What you actually pay in duty on clothes into Canada

The slip stapled to the parcel is Form E14, the CBSA Postal Import Form, and the figure printed on it is not the one you carried in your head from checkout. Canada Post adds a handling fee to every dutiable item it hands over, and nothing to the rest. Everything else on the page is arithmetic no American shop shows you before you pay.

Which of the two border systems you land in was settled by the seller, not by you, at the moment somebody printed a shipping label. Courier is one. Mail is the other, and much less forgiving.

The three numbers that decide it

Since July 1, 2020, when CUSMA came into force, a courier shipment from the United States or Mexico arrives duty free and tax free up to CAD $40, duty free but taxable from $40 to $150, and pays both above $150. From anywhere else by courier, the line is CAD $20 for both. The CBSA sets the thresholds out plainly.

Mail never moved: a postal item clears free only up to CAD $20, from every country, the United States included. That figure comes from the Postal Imports Remission Order, registered October 16, 1985, and twenty dollars is still twenty dollars. Gifts from a friend or relative get CAN$60, and that exemption expressly excludes anything sent by a business.

Duty free is not tax free

The middle band is the first surprise. A courier parcel from a New York shop worth CAD $120 pays no duty and still pays 13 per cent HST in Ontario. Above $150 both apply, and the tax is charged on the duty as well as the goods: under section 215 of the Excise Tax Act, the value for GST is the value for duty plus every duty payable. You pay 13 per cent on the 18 per cent.

CUSMA pays for where it was sewn

This is the rule that costs Toronto the most money. An American brand name means nothing at the border, because CUSMA runs apparel on yarn forward rules of origin: the yarn and the fabric have to come from Canada, the United States or Mexico, along with the sewing. Since July 1, 2021 the sewing thread has had to originate too, and since January 1, 2022 the narrow elastics and the pocket lining. (Denim got an extra year on its pockets.)

For a personal order the test is simpler than the treaty. Under CBSA Memorandum D11-4-13, dated May 19, 2021, casual goods bought in the United States take the United States Tariff if they are marked a product of Canada, the United States or Mexico, or carry no marking at all and nothing shows otherwise. Read the neck label before the price tag. A dress marked Made in Italy, ordered from a Manhattan boutique, pays the full rate. The same boutique's Los Angeles cut and sew clears free.

The rate band for clothes and shoes

In the 2026 Customs Tariff a wool coat is 18 per cent Most Favoured Nation and the same coat in cotton is 17. Dresses run 18 in wool or synthetics, 17 in cotton, 16 in silk. Footwear is stranger. Leather shoes are 18 and rubber soled ones 17.5, but women's leather footwear valued at $30 or more a pair is 11, where the men's equivalent stays at 18. In the United States Tariff column every one of those reads Free.

Clothing carries no Canadian surtax. Since September 1, 2025 the government's 25 per cent tariff on US goods has applied only to steel, aluminum and autos. Your jeans are not political.

One coat, all the way through

A wool topcoat, value for duty CAD $1,000, made in Italy, bought from a US retailer, couriered to an Ontario address. Section 48 of the Customs Act takes transport from the place of direct shipment out of the value for duty, so the rate runs on the coat, not the freight.

• Duty at 18 per cent on $1,000: $180.00
• HST at 13 per cent on $1,180: $153.40
• Payable to the CBSA: $333.40
• Landed cost before the courier's own fee: $1,333.40

The identical coat marked Made in USA: duty Free, HST $130.00, total $130.00. One label is worth $203.40.

Now a $120 cotton shirt. By courier it sits in the middle band: no duty, $15.60 in HST. By post the same shirt from the same shop clears the $20 line and pays everything, duty at 17 per cent of $20.40 and HST on $140.40 of $18.25, with the handling fee on top. Call it $38.65 against $15.60, on one decision made in a shipping room.

The border does not ask who designed the coat, only who sewed it and where.

The fee that is not a tax

The charge that generates the most anger is the one Ottawa does not collect. Couriers bill their own clearance at the door, and the CBSA's position runs to a line: it "will not refund any broker's fees, or shipping and handling costs." Canada Post's version is the honest one, charged on the parcels that owe something and dropped on the ones that do not.

What happens when you send it back

Returning the coat does not return the duty. The money comes back only if you ask: Form B2G, printed on the back of the top copy of the E14 stapled to your parcel, sent to the Casual Refund Centre matching your address with proof the goods left Canada and that the seller credited you. Claims on classification, value or origin run out one year after importation; refunds under sections 74 and 76 of the Customs Act run four.

The CBSA aims to process a casual refund within 30 business days of a complete package. Brokerage is not part of it, so that money is gone the moment the box is opened.

Before you click buy

Ask the shop two questions: where the garment was made, and which carrier and service go to Canada. The CBSA's own duty and taxes estimator will check your arithmetic. If checkout offers Delivered Duty Paid, take it when the quote is close to what you worked out and refuse it when it is padded; the CBSA will not adjust an overcharge there.

Or skip the border. within is Canadian shops shipping to Canadian addresses, which produces no E14 and nothing to claim back. Why we built it.

Sizing is the other border cost, and the bigger one: the sizing by brand matters more than the returns policy. Duty on a $1,000 coat is $180. The wrong shoulder is $1,000.

Common questions

Do you have to pay duty on clothes from the USA?

Not always: a courier shipment from the United States valued under CAD $150 is duty free, and under CAD $40 tax free too. Above $150, duty applies unless the garment itself was made in Canada, the United States or Mexico, which CUSMA rates Free. By post, everything over CAD $20 is assessed.

What is the duty rate on clothing imported into Canada?

Most apparel is dutiable at 17 or 18 per cent under the 2026 Customs Tariff, with GST or HST charged on top of the duty. Leather footwear is 18 per cent. Ontario's HST is 13 per cent, so a fully dutiable $1,000 wool coat lands at $1,333.40 before any brokerage fee.

Do you get duty back if you return an item to the US?

Yes, but only if you claim it: file CBSA Form B2G with proof the goods left Canada and that the seller credited you. The CBSA aims to process casual refunds within 30 business days of a complete package. Courier brokerage fees are never refundable.

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