We love our Canadian Airstreamers, too! Whenever we can, we try to use the Postal Service on Canadian shipments because of the ‘Brokerage Fee’ being assessed by UPS. Some packages are too large, however, to make this feasible. We want to make you aware of what UPS is doing on shipments to Canada from the USA. Now, UPS claims they are not assessing this fee but only passing it through from someone else – but refused to tell us who.
This email from Ellen in BC describes how she got around the brokerage fee.
I wanted to let you know that your package was delivered today. Actually, it had arrived last week, but I sent the nice UPS guy back to the depot with it, having told him I was planning to self-clear. I’ll tell you the story of that now, but I’ve also attached some instructions for you to pass on to other interested customers from Canada. Hopefully the process works the same in every province, which it should.
The original delivery guy gave me my copy of the brokerage form/invoice to use in making a phone call to UPS. It listed a total of $110.91 in import charges, consisting of a brokerage fee of $73.15 and Goods and Services Tax of $37.66. I phoned the general UPS number (1-800-742-5877 in Canada), gave them the Tracking Number, and said I wanted to self-clear. It took a couple of days, but they sent me back a form called Casual LVS Self Accounting Procedures, which also had your invoice attached to it. The email said for me to take this form down to my Canadian Border Services Agency (CBSA) office and present it to an agent. Once the taxes and duties were assessed (only GST applied in my case), I was to pay them, receive a stamped B15 receipt, and fax or email the form and the receipt to UPS for processing. Then, they’d proceed with delivering the package.
In the end, I took the paperwork down to the CBSA office and the agent kindly waived any charges (i.e., the GST) because he said I’d come organized with all my forms. I haven’t put that in the instructions attached because agents wouldn’t do this in every case. They’re given some discretion and this agent was very pleasant (also a trailer fan). It all took me under 10 minutes in their office and then I came home and scanned and emailed the stamped form to the UPS address provided (no B15 receipt since I hadn’t paid anything).
Anyway, I suppose if a customer was in a hurry, he or she wouldn’t want to go through all this, but personally I appreciate saving the $111 to spend on something else. I’d expected a bunch of forms for me to fill out on my own, but actually UPS does that for you. You just have to do the legwork with the CBSA.
Ellen also said “As I understand it, the brokerage fee goes to the customs broker, who facilitates (?!) the import of goods into Canada. In this case, it would be UPS themselves. Not only do they charge you the $73 fee, but they charge 5% GST on top of that because it’s a service.”
Thank you Ellen for typing this up for us. Hopefully it will help you, too!
