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Home > Guides > Duties on moving belongings to Canada
Usually no, if you qualify as a settler and the goods are your own used household effects. Canada lets new residents bring personal belongings in duty-free, but only with the right paperwork: a goods-to-follow list and a declaration at your first arrival. Skip that paperwork and the shipment can be treated as an ordinary import, with duties and taxes due.
This is general information, not tax advice.
The distinction matters because the exemption is about you, not about the boxes. A returning resident, a new immigrant, and a person moving on a work permit are handled under settler rules, while someone who already lives in Canada and orders goods from abroad is an importer. Same sofa, different treatment, depending on who is bringing it and when.
Settler's effects are the household goods and personal items you owned and used before moving: furniture, clothing, kitchenware, books, sports gear, and your car in many cases. The key tests are ownership and use. Goods you bought just before the move, still in their packaging, look like a purchase, not a possession, and an officer can treat them that way.
Some things sit outside the exemption even for settlers. Alcohol and tobacco have their own limits and taxes. A vehicle has to meet Canadian safety and emissions standards and may need inspection and registration steps after arrival. Firearms, plants, and food face separate controls that have nothing to do with duties. Check those categories before the truck leaves, not at the border.
The goods-to-follow list is your inventory of everything arriving after you do. You prepare it before you cross, in duplicate, with a description and a value for each item or grouped lot. At your first arrival, a border officer stamps it. When the later shipment arrives, that stamped list is what proves the goods were declared as yours.
This is the step people most often skip, and it is the one that costs money. Without a stamped list, goods that arrive later have no proof they were part of your move. Keep a copy for yourself, and give a copy to your mover or shipper, since the carrier may need it to clear the shipment. Photograph valuable items and keep receipts for anything new or high-value, because an officer can ask how you arrived at a value.
| Step | What to do | Why it matters |
|---|---|---|
| Before you leave | List all goods, including goods arriving later, with values | Creates the record the exemption rests on |
| At first arrival | Declare the goods and get the list stamped | Without the stamp, later goods look undeclared |
| When goods arrive | Present the stamped list to clear them | Links the shipment to your move |
| After arrival | Keep the stamped list and receipts | Useful if anything is questioned later |
Broadly yes, with a time test. A Canadian resident returning after a long absence can bring back household effects duty-free, but the rules look at how long you were away and whether the goods were yours abroad. Short trips do not count: the personal exemption for a weekend away is a different, smaller allowance, and it does not cover a household shipment.
Students and temporary workers have their own versions of these rules, and seasonal residents moving goods for part of the year can fall between categories. If your situation is not a straightforward permanent move, a short call to the border agency before shipping beats a surprise bill after.
Goods that beat you to the border can be held until you arrive and declare them, which means storage charges and delay. The cleaner order is: you arrive first, declare, then the goods follow. Movers know this sequence and usually schedule around it, but a parcel shipped on its own, ahead of you, does not get the benefit of your declaration. Small personal parcels sent to your new address before you land are treated as ordinary imports.
Plainly: no, not for a household move. LetterAgent provides Canada Post Xpresspost labels in Canada, for parcels up to 5 kg, quoted up front and paid once through Stripe. That fits a single box of personal items shipped within Canada, not a cross-border move, a furniture shipment, or a container of household goods. A move needs a mover or a freight shipper who handles customs paperwork as part of the job.
Ready to ship it? Get a shipping label with LetterAgent: describe it to your AI assistant, approve the exact quoted price, and get your label.
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