Integrated RetailingBy Peter Benes

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Cross-Border Selling Between Canada and the US for Single-Store Retailers

Duties, de minimis, GST/HST and CAD or USD pricing for a single store shipping across the Canada and US border, written from CBP, CRA and carrier pages.

The border between Canada and the US is the place where a small store’s shipping costs, tax position and prices can all change at once. Since August 29, 2025, the US has charged duty on parcels of any value. In June 2026, CBP made that suspension of the $800 de minimis exemption indefinite. Canada added its own surtaxes on certain US-origin goods on September 8, 2026. Carriers changed how they collect. If you ship across the line, the rules you set up last year probably need a second look.

This section is written for a single store with a web shop: one owner, no customs department, a few cross-border orders a day at most. Each guide is written from the government or carrier page fetched the day it was updated, and every source is listed.

Guides in this section

  • US de minimis and duties for Canadian stores. What a Canadian store must do now to ship to US customers. It covers Canada Post’s duties-prepaid process, courier entries, and why CUSMA works by courier but not by post. It also covers Section 338 duties and collecting US duties at Shopify checkout.
  • Selling into Canada from a US store. When a US store must register for GST/HST, and when it need not. It covers Canada’s courier and mail thresholds and the 2026 surtax on some US-origin goods. It ends with a Canada market and CAD prices in Shopify Markets.

Three things to fix first, either direction

  1. Product data. Put an HS code and a country of origin on every product you ship across the border. Duty calculations, carrier labels and customs entries all depend on them, and Shopify will not calculate duty without them.
  2. Carrier choice. Mail and courier are treated differently on both sides. In the US, CUSMA preference is available by courier and not for postal parcels. In Canada, couriers from the US get higher duty and tax thresholds than mail.
  3. Who pays duty. Collect duty at checkout, build it into prices, or let the customer pay on delivery. Say which on the shipping page.

Prices in this section are given in the currency the source uses: USD for US rules, CAD for Canadian ones.

Guides in Cross-Border