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How To Self Clear Customs

AlinNS

Well Known Member
Have read a lot of threads regarding clearing customs without a broker. Yes, it is possible. How do I know? I did it a couple of days ago for a $4000.00+ shipment.

First look up sufferance warehouse locations in your area (Google). You will find a port of entry code and destination code on the same website. Ask Vans to ship it there.

You need to bring the following to the customs office:

1. Shipping Manifest (comes from the bond warehouse);
2. Bill of Lading/Shipping details (comes from Vans);
3. Revenue Canada Certificate of Origin (comes from Vans);
4. Revenue Canada Customs Invoice (comes from Vans); and
5. Invoice (comes from Vans).
You don't even need to fill these forms out, yep, Vans does it. I didn't ask Vans for these forms, they knew to send them to me. No trip to the warehouse to pick up the paper work is required - email!

I expected a gigantic hassle and a very long wait. I couldn't have been more wrong. Walked right up to the desk, exchanged pleasantries and was outta there in under 12 minutes - most of the time was spent talking about......airplanes! Oh zero, nadda, zippo, fees, just the &%#@$ taxes.

This was my experience.:) I hope the details above help someone else contemplating this.

An additional note (Oct 2017): I much prefer this process to waiting for a truck to arrive on the farm and tying up my tractor to unload. This way I just leave my truck/trailer loaded and unload at my leisure.
 
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Sounds great, glad it worked out for you. Would you know if after clearing your shipment , could you have hired a courier to pick up the box from the sufferance warehouse and had it delivered to your home?
 
That's how it is.

Too bad I discovered this information after I got my kit, but had other items shipped this way. My friend had a kit shipped here and it was pretty much hassle free using the exact method you described.
 
Sounds great, glad it worked out for you. Would you know if after clearing your shipment , could you have hired a courier to pick up the box from the sufferance warehouse and had it delivered to your home?

I had considered this but didn't look into it. The shipping was a bit less and I figured one less encounter with a fork lift wold be to my benefit. Still had a puncture wound though.:mad:

Can't see any reason why this wouldn't work. The bond warehouse wanted to see the stamped (by customs) manifest and the stamped customs receipt. I have the originals so they didn't keep anything other than a photocopy - maybe even a scanned email would work?

The bond warehouse is called Mathers Freight Management. They are in Burnside and are a fairly large shipping company. Give them a call. They were very helpful.

There appears to be a bond warehouse in Nictuax, if that helps you out any.

Also, I called the Canada Customs folks twice on two different days and spoke to two different people with my plan. I would suggest anyone considering doing a self clearance do due diligence for their respective area.

Ron, I haven't forgotten the invitation.
 
I am just finalizing the shipment of my RV14 fuselage kit. I priced the shipment to Michigan, or direct to my door in southern Ontario.
The savings in freight and brokerage fees added up to $200.
I am busy this time of year, perhaps another time I might cross the border but for me it is not worth the bother. It is pretty nice to have the thing dropped off right at your door.
With more kits, the price difference may be greater.
 
I just want to clarify few things for those who are intimidated by the title of this thread " How to..." . You Show up with your parts at the border, declare (tell the officer) the value and purpose of the goods that are with you. Show your invoice , pay HST and drive home. This will only work if you tell the officer that you purchased the parts for personal use (non commercial use). Commercial import follows different routine .
So stop stressing, and do it yourself if you have time and don't want to pay few extra hundreds for brokerage and extra freight. I also suspect the less your cargo handled the better.
I forgot to add that you can disregard pretty much everything in the original top post. None of that is applicable for non commercial importation of kit plane parts.
 
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I just want to clarify few things for those who are intimidated by the title of this thread " How to..." . You Show up with your parts at the border, declare (tell the officer) the value and purpose of the goods that are with you. Show your invoice , pay HST and drive home. This will only work if you tell the officer that you purchased the parts for personal use (non commercial use). Commercial import follows different routine .
So stop stressing, and do it yourself if you have time and don't want to pay few extra hundreds for brokerage and extra freight. I also suspect the less your cargo handled the better.
I forgot to add that you can disregard pretty much everything in the original top post. None of that is applicable for non commercial importation of kit plane parts.

You're mixing up two different approaches to self clearing personnel goods. For you, that is sitting on the border , that is correct. Canada is a big country , we don't all live close to the border, Al was pointing out an alternative for those of us that are not sitting on the border, to self clear.
 
