to Payment (RPP) has a number attached to their CARM account and most don't know how CBSA arrived at it. Get the number wrong, and a shipment can sit at the border while your broker scrambles to post more security. The good news: the formula isn't a mystery. CBSA calculates it from your own import history, and the rules for the floor, the ceiling, and the annual review are published. This guide breaks down exactly how much you need, why the figure changes every October, and what happens if you miss the deadline to top it up.
Ask most importers what's "restricted" at the Canadian border and you'll hear firearms, cannabis, maybe pharmaceuticals.
You click "buy" on a U.S. website. Three days later, before the box even reaches your door, a courier is asking for money you didn't budget for. If that's happened to you, you're not alone — and you're not being scammed. You've just run into one of the most misunderstood parts of cross-border shopping: how GST and duty on goods purchased online from the US actually get calculated and collected.
On September 8, 2026, Canada's retaliatory tariffs on roughly 700 US products took effect, layering up to 50% in extra cost onto close to $20 billion CAD worth of goods (Canada.ca, Complete list of U.S. products subject to counter tariffs, retrieved 2026-09-18). For importers already managing CARM registration, CBSA paperwork, and shifting trade rules, this is one more variable to track. Whether you're a manufacturer bringing in industrial parts or a small e-commerce seller placing your first order, the questions are largely the same: what's actually taxed now, where can costs be recovered, and how does clearance actually work day to day?
If you've ever placed an international purchase order and been surprised by a CBSA bill weeks later, you're not alone. Landed cost surprises are one of the most common headaches for Canadian importers, and they usually come down to the same root cause: nobody ran the numbers before the goods left the origin country. Duty and tax calculations aren't guesswork — they follow a fixed sequence CBSA applies to every commercial shipment. Once you understand that sequence, you can estimate your true cost before you commit to a purchase order, not after.
Clearing a shipment through customs clearance in Canada doesn't close the file the way most importers assume it does. The Canada Border Services Agency updated its trade compliance verification priorities in July 2026, moving three additional targets onto the list and bringing the total to 12 targeted priorities, up from nine at the start of the year (PwC Canada, 2026). Six of those twelve now relate directly to surtax orders on goods from China, the United States, and worldwide sources.