General

Previously, the Canadian Customs (CBSA) officially issued a notice that starting from January 4, 2021, except for FROB and In-transit types that still accept the original ACI declaration, all goods imported or transited through Canada must be shipped 24 hours before shipment. Make an E-Manifest declaration.

Canadian Customs has given this new regulation a transitional period of 6 months, and it will be enforced on July 4.

For cargo owners who fail to declare in a timely manner, the Canadian Customs will not impose a fine (zero fine) in the first 6 months of the formal implementation of this regulation, but the declaration must be completed correctly before customs clearance. After the 6-month grace period, consignors who fail to declare correctly in time will be fined.

ACI (Advance Commercial Information) is a pre-declaration commercial information system, that is, the Canadian version of the AMS manifest system. All goods imported into or transiting through Canada must declare ACI.

EM can be understood as an upgraded version of ACI. ACI is a one-time declaration using a real receiving and dispatching channel, while EM needs to declare layer by layer, that is, after several sets of orders, apply for several times.

Canadian Customs clearly stated that for cargo imported from Canada, freight forwarders at all levels (NVOCC/Freight forwarder) must submit eHBL data on their own and no longer accept shipping companies to declare ACI S10 information.

Pre-declaration time

Air freight: 4 hours before arrival in Canada (for a flight less than 4 hours, 4 hours before departure)

Shipping: declare 24 hours before loading

Train: declare 4 hours before arriving in Canada

Highway: declare 1 hour before arriving in Canada

Forwarder's responsibilities

For goods imported into Canada, the forwarder needs to pre-declare the house data and close the message to the Canadian customs

Continue to declare Supplementary cargo data for non-unloading cargo (FROB) in transit through Canada

Official implementation time

July 4, 2021

Note: Non-compliance can result in a fine of up to $5,000