UPS VS. USPS
This only applies if you are sending to a CANADIAN pal from the USA....
If you are - please read this!
If you are someone in the USA is planning to ship to your Canadian pal, they should ship USPS and not UPS. UPS ALWAYS charges a brokerage fee and duty taxes for any parcel valued at more than 20$ Canadian. I had this problem last year. The girl in my case put 20$ US on
the package as a value, which was 22.46$ Canadian at the time of conversion (over
the 20$ Canadian mark!) and I got charged 23.04$ to receive my package! REDICULOUS. It was from my one skein secret pal. All she sent me was 1 skein of yarn, which she valued at 20$US, and I had to pay more in brokerage fees and duty import taxes, than what the package was worth!
If you do want to use UPS - make sure to put a 15$ US value on the box, so that it doesnt hit the 20$ mark Canadian. It sucks to have to PAY to receive a gift from your pal. Or, put no value at all - and just mark that it's a gift. Or your other option, just mail it USPS, once it crosses the border, it'll be Canada Post - and for gifts, there are generally no problems of it being stopped at the border.
If you have ANY questions about this - feel free to contact me at sp10hostess@hotmail.com - I can answer any questions about this - I'm a pro at shipping (LOL) if you want to call me that!
Robyn
If you are - please read this!
If you are someone in the USA is planning to ship to your Canadian pal, they should ship USPS and not UPS. UPS ALWAYS charges a brokerage fee and duty taxes for any parcel valued at more than 20$ Canadian. I had this problem last year. The girl in my case put 20$ US on
the package as a value, which was 22.46$ Canadian at the time of conversion (over
the 20$ Canadian mark!) and I got charged 23.04$ to receive my package! REDICULOUS. It was from my one skein secret pal. All she sent me was 1 skein of yarn, which she valued at 20$US, and I had to pay more in brokerage fees and duty import taxes, than what the package was worth!
If you do want to use UPS - make sure to put a 15$ US value on the box, so that it doesnt hit the 20$ mark Canadian. It sucks to have to PAY to receive a gift from your pal. Or, put no value at all - and just mark that it's a gift. Or your other option, just mail it USPS, once it crosses the border, it'll be Canada Post - and for gifts, there are generally no problems of it being stopped at the border.
If you have ANY questions about this - feel free to contact me at sp10hostess@hotmail.com - I can answer any questions about this - I'm a pro at shipping (LOL) if you want to call me that!
Robyn
posted by Montreal Mama at 3:59 PM
3 Comments:
Great! I had no idea about this, so this is very helpful information.
Does anyone know about paying duty when shipping from Canada into the States?
I'm not a participant in this, but ship to a best friend in Canada from the US several times a year. Just some friendly advice: DO NOT put a zero/no value in the dollar amount column, even if it is for a gift! This will cause Customs Canada to open the package to see what is inside and then assign a value to the contents. This happened to me with package of 1$ washcloths I sent that was assessed a value of 100$! My friend was told she had to pay the tax if she wanted the package, some ridiculous amount that was twice what the contents were worth. You are correct that the amount should not be more than 25$ CDN to avoid fees. Hope this was helpful.
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