CBSA issued Customs Notice 26-23 covering the United States Surtax Order (2026), and if you're importing U.S.-origin goods, you need to read it before your next shipment crosses the border. Not after. Before.
We've been living in a tit-for-tat tariff environment since early 2025, and this latest round confirms it isn't winding down. Canadian surtaxes on U.S.-origin goods are active, the schedule has been updated, and the cost of getting caught flat-footed is real. A 25% surtax stacked on top of your MFN duty rate is not a rounding error. It's a margin killer.
This post walks you through exactly what to check before your next U.S.-origin purchase order ships. We'll cover how to identify affected tariff items, what origin documentation you actually need, how the surtax stacks with other duty rates, and whether you might qualify for a remission.
What Customs Notice 26-23 Actually Says
Customs Notice 26-23 is CBSA's operational guidance on the United States Surtax Order (2026). It tells officers and importers how to apply the surtax at the border: which tariff items are captured, what rate applies, and how to declare it on your accounting document.
The surtax applies to goods that are originating from the United States. That word "originating" matters more than most importers realize, and we'll come back to it. The surtax is collected at the time of accounting, on top of whatever duty rate already applies under the Customs Tariff.
The notice also points to the remission side of the equation. Not everything is caught. Some goods have been carved out, and if you're in one of those categories, you need to know about it now, not after you've overpaid.
Pull up the notice directly. Read the schedule. Don't rely on your supplier telling you whether your goods are affected. They're working from a U.S. tariff schedule, not a Canadian one, and they have no idea what surtax applies when your goods land in Canada.
Step One: Check Your Tariff Items Against the Surtax Schedule
The surtax doesn't apply to everything from the U.S. It applies to specific tariff items listed in the schedule to the United States Surtax Order (2026). Your first job is to match your goods against that list.
This sounds straightforward. It isn't always.
A hardware importer we worked with last spring was bringing in steel fasteners from a U.S. supplier. They'd been classifying under heading 73.18 for years without issue. When the surtax schedule came out, they assumed fasteners weren't captured because their broker hadn't flagged it. They were wrong. The specific tariff item they were using was on the schedule. Three shipments in before anyone caught it.
Here's how to do this properly:
- Get your complete list of Canadian tariff classification numbers for every U.S.-origin product you import. Not the HS heading. The full ten-digit tariff item.
- Compare each one against the schedule in the Surtax Order. The schedule lists tariff items, not product descriptions. You need the number, not a keyword search.
- Flag anything that matches. That's your surtax exposure list.
- For anything you're unsure about, check whether there's a classification issue underneath the surtax question. If your classification is wrong, your surtax analysis is also wrong.
If you haven't confirmed your tariff classifications recently, now is the time. Classification errors are expensive in a normal year. In a surtax year, they're worse.
Step Two: Confirm U.S. Origin, and Understand What That Actually Means
The surtax applies to goods originating from the United States. That's not the same as goods shipped from the United States. It's not the same as goods invoiced by a U.S. company. Origin is a legal determination, and it's one that a lot of importers get wrong.
Under Canadian customs law, origin for surtax purposes generally follows the non-preferential origin rules. For most goods, that means substantial transformation: where was the good last substantially transformed into the product you're importing?
Here's where it gets interesting. If your U.S. supplier is sourcing components from China, assembling them in Ohio, and shipping to you in Canada, those goods may or may not be of U.S. origin depending on the nature of the assembly. A simple packing or minor assembly operation doesn't change origin. A genuine manufacturing process might.
Ask your supplier for a certificate or statement of origin. Not just "made in USA" on the box. An actual written declaration that the goods are of U.S. origin for customs purposes. If they can't provide one, that's a red flag you need to investigate before the goods ship.
Also consider the flip side. If your goods are actually of Chinese or Mexican origin but are being shipped through the U.S., they may not be subject to the U.S. surtax at all. But you need to be able to prove that origin at the border. "My supplier said so" is not documentation.
How the Surtax Stacks With MFN and USMCA Rates
This is the part that surprises most importers the first time they see a duty calculation on a surtaxed shipment.
The surtax is applied on top of your regular duty rate. It's not a replacement. So if you're paying MFN duty of 6.5% on a product, and the surtax rate is 25%, you're paying 31.5% total on the value of the goods. That's before any provincial sales tax, GST, or other charges.
USMCA doesn't save you here. This is a point of real confusion. USMCA gives you a 0% preferential duty rate on qualifying goods. But the surtax is a separate measure. It's applied under the authority of the Customs Tariff, not the USMCA, and qualifying