"Ordering US to Canada" Topic

I'm just about to spend four months working in Canada and thought it may be a good oppotunity to order some figures from manufaturers in that part of the world. I am curious to find out though if there is the same steep import tax between the US and Canada ad we face when ordering US figures from the UK; can anyone please advise?

It all depends on the morale and mood of the folks at the border. If the packages are labelled as toys you usually don't have as many problems. Sometimes yes and sometimes no is the final answer. Wish I could help more.

The only time I ever get dinged is when the seller ships via UPS or FedEx (they get to charge an outrageous brokerage fee to collect the tax, so of course they do so every time). Stuff mailed by US Postal Service almost never gets taxed.

I've had the same experience as Bob – stay away from UPS etc. and you should be fine. Service from USPS has always been very good for me (same with Royal Mail).

Ditto. No UPS or FedEx of any sort! US postal Service is fine. You may get the annoying $5 USD Canada post package handling fee as well as the possibility of GST/PST/HST (rare) but there is no duty on figures.

Ditto on using USPS if possible. Also, I got charged with import duty a couple of times when my order is large (the order amount is in the high $100 USD range or even more) so you want to keep your order in the low hundreds at the most.

Ditto. No UPS or FedEx of any sort! US postal Service is fine. You may get the annoying $5.00 USD USD Canada post package handling fee as well as the possibility of GST/PST/HST (rare) but there is no duty on figures.

The Canada Post "handling fee" is now nearly twice as annoying as you thought, Dave…

Canada Post has been collecting duties and taxes on behalf of the Canada Border Services Agency (CBSA) for many years, and is compensated for this service through a handling fee charged to customers. As of August 18, 2012, this handling fee will rise from $8.50 USD to $9.95 USD for all mail that has been assessed with import duties and/or taxes by CBSA.

Exactly the same. Couriers always avoid because of the 'brokerage fee' they charge. USPS has always been reliable and worry free, and very reasonable, esp. from Eureka USA, GHQ, Scale Creep and C in C.

From UK I've had no problems either with CP Models, AB and a few others as well that use Royal Mail.

DHL from Europe has been worry (and fee) free I've found too.

Hi Doug

I hope you will enjoy your time in Canada.

Why not try some Canadian based retailers. This way you will save the duty and possible postage as well Let us know where you will be living and we can recommend some lcal shops.

The following do mail orders;

J&M
link
Sentry Box
sentrybox.com
Woodrow's
toysoldiers.ca
North Bay
northbaygamesandhobbies.ca

Welcome to Canada! As Mapleleaf says, I hope you enjoy your stay. Let us know where you are and maybe we can hook you up with a gaming group?

There's also:
Imperial Hobbies, the largest hobby store on the west coast.
imperialhobbies.com

If you keep your order under $75.00 USD Canada post will normally not charge you. I've never been charged under $75.00 USD. Anything over that and it will be a hit and miss. Sometimes they do other times no.

I thought NAFTA did away with the charges…obviously I was incorrect.

I've been very happy with the service from J&M: I ordered some items just before Christmas and rec'd them the first day of postal service afterwards. They even threw in a dice bag, which came in handy immediately as I packed up to set up a D&D game for my kids and nephew on the road. They have some very good deals available under their manager's clearance category.

Nafta did away with duty but did not do anything for sales tax rates

I've had to pay customs charges on figures imported from the U.S., through Canada post.

Yes, Belisarius, is correct… this is about being Gouged & Screwed Together [GST].

You also might try having the packages sent by USPS/Canada Post to your office address, Doug, rather than a home address if that wouldn't be a problem for you. I had IIRC six packages sent to me last year at the workplace rather than home and none were hit for the GST and the odious Canada Post handling fee.

And please let us know where you are so any locals can arrange a meeting or two or more with you.

A few years back I spent some time going through the import duty list to see what the various rates were (I think I'd just been hit by a big tariff on my "metal castings"). Well I found out that yes, metal castings have a huge duty on them. However "toys" or "models" or "scale models" are a 0% duty item. From then on, with every order I make, I put "Please label as toys or scale models for customs purposes" into the special instructions box on the web-cart. That way when it comes in the customs guy (or gal) has a pointer toward what the right code is to file it under. And so far, I've not been hit with duty yet. GST on some stuff, yes, but no duty.

Oh and I had a massive order from QRF over the holidays and it showed up FedEx. I cursed it! Then when I went to pick it up I was told that the FedEx fee is a flat $10 USD now. I'll still avoid courier companies whenever I can though (to the point where there are some companies I just won't order from unless I know I'll be Stateside to get local delivery).