Hi Guys,

I have just visited home in the UK for the first time since I became a Permanent Resident of Canada last May. Of course, I was spoilt rotten and got lots of nice gifts!

Every time I have travelled back from UK to Canada in the past I have just brought clothing and personal items so never had anything to declare but this time, half of my suitcase is gifts and a couple of things I bought whilst in England.

Do I have to declare everything including the gifts? My gifts consist of things like perfumes, pictures and books etc and come well within the Personal Exemption limits.

Things I have bought are a couple of books and a gift for the hubby which I have kept the invoices for.

Other items include chocolates and teabags (a couple of the teabags have real fruit pieces in which may fall into the section of bringing plants/fruits into the country?).

I have worked through the list and estimated prices for each things but am sure when I have filled in the Declaration Card on the plane, it wouldn't have enough room to write all of the items down!

Do I just declare everything and go through screening with my list of everything?

Thanks for your help. I don't at all mind paying duties and taxes on things I bought but not sure of the process of it all!

if in doubt declare it.

My experience has always been that if you declare stuff that you don't need to then they just amend your customs card.

Better that way round.

I've always answered "yes" to the question about food stuffs, dairy etc when bringing in chocolate . No idea if it actually counts as such but I've never had any questions once I tell them it's chocolate.

You should be reporting the values of everything you bring back in excess of what you took out. Gifts included. Just put a total value on the landing card, if you are under the limit, chances are they won't give you a second look. No need for a detailed list.

Everything you need to know (including details of personal exemptions) is here:

http://www.beaware.gc.ca/english/toce.shtml

Thank you!

You are always a great help on this site!

I will just work out the estimated total values and write it down and see what I get asked when I get there! Customs always scare me even though I know I have done nothing wrong haha so I like to be prepared!

My Genious

I got hauled over the coals by an officer in Ottawa for not declaring a bar of Toblerone I had bought at LHR. She would probably have derived some benefit from eating the choccy. As would most everyone else she came into contact with that day.

chocolate does seem to be a contentious issue

my last entry into Billy Bob airport I dutifully checked "yes" to indeed having some chocolate in my bag.

I was asked if I had purchased it in the states, I replied that it was form the states but I didn't purchase it, it was part of a conference swag bag.

This led to a discussion as to its value ( which apparently I had failed to declare)

It was a small bag of two or three branded chocolates. I have no idea how much they pay wholesale for their conference swag.

apparently I was meant to "guess"

we eventually agreed on $3

And while you were working out the $$ amount of your smuggled bounty 6 passengers probably walked past with several Millions $$ of Cocaine.

I don't think there were 6 other passengers on the plane. Load factors for Porter at Billy Bob seem to be on the low side , or at least they were back in October

I've never declared anything, not a single thing. If I do ever get stopped, I'll just say "I forgot".

We got collared by a search dog at Halifax recently for an overlooked and illegally imported apple that I'd picked up in the AC lounge at Heathrow and hadn't eaten on the plane. The cheerful dog handler directed us to secondary where we dutifully lined up and he filled in the neccessary form as a receipt for taking it off us. He wasn't the slightest bit interested in chocolate or marmalade, hob-nobs or any of the other edible goodies we were bringing back after Christmas.

Interestingly enough, when we finally got home and upacked, in another bag, we came across some clementines purchased in Tesco and not eaten on the plane. The search dog clearly knows his apples but not his oranges.

Mmmmm... really fancy a proper Bounty now...