Landing Process - How specific should our itemized list be?

[DGreen]

I'm a Canadian living with my American wife in L.A., and we are getting ready to move to Canada. We're worried about getting our stuff across the border without getting anything confiscated or being forced to pay duty or any bad thing happening to us. Bad things are the worst.

I've been digging around, and I read this on immigration.ca:

List of goods and possessions - Immigrants should prepare two detailed lists of personal possessions on a plain sheet of paper entitled: Annex "A" Goods in Possession and Annex "B" Goods to Follow. Possessions of value should include serial numbers with the approximate value of each item as well as insurance policies or jeweler's appraisals. This information will be presented to the Customs Officials following the admission process. Items that have been owned, possessed and used, will qualify for importation, duty -free.

This is good advice, but it leaves many unanswered questions.

1) What constitutes a possession of value? Everything worth $50 or more? $100? And how do we determine the values? The original prices or the resale values?

2) Surely we don't need to describe and assign a value to every book, knick-knack, and pillow we own. Do we?

3) Does it make sense for me, as a Canadian returning to the country after being gone for more than a year, to claim most of our possessions as mine specifically, using the Personal Effects Accounting Document (Form B4) as outlined in the brochure "Moving Back to Canada" rather than through my wife's landing process?


So what are your experiences with bringing your things across the border? Are the border officials uptight about this list? Did you get burned and forced to pay duty on something?

 

[toby]

I don't know the answer to all your questions, but here is what I am doing.

Once settled in Canada, I will have someone ship my personal possessions, now stored in Costa Rica (long story; don't ask), to me in Canada.

WHen I left COsta RIca to stay in China, I did not note the serial numbers of the stereo, and art doesn't have seril numbers, but I DID take photos. I also packed a few boxes with clothing and small household items too numerous to name.

So, I will give to Customs the list of stereo components with photos, just photos of the artworks, and a simple statement that three boxes of personal effects will follow as well.

If Customs wants to go through the boxes to assign values, they will quickly see that the value is minimal, and the items are used (i.e. no duties).

As to whether to declare these items in your name or your spouse's name too, I am interested to hear what others say.

 

[james9655]

I recently returned to Canada after several years outside the country. I brought a 30kg box with me and sent two 25 kg boxes of personal effects by air cargo. My experience was that the customs person was very good. There were just a few questions and the process took maybe 10 minutes, most of that time she was filling forms. I had filled out a B4A form? ahead of time and she seemed surprised by that…I listed the general types of things I was bringing and the quantity. None of the stuff I brought had any market value. It probably wasn’t worth bringing but we didn’t want to throw it away. So I put a dollar value on some groups of things (10 ceramic ornaments $xx) – I just pulled a number out of the air really - other things I didn’t bother. I did not have to pay duty on anything.

We still have some stuff that we are leaving overseas that we plan to bring to Canada on future trips. My wife is going to claim it as goods to follow. I wish I had claimed that stuff when I returned, but I didn’t think of it at the time…I don’t think it will matter to customs, it would just make landing a little less complicated for my wife.

One other comment from my recent experience is that, if you are sending things to Canada, try to avoid having them land in the US first, and if you can’t do that don’t send anything that can be broken with a half hearted swing of a medium sized hammer. My boxes were opened by US Customs and it looked like they had been inspected by bears. It looked as if some things had been deliberately broken so they could see inside (pottery)…they certainly took no care about repacking things.

One other thing – I sent copies of the documents that I got from customs when I landed that identified the boxes that were being sent by air cargo and indicated that all duties had been paid -- $0 –to the shipping company in Canada that had my boxes.. The shipping company told me that customs would not accept this to release my boxes until I provided proof that I had been out of the country for more than a year. It was not hard to do, but seemed unnecessary and the shipping company charged me an extra $50 for their trouble – maybe the shipping company was just telling me that to get some cash out of me, I don’t know.

Generally, it was pretty easy.

 

[Suin]

hello,
did you sent them by air cargo the same day you left or they arrived later?

 

[james9655]

Suin:

I sent the boxes several weeks before I left.

 

[AllisonVSC]

I haven't landed yet but will in the next few weeks (from the US). I made a list of my items that could not be boxed (mostly furniture and lawncare equipment) and labeled the boxes with a number and a general content description (plates, kitchen ware, winter clothes, etc). This list got me in trouble at the border when I crossed as a visitor to do medical, file the application, visit my sponsor, etc in June. Long story short, don't bring any evidence that you plan to immigrate with you if you enter the country as a visitor. But, the immigration officer told me in casual conversation that my list was "much more than we usually get."

I also had questions about the value of the goods and was told by a different IO to use resale value in Canadian dollars. So I plan to put a value on each box (not item) at basically what it would sell for at a yard sale. I do not own anything of significant value. Reading the CIC website I learned that personal property reported at landing is not subject to duty; only new items (and possibly some specialty items I have forgotten because they didn't apply to me) brought into the country are subject to duty. I expect that the only items that could be confiscated are those which are not allowed houseplants, certain food items, fireworks, weapons, etc. I hope that is correct. By the way, Canada categorizes pepper spray as an illegal weapon which was also an issue when I crossed in June. It was not specifically mentioned on the list of banned items on the website. I checked both before and after crossing.

I look forward to reading other experiences about the landing process. Any words of advice are most appreciated. Good luck to those landing!

 

[AllisonVSC]

You can attach your list of goods to a blank copy of the B4 form. The first link below also provides suggestions for how to list the value of your goods, like you can lump all your kitchenware together and give it a value.

If you are importing a car into Canada, be aware of regulations of Transport Canada AND the fact that you must EXPORT it through US Customs which requires paperwork submitted at least 3 days in advance.

Some links to read:

http://www.cbsa-asfc.gc.ca/publications/dm-md/d2/d2-2-1-eng.pdf (pay attention to paragraph 49).

http://www.tc.gc.ca/eng/roadsafety/safevehicles-importation-index-443.htm

Don't forget: you don't need to import all your goods in one time, but you will need your B4 copy every time you do so. If not... $$$

 

[Suin]

Suin:

I sent the boxes several weeks before I left.

thank you for your reply, james9655. I am just trying to understand how air cargo works. do they deliver the same way as ordinary parcels? do you receive them in the post office or need to go to border?

 

[james9655]

Suin

I am not an expert... my understanding is that goods arriving from outside the country by air cargo are held at the point of entry until they clear customs. Usually a customs broker is involved and will charge a fee to prepare the paper work and maybe for storing the goods (I suppose that is what the fee is for). When any required duties are paid the goods can be released. The goods can be delivered to you, if you have arranged for that with a shipping company or you can pick them up at the warehouse, which will be at or near the airport, where they are placed when they arrive.


Hope this helps. As I said I am no expert and it is not entirely clear to me so this is just based on my experiences.

 

[Suin]

thank you for your answer, james9655. you helped a lot.