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Sourcing Metal | General Discussion

Peter, the duration limits are just for the exemption to pay GST (and duty for some items - shoes are 20% if from EU) - if you stay a weekend in the US you can exclude $800. If you stay with someone else its another $800 per person (there are rules for age - 18 and above). The $800 cannot be combined so if you get a $2500 lathe its $800 off it and GST on the rest even if you are with 3 friends.

Technically the items in the $800 exemption are for your personal use or your family use - this should exclude commercial use or unrelated people.

So say you and your wife go the US and get some stuff over a weekend stay there and have combined $1600. Get beer and stuff up to the limit (OK you can exceed the limit a bit - mileage will very; also if you bring the limit too often you run into another limit... ) You also get some tools/ power tools. It all is under $1600 with receipts for items. You also bring some US made cheese - the one that is filled with some stuff we don't get in Canada - supposedly nasty as per dairy industry. CBSA should not harass you for personal amounts of food - even if for a short trip without exemption. Anyways it is all under $1600 with receipts. The CBSA agent asks you anything to declare. You say you got some tools, power tools, some beer (2 cases), some food - cheese (supposed limit is 20kg and/or $20 (figure out that one)) The agent will ask you for a total of all items. You say as per invoices that the total is $1500. In CAD.

At this point either the agent will wave you through or he will send you to secondary. In secondary you show your invoices. I guess for some people they can do a search. Then you go home.

This is 100% legal way to do it. There are a lot of boxes ripped open near the "pickup" areas and it feels a lot of people don't declare everything. $1400 of tools per trip is not "little" + beer and some cheese.

I don't remember the exact form - sorry. I am sure I could google that. It is very simple - they will do it at the border. Vendor number doesn't matter - unless its like 100 - maybe suspicious then. Amount doesn't matter - maybe if say $50000 its suspicious.

You only need to step into the office if A) you are on your weekend trip and have significantly more than $1600 (you and say your wife) a1) if under 48h but more than 24h and over the $400 or B) are just crossing the border after 1h & have to pay GST on everything.

Yes, they can say X unless you prove it costs Y. I guess you can get a guy that just broke up with his wife of 10 years yesterday and he may give you extra hard time. Obviously if you are bringing say brand new DSLR camera from the US to Canada and claim its $100 they will say prove it or its $500. I mean use common sense.

Sometimes its just stupid bureaucracy. I imported a trailer from the US. I didn't pay any duty in Canada as it was under my "special" exemption of $10000. All was fine. I got the RIV for it. I was at the border & they said they needed to see the trailer again (!). So I towed it to the border in the next few days. They didn't even look at it - they just asked where it is parked - they just made me tow it & didn't actually need to check anything... How did it get into CA in the first place - they refused my 10k and got me to pay taxes on it. They "forgot" the rule - supposedly training issue. I had to go back to get a refund.

BTW, the refund process works smooth for other things. I used it few times.

BTW2: you can clear your own packages - it just a drag and a bit time consuming - there is a small form & you go to office I think near airport.

There is tons of info on this topic - this is just a forum so the examples are not all inclusive. You can always just ask CBSA with your specific example. You can ask through email as well.
 
Peter -- you just described my typical visit, minus the hamburger. Babb is about 15 miles over the border, my average trip is less than 28 minutes in the USA.

Tom has it 100% correct - declare everything, have receipts, be honest and polite.

When I go down, I have all the receipts printed out, which is usually just print outs from Ebay. I circle the totals, and indicate the currency. I usually do a simple spreadsheet as a cover sheet with all the items listed and in the same currency.

When I stop at the window, I'm asked how long I was down (28 minutes), what I was doing (picking up parcels), and how much the stuff is worth (usually about 700 - 2000 USD). They tell me to angle park in a spot and come in the office. Walk up to the desk, hand over the receipts, pay the GST (on everything), MAYBE pay duty, pay with my master card, use the bathroom and get on my way.

I've never paid duty though. On my first trip, it was a quiet morning, so I asked the lady if I could ask her some questions. I asked her when the duty kicks in. She said mostly on electronics and clothes, and maybe up to 20% depending.

To give you an example of stuff I brought across:

Trip A - $1200 USD in boat motor parts (bearings, pistons, rings, gaskets, props) from about 10 different sources in the USA. Also had 3 bags of refractory cement (3 x 90lb bags) which were white in color w/poison symbols on the bag. She ask what refractory was, and as I started to answer she said "never mind, we'll call it ceramics". No duty, no questions, no search, no-one looked in the car.

