A courier parcel from the US enters Canada with nothing owed at all under CAD 40, tax only from CAD 40 to CAD 150, and duty on top of that tax above CAD 150. Those two numbers, both set by the Canada Border Services Agency under CUSMA, decide the entire bill for most everyday shipments — long before a carrier's own clearance charge or the province's own sales tax ever enters the picture. Both are read from CBSA's own pages on 2026-09-01, alongside a live SMKlog quote to Toronto from the same day.
Everything CBSA charges a casual shipment sits on one side or the other of CAD 40 and CAD 150.
CBSA does not run one duty-free threshold for every parcel entering Canada — it runs three, and which one applies depends on how the parcel travels and where it started. The higher pair, CAD 40 and CAD 150, exists specifically because of CUSMA and specifically for courier shipments starting in the US or Mexico — exactly the shape of a parcel bought through SMKlog's own checkout.
| Shipment type | Nothing owed under | Tax only, no duty | Duty and tax apply |
|---|---|---|---|
| Courier, from the US or Mexico (CUSMA) | CAD 40 | CAD 40 – 150 | Above CAD 150 |
| Courier, from any other country | CAD 20 | — | Above CAD 20 |
| Mail, from any country | CAD 20 | — | Above CAD 20 |
The middle tier is the one people miss: a US courier parcel worth CAD 90 owes no duty at all, but it is not free of Canada's system either — it still owes tax on the full value. Only above CAD 150 does duty itself join the bill, calculated on the goods first, with tax then calculated on the goods plus that duty.
None of the thresholds above show up as a line item on a shipping quote — they apply to what is inside the box, not to what it costs to carry it. Here is what a real SMKlog quote for a small parcel to Toronto returned on 2026-09-01, so the two numbers are not confused with each other.
| Service | All-in price | Transit |
|---|---|---|
| UPS Standard | $25.83 | 2 business days |
| UPS Worldwide Economy DDU | $25.61 | 8 business days |
| FedEx Ground | $36.40 | 2 business days |
Whether Canada also collects duty or tax on this exact box depends on the declared value of the shirts inside, checked against the CAD 40 and CAD 150 lines above — a question the shipping rate itself cannot answer, because postage and dutiable value are two unrelated numbers that happen to travel on the same box.
"Import fees" from UPS or FedEx and "duty" from CBSA are two different things billed by two different parties, and CBSA is explicit that they should not be read as one line.
“Customs clearance fees charged by couriers and customs brokers are separate and distinct from duties and taxes owed on imported goods.”Canada Border Services Agency, Courier Low Value Shipment Program, cbsa-asfc.gc.ca, read 2026-09-01
A courier is authorized to pay CBSA the duty and tax on a recipient's behalf and then collect it back, and the charge for doing that fronting is the carrier's own, not the government's. Checking UPS's own published Canada rate page on 2026-09-01 found no current fixed dollar figure for that charge at all — the page listed a full 2026 surcharge table for the United States and stated plainly that Canada's own rate changes "will be communicated at a later date." That is not an oversight worth working around; it means the honest answer is that this charge has no public table to quote, and it will appear as its own line on the delivery invoice rather than on any rate card published in advance.
Canada's Excise Tax Act sets the Goods and Services Tax at a flat 5% federal rate, and it is calculated on the goods' value plus whatever duty already applies — not on the goods' value alone. Every province then adds its own sales tax on top of that, at whatever rate and under whatever name that province runs its own system under, so the total tax line on a Canadian customs bill is always at least 5% and often more once the provincial share is added in. None of that changes the underlying question this page opened with: below CAD 40 on a US courier shipment, none of it applies at all.
Every rate on this page, and every rate SMKlog's own calculator returns for Canada, is a shipping charge only. Duty and tax, when CBSA's thresholds put any on the bill, are billed to the person receiving the box, collected by whichever carrier delivers it — the DDU arrangement covered in full on SMKlog's DDU guide, and the reverse of the DDP arrangement described on the DDP guide, where a seller would prepay it instead. Nothing about buying the label changes who eventually owes CBSA, or how much.
CBSA revises its own thresholds and memoranda without a shared changelog against UPS's or FedEx's own fee schedules. Confirm the current figures on CBSA's own pages before a specific shipment's duty bill depends on them.
It depends on what is inside, not on the shipping charge. The Canada Border Services Agency lets a courier parcel from the US or Mexico in with nothing owed under CAD 40, charges tax only (no duty) from CAD 40 up to CAD 150, and applies both duty and tax above CAD 150.
No. It is specific to courier shipments from the US or Mexico under CUSMA. A courier shipment from any other country is held to a CAD 20 line instead, and mail from any country at all is held to CAD 20 regardless of where it started.
No. CBSA states plainly that clearance fees charged by couriers and customs brokers are separate and distinct from duties and taxes owed on imported goods. UPS and FedEx add their own charge for fronting that payment to CBSA on the recipient's behalf, and neither publishes a fixed public dollar figure for it on their own Canada rate pages as of 2026-09-01 — it shows up as its own line on the delivery invoice, not on a rate table anywhere.
Above the duty-free line, yes. GST is a flat 5% federal rate, calculated on the value of the goods plus any duty already added, and each province layers its own sales tax on top of that.
No. Every rate SMKlog quotes to Canada is a shipping charge only. Duty and tax, if any is owed, is billed to the recipient by the carrier when the box arrives — the DDU arrangement, not one where SMKlog or the sender prepays it.