As you may have heard, the US has removed the de minimus exemption as of August 29th.
At first we did not have plans to cease shipping to the US. Many of our favorite customers are there, and the holiday season is rapidly approaching. A 35% tariff rate sounds like a lot, but some customers would still be willing to pay it. After all a $25 CAD dice bag would be about the same price in the US if you include the tariffs. However, there is problem apparently in collecting the tariffs. There are many questions that need to be addressed, and not very many answers at this point.
Some questions we have are: Who collects the tariffs, is it collected on delivery? Is it collected at the point of purchase? Are goods manufactured in Canada (most of our products are handmade) exempt under CUSMA? Will exemption certificates be available to fill in at the point of purchasing our shipping labels, or do we have to provide our own for the packages?
Here's what we DO know so far:
(Excerpt from the Canada Post Email this morning)
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Goods valued at US$800 or less that are shipped to the United States through the postal network will be subject to an ad valorem duty. This duty will be equal to the effective tariff rate applicable to the product's country of origin under the International Emergency Economic Powers Act (IEEPA). For Canada, the current IEEPA rate is 35% for most goods.
Starting August 29, 2025, every package shipped from Canada to the U.S. must show proof that duties have been prepaid before the shipment can be accepted for delivery.
After this date, Canada Post will only accept U.S.-bound label requests that include a valid Declaration ID - a 13-character code that confirms duties are secured before the shipment is accepted.
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-- This only applies to Canada Post and the postal network. We do not have information at this time whether the Ad valorem duty applies to courier services, or if the $200 flat rate will apply.
-- The problem: Canada Post does not yet have an option to pre-pay the tariffs/duties. We also do not yet have an option on our Shopify cart to charge these fees to you separately. Hopefully this will come as Canada post creates these options, but we do not know if it will, or if we will have to find 3rd party software to calculate these.
-- CUSMA Exemption: Our goods should be exempt under CUSMA. However it is not clear how to apply for this exemption, Or if we simply need to provide additional paperwork to the outside of the box. The paperwork to fill out the forms for each type of item we make will take some time, as we need to indicate which HS codes our raw materials our from, and which HS codes that we have transformed them into.
TLDR: Given all the uncertainty regarding the administration of the tariffs and tariff exemptions we have TEMPORARILY suspended shipping to the us