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No, and don't try it. For Canada's customs rules, a gift has to be sent by a friend or relative, personally, with a card or note saying it is a gift, and items sent by a business do not qualify. Marking something you bought as a gift is a false declaration on a customs document, which is an offence, and it can get the goods seized.
This is general information, not legal advice.
The CBSA's test is narrow and specific: for an item to qualify as a gift, a friend or relative must send it to you personally, and it must include a card or other notice indicating that it is a gift. A purchase fails that test twice over. First, money changed hands, so it is a transaction, not a gift. Second, items sent by a business are explicitly excluded from the gift exemption, so asking an overseas seller to tick the "gift" box on the customs form does not make your order a gift. It makes the form false. Customs officers see this attempt constantly; the gift box on the form is not a loophole they have never encountered.
A genuine gift mailed to you in Canada, worth sixty Canadian dollars or less, comes in with no duty or tax. If the gift is worth more than that, you pay the applicable duty and taxes only on the amount over sixty dollars: a two-hundred-dollar gift from a relative, for example, is taxed on one hundred and forty dollars, not the full value. Tobacco, alcohol, advertising material, and business-sent items are excluded from the gift exemption entirely, no matter the value. And the gift exemption cannot be combined with the separate twenty-dollar exemption that covers most low-value imports: you get one or the other, not both.
| Scenario | Is it a gift under CBSA rules? | Result |
|---|---|---|
| Aunt in Ohio mails you a birthday present with a card | Yes: friend/relative, personal, notice included | No duty or tax if worth sixty Canadian dollars or less |
| Online store marks your paid order as a gift | No: a purchase, sent by a business | False declaration: an offence, goods can be seized |
| Friend abroad sends you something you paid them for | No: payment was involved | Treated as a purchase; normal duty and taxes apply |
| Business sends free samples with no payment | No: sent by a business | Excluded from the gift exemption |
Making a false representation on a customs document is an offence, and the CBSA can seize the goods, assess penalties, and flag your address for closer inspection on future imports. The savings you were chasing also tend to be smaller than people assume: on a genuine sixty-dollar-or-less gift you would have paid nothing anyway, and above that you only pay on the excess. The risk-reward math of lying on the form is terrible in both directions. Declare purchases as purchases, with their real value. Also note the scope of this question: it is about goods coming into Canada. LetterAgent's shipping labels are Canada-only domestic labels, so customs declarations do not apply to parcels sent with them at all.
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