roryhazel

Hello everyone,

I'm super excited to be emigrating to Vancouver next week. I have been preparing and I have completed my goods to follow list. As my partner is from Vancouver and already has all the house hold necessities and furniture, I'm not taking many possesions. I just have 2 suitcases that I will take on the plane, and then 6 boxes that I want couriered to Canada (im mostly just bringing guitars and clothes )

It would seem sensible to use a normal courier to get my boxes mailed over (I have used parcel monkey before to get a good comparison of costs), but Im really struggling to find out how the customs process works. All the articles I have found online are about people using removal companies and shipping by sea.

Does anyone know how the process would work if I used DHL for example? Is it a simple case that the boxes will get held up when they go through CBSA checks? Will DHL/CBSA then get in touch about me paying tax? but then can I show them my approved goods to follow and BSF186 form to get the goods cleared without paying tax?......other than the normal shipping and inventory forms is there any additional paperwork I should include with the boxes?

thanks in anticipation for any helpful replies

I did see there is a similar question on this site, but its from 10 years and didn't give much of a breakdown of the paper work required. so I wanted to post this and make sure I have the correct up to date and relevant info

thanks

Siouxie

Have you considered having them shipped as air cargo (possibly on the same flight as you are catching)? It's likely to be cheaper than using a courier company and you can sort out the customs on arrival - when you get your GTF list stamped - you could email and see what they might charge..
Air Transat, for example: https://www.airtransat.com/en-GB/Tra.../Baggage/Cargo

roryhazel

yes I thought about taking what I can on the plane. I’m flying with AirCanada and it will be cheaper to send via courier rather than taking it on the plane.

Stewie73

Just in case, Siouxie provided the air transit link, now you have mentioned AirCanada, here is their cargo version: https://www.aircanada.com/cargo/en/

When we looked at it, it was certainly cheaper than taking it on as checked baggage, obviously I do not know if you checked AitCanada cargo, but if not, here you go Also just consider time, if you can get it on the same plane, saves time in future (and worry as you are sending musical equipment) back and fourth from airport etc.

Siouxie

Air cargo is cheaper than courier prices, usually.. I don't mean taking it as excess luggage (which costs around $100 per case).

scrubbedexpat0103

We moved in March from the UK and DHL were a disaster.

We had our GTF list stamped on landing and we have a total of 16 boxes to be shipped by family at a later date.

A few weeks later we needed 2 of the boxes shipped, they were sent by DHL. They arrived in good time in Toronto and were held because of customs charges (all pretty normal.)

I was provided a number and called them, after explaining the situation I was given an email address to send the paperwork to. Long story short, I was given 3 different email addresses by three separate customer service agents to call, after having to keep calling as I was getting no response. Almost daily I was left automated voicemails telling me about the boxes. This went on for about two weeks and suddenly one of the boxes arrived at the door, it literally looked like it had been run over by something and was left out in the rain. We had used quality strong boxes, reinforced and packaged them properly.

After about another week, and further phone calls and emails there was no sign of the other box and no explanation why one was cleared and one wasn't.

The only way I resolved it was by making a separate complaint to DHL and the other box finally got delivered, again in terrible shape and with several items broken. I mentioned to them about the broken items and they told me they needed the sender to make the claim for them.

In my mind I thought the boxes could be delivered to a DHL office of your choice or delivered to your address on the production of the paperwork - but this doesn't seem possible.

We still have 14 boxes to ship and haven't decided how we are going to get them over.

roryhazel

Thanks PJM that is useful to know. So it sounds like using a courier should be ok as it gets stopped at the right part of the process, it’s just that DHL gave you awful customer service.

I had booked in with them to collect my stuff from the U.K. next week so this is troubling and now I think I might cancel.

anyone know if any more couriers that provide better customer service? I was going with DHL as they have been ok with me before and because they were cheap, but I don’t mind paying more for piece of mind.

Siouxie

Generally, you should arrive in Canada and get your GTF list stamped by the customs officer before your goods arrive... If these are items of value, don't forget to get them valued prior to sending - and include pertinent information on the GTF list.

Personally I would avoid couriers completely.

CanadaJimmy

My family sent me several boxes of my things with Parcel2Go, with the Landmark shipping option. Every time they arrived I had to pay a small amount in customs duties, ended up spending about $100 in total. On the plus side Landmark don't charge any ridiculous brokerage fees like UPS, DHL and FedEx, they seem to just charge the duty plus a $10 fee, and then send it through CanadaPost as a pay-on-delivery amount.

The only way to avoid it was for them to declare the value less than the equivalent of $20CAD, they put £10GBP and that avoided it and there were no issues, because $20 max duty-free amount in Canada - https://www.cbsa-asfc.gc.ca/import/c.../menu-eng.html

It is such a low limit and drives me crazy, the plus side is there is it seems there is very little enforcement for low declarations. Just wish it was the same as the US's $800 limit.