Trip B - $800 dollars consisting of a 3D printer made in china, filament, etc. No duty, no questions, no search, no-one looked in the car.

Trip C - $800 dollars, cast-iron tea pot, Tea (loose leaf), Car parts, lathe parts, stuff from Grizzly. No duty, no questions, no search, no-one looked in the car. On the way down, the USA guy asked if it was a nice tea-pot to drive all that way.

On each trip, the USA guy asked where I was going. I say Babb. He says "whatcha picking up?"

If it isn't indicated on my receipt, I do try to have the country of origin identified. This can only help if questioned. No-one has asked yet.

I prepared like mad for my first trip, now I pop down on a saturday morning and can be back by 1pm if I leave at 7am
 
Two summers ago, My daughter and her friend moved their complete household to Calgary. We arrived at the border in our truck with around 20 boxes of stuff. We asked about the correct forms, etc and said we were prepared to do a complete declaration... He asked about 6 or 7 questions about the contents, and he and I negotiated a rough value (in this case $900), and he had us pay GST on the 900 minus the personal deductions for the two of us -which amounted to around 20 bucks. He seemed to be reluctant to do a complete declaration. (We had one page of contents for each box in hand, in case he wanted to see)
 
I have been dealing with US and Canadian Customs (and other Countries’) on a regular basis for the last 20 years or so. The most important thing one can do is declare absolutely everything (right down to the fresh mint in your mouth/pocket - because it is considered a food item). The officers appear to have quite a bit of freedom as to how they deal with your decs. That’s possibly where the discrepancy in how folks are treated at the border seems to come from.
 
RobinHood said:
The officers appear to have quite a bit of freedom as to how they deal with your decs. That’s possibly where the discrepancy in how folks are treated at the border seems to come from.
Click to expand...

Yup, because all day long they deal with people who try to under declare, declare nothing and lie about what they are importing. It feels like being honest is such a rarity that when you are, you are often rewarded. I don't think I've ever paid the proper duty or tax on anything as they always knock it down or waive me on without paying anything.
 
This could be province and/or amount dependant. In Ontario my complaints went all the way to the top guy who sent me apology / excuse letter. Others that I talked to when doing RIV told me of searches to the new trailer all sorts of problems. I lived in US over 5 years. Once you are over 5 and you are moving back they give you up to $10000 off any duty/ tax for each item without limits. With GST+PST this quickly works out to 1000s. There are plenty of Canadians in US moving back and forth... Yet this little thing supposedly is not in training manual and CBSA agents need to be told about it. Sure, you work on the border for 10 years and you never had anyone move back.

For say tools and gear for few 1000 the GST is few hundred $$$ give or take a hundred - at most. Not few thousand or zero.
 
DYK shipping results are in.

So my Speedy Metal USA package arrived in Sweetgrass Montana & DYK took it from there, very quick turnaround. The order was 67$U & UPS ground to border was 23$U for 20 pounds shipping weight. Most of the fees lined up from DYK website, except there was no mention of warehouse fee & I paid bit of duty. I chatted with the staff member about duty & still cant quite figure out how it was determined. Maybe a guess, but I chocked it up to experience. Seems to me when I looked up the duty codes for most of the common alloys I consistently see zero if made in USA which they are. So next time I'm going to be proactive & provide the specific tariff numbers for them to punch in & hopefully that $ line item will disappear.

DYK has also switched border warehouse providers to https://www.montanamailbox.com/ for more seamless transactions & a few other advantages. I set up an account figuring it will come in handy one day. But as you can see, its ~ same cost. For example 1-60 pounds = 4$US charge for 60 day hold. From what I have seen all these border places seem to have similar price structure & drop location fee is inevitable.

So... not exactly cheap relative to the 90$C value of goods. In this particular case it was lesser of evils. Speedy has specific alloys I cannot get elsewhere in these cut size quantities. I did a dummy transaction beforehand assuming direct USA to Canada via UPS & the freight charge was significantly higher. Then once landed you have to pull the $45 UPS bone out of your a$$ with their usual dinger fees unless you want to do the Customs Canada self clearing rigamarole.

So my personal conclusion is use a service like this for generally hard to land items where the seller just plain wont ship to Canadians or where they only ship UPS vs USPS & the value/weight/duty combination does not warrant UPS. FYI, Online Metals also uses UPS but they do a slight discounted underwriting (kind of like Amazon shipping is magically less than 2 individuals shipping the same item by Canada Post... even though it arrives by Canada Post). DYK also goes the reverse process when you need to ship Canada to USA, gets trucked to border then turns into a USPS parcel which I am pretty sure must be less than CanPost on certain items.
 