You are right, Canada is a huge Country, second only to Russia, > 80% of Canadians live within 100 miles of the border with US. So I posted an alternative for those who do.
 
I just want to clarify few things for those who are intimidated by the title of this thread " How to..." . You Show up with your parts at the border, declare (tell the officer) the value and purpose of the goods that are with you. Show your invoice , pay HST and drive home. This will only work if you tell the officer that you purchased the parts for personal use (non commercial use). Commercial import follows different routine .
So stop stressing, and do it yourself if you have time and don't want to pay few extra hundreds for brokerage and extra freight. I also suspect the less your cargo handled the better.
I forgot to add that you can disregard pretty much everything in the original top post. None of that is applicable for non commercial importation of kit plane parts.

Well as the OP, guess I should provide some input.

Certainly hope nobody is "intimidated by the title of this thread", nor by what I have taken the time to post here.

"You show up with your parts at the boarder" tells me you are in the States to pick up your parts, either already there or crossed over to get your parts, then cross back into Canada with them. If this is the case, then what you are suggesting here is the same as what anyone would do crossing the boarder with purchased goods? What I mention above took me 12 minutes with the customs folks (no where near the boarder) and did not require two trips to cross the boarder. BTW, I have done this numerous times and never with commercial goods. Each time fast, low stress, pleasant customs folks.

You told folks to "disregard pretty much everything" that I posted here. How about this instead? I plan to pick up some wings in the next month or so using the same self brokering process detailed above. If it still works, I'll indicate that here, if not I will request that a moderator takes the post down as being no longer relevant.

Al
 
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Please read the post immediately previous to this one (29 Oct).

I have continued to self clear noncommercial shipments through customs without incurring brokerage fees. Easy.

Still works the same since I took the time to share with others a way to self clear at the beginning of this thread. Done it a number of times.

Just last week picked up a wing kit. Took less than 10 minutes with the friendly customs folks. Like usual, most of the time was spent talking about building an airplane.

Al
 
Hi Al
I was just at customs the other day checking on procedures for another kit. This time I'm planning on picking up the kit and crossing the border myself. (not Van's this one). Other than payment methods, what they will accept and what they will not , the rest should be a breeze as you said. They said they would accept up to $2500 personal check and need a certified check for more than that. They will accept debit/VISA for any amount. VISA it will be, airmiles here we come.
 
Here in the Okanagan, we slip across the border to Oroville, WA, pick up our shipment, and clear customs at Osoyoos.


For us Olde Phartes with time on our hands, the procedure has worked well and is worth the time and fuel... :)
 
Hi Al
I was just at customs the other day checking on procedures for another kit. This time I'm planning on picking up the kit and crossing the border myself. (not Van's this one). Other than payment methods, what they will accept and what they will not , the rest should be a breeze as you said. They said they would accept up to $2500 personal check and need a certified check for more than that. They will accept debit/VISA for any amount. VISA it will be, airmiles here we come.

Howdy Ron,

Not a Van's kit?...hmm neither is the one I've got on the go. Sounds like we need to have another chat and compare projects.

When you cross the border, or self clear a shipment through a sufferance warehouse, you can save time if you look up the code for what you are importing before hand. Sometimes they have difficulty finding the code for "aircraft parts".

Al
 
Here in the Okanagan, we slip across the border to Oroville, WA, pick up our shipment, and clear customs at Osoyoos.


For us Olde Phartes with time on our hands, the procedure has worked well and is worth the time and fuel... :)

Okanagan! With a callsign like Schooner you should be in NS��

Family and I were as far South as Creston last Spring. Beautiful province you got there.

Yep, that close to the border is convenient.

Al
 
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Just the facts ma'am, just the facts

Hi

I came a across this thread and thought I would add a couple of comments.

First, you can self clear at any port of entry not just the border. For example, when I purchase major kit components I have Vans ship the items IN BOND to the nearest port of entry to the destination. In my case this is Calgary. Once notified by the freight company that it is received, I get the freight company to email me the commercial documents. These I take to the Canada Customs (CBSA) office. They assess the GST and clear the shipment.

The shipper is notified - I usually take a pix of the clearance doc and email it. The freight is delivered. CBSA will also notify them but I like to expidite the process.

Self clearing is easy as long as you do the above.

A couple of notes to the above.

1. It is extremely important that the shipment go IN BOND to the destination PORT OF ENTRY. Unless otherwise requested, the freight company will expect the shipment to be cleared at the border and not at the destination PORT OF ENTRY.

2. You will have to go the the CBSA office in person with the shipping documents.

I have done this many times over the past few years and have never had a problem. I quick trip to CBSA and a couple of phone calls / emails can save you many hundreds of dollars.

Cheers

Les
 
Good info Les.

Also worth mentioning - if the destination is also a port of entry but it stops before. e.g. shipped from Oregon, gets into Canada near Toronto but package is to be shipped to Montreal (which also have an in bond area), you can have it moved, in bond, from Toronto to Montreal.

I just did that with Old Dominion with my emp + tailcone kit.
 
Thickened Border for e-Commerce

For the last year, I have struggled buying from suppliers in the USA. These problems have often forced me to use Canadian suppliers at a 15-20% premium in prices and high shipping charges.

Previously, I have been able to use my $US credit card to purchase in the USA and have items shipped to Canada. The US is moving to collect destination taxes, so when shipped to Canada, State taxes are not applied (but we pay taxes upon importing to Canada).

But, when FEDEX charges $400 to ship a 15 lb package into Canada, this becomes uneconomical. UPS is worse.

The solution that has worked for years was to use my $US credit card and a US freight forwarder (in Blaine, WA). Often, for large orders shipping was free. However, with destination taxes in force, Washington state sales tax is often applied AND I still have to pay Canadian taxes when imported!

States without sales taxes and many small business in states that have sales tax are exempt from collecting these destination taxes.

PS: in my avionics business, I often by circuit boards and components from China. The transactions are smooth, quick, processed by Visa and delivered for $15. I just pay taxes and a $10 FEDEX handling fee at this end. China wants my business, but apparently many vendors in the USA do not, go figure.

So my challenge has been to find suppliers who won't charge destination taxes and will ship to my freight forwarder. Because of anti-fraud initiatives, many companies and credit cards have been clamping down on shipping to addresses that are not the billing address. So here it is: I have a $US credit card to buy US source products, shipped to a US address, and I pay off the credit card in $US.... and the orders are being rejected!

I changed my billing address to the US shipping address, which helps, but some e-commerce companies are still rejecting the transaction because it is a Canadian-issued $US card. Grrrrrrrrr.

In the end, with the help of Visa, we have found a method to partially fix this problem. It depends on the e-commerce system the vendors are using (Shopify, PayPal, etc). Often these systems will reject the order (my last one was $12,000) and put a small charge through to the credit card company, then reverse it. This establishes that it is a valid card.

So the solution is to try again later with the same transaction. Now the e-commerce company should be happy because they have validated the card. It's not Visa that's the problem, it's the vendors and their relationship with the e-commerce supplier.

So all you vendors out there in the US: If you want business from Canada, try to establish a better system. Shipping to a registered sufferance house (aka freight forwarded), should not attract state taxes, and processing credit cards should take into account that it's a big world out there and customers are everywhere.

VV
 
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Sufferance warehouse???

Never heard of a suffrage house Vern. Automatic spell check caught you again?:)

Cheers, Sean
 
USPS/Canada Post shipping doesn't charge the $400 handling fee. I know your pain. I bought a $60 item off the VAF classifieds. Shipping was $15, picked it up and paid the Canadian tax then 6 weeks later I got a $35 bill from FedEx for the processing fee.

Very sneaky and dishonest when they add fees that are double the shipping cost 6 weeks after delivery. It shouldn't be this difficult and expensive to do business with our friendly neighbours to the south.
 
USPS/Canada Post shipping doesn't charge the $400 handling fee. I know your pain. I bought a $60 item off the VAF classifieds. Shipping was $15, picked it up and paid the Canadian tax then 6 weeks later I got a $35 bill from FedEx for the processing fee.

Very sneaky and dishonest when they add fees that are double the shipping cost 6 weeks after delivery. It shouldn't be this difficult and expensive to do business with our friendly neighbours to the south.

I agree, and my solution for the last 17 years has been to use a freight forwarder. It's the e-commerce providers that have recently been getting in the way due to their enhanced security.

I have had my bank, Visa and suppliers trying to figure out what is broken in the system. Apparently, it's the fault of the bad guys, and security is tighter. At least one supplier said that they will only ship to the billing address for the first shipment, then elsewhere for subsequent orders. That's an alternative way of proving the credit card is valid. When I made my shipping and billing address the same, the transaction was still rejected, since the e-commerce front end did an $0.83 transaction, then reversed it to prove the card. That's why I had to wait, then try it again later to be accepted.
 
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