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Thanks for posting the details. So it arrived in Calgary and you went to the warehouse to get it?
 
So you paid 34.94 CAD plus the UPS fee to the US border, correct?

For medium USPS parcel to US border it costs roughly 13USD which is 17 CAD. The cost of the fees of DYK would be the same so total would be 17+35 = 52. So it compares OK but not super great to fees paid with eBay global shipping program.

However, no everyone offers global shipping on eBay & some sellers will only ship in the US. I am signing up and going to test this soon.

Also combined shipping doesn't work with eBay global shipping program --> major weakness.
 
Also the brokerage fee they charge is way more than Border Bee I use with UPS / FedEx. Border Bee never exceeded $10 (I think the limit is over $2000). But DYK is high - https://www2.dykpost.com/canada-bound-shipping/

Thus shipping via UPS say 50 lbs and $400 worth would be cheaper direct to Canada with Border Bee custom house than UPS into US and to Canada with DYK.

Still just another service to consider for some cases.
 
Speedy only ships UPS, period. So you either go UPS to the border, or UPS all the way to Calgary. http://www.speedymetals.com/t-shipping.aspx
If you choose UPS international (meaning USA to Canada) you pay increased transportation costs for the distance which is expected, PLUS the typical 45$+ in added customs dinger fees that UPS puts on top of transportation. At least that has been my painful experience as a non-business regular dude.

With DYK, you are kind of married to their specified USA drop off partner, now Montana Mailbox. Because that's where the Calgary truck is going to & coming from. If I found a cheaper drop off service (which as it stands is only 4$U of the total bill) you still need some way to get it home from there. Yes, I suspect cost is a curve based on weight & these small orders pay a disproportionately higher % in fees. That's the bummer. But this is what I required from this particular vendor. Probably if we did a group buy & traded turns doing the mule trip splitting gas, that would be the least expensive.

ps - part of the goodies in this particular order was 1.25" diameter sticks of decent grade cast iron for my cylinder liners. Speedy has a good selection of this in rounds, discs & blocks. Very hard to find in reasonable quantities.
 
Tom Kitta said:
So you paid 34.94 CAD plus the UPS fee to the US border, correct?
For medium USPS parcel to US border it costs roughly 13USD which is 17 CAD.
Click to expand...

Sorry I didn't answer your specific question, yes 34.94C + UPS to border. But I think next time I can make the duty they charged me zero. I think that was a mistake on their part but I didn't quibble.

Re USPS, if Speedy (or anyone really) offered that I would take it in a heartbeat. Then I would get it shipped directly to my home & either pay zero if it lands on my doorstep or 5$ CRA fee plus whatever GST is payable. I'd say 80% of my say sub $200 orders come right to the door. Problem is many vendors don't do USPS. It can vary by their business model but for smaller shops in means someone has to go to a physical post office vs. the brown truck coming to their door.
 
I don't pay more than $10 in extra UPS fees for years now - just go to Border Bee and sign up. They will inform all providers such as UPS and FedEx that from now on Border Bee is the default processor for your shipments... and poof no more $45 or whatever UPS charges.

Regarding USPS to Canada direct - yes the CRA fee of just $5 is nice but usually for heavy shipments such as tools the USPS costs are huge - unlike the US where the small/ medium/ large flat rate box are just wonderful (wish this existed in Canada) - no weight restriction and very low price. I mean you can ship in US a box filled with pennies for one low rate.

For larger orders my preferred shipment is UPS as it is cheap - customs fees are very low - you just cannot use UPS default but a custom provider such as border bee which is cheaper than DYK. I mean $10 for brokerage is cheap - not as cheap as $5 but close.

Should have asked me about cast iron... through I don't know the grade and I think the smallest stick I have is like 2.5"
 
OK thanks Tom, I'm going to check into Border Bee.
I think if I was a little more strategic in my materials procurement I would just dedicate a few trips a year & be done with it. This is kind of a nuisance value, not quite a tank of gas, not quite worth the time. I plan on flying in a few RC contests in Montana this summer so I can use that opportunity too to place a time aligned order & pick up myself with the right holding company.
 
Would there happen to be any supplier of wrought iron in canada? There are some companies in the US that suppy wrought iron for a fair price, but the shipping is far too expensive.
 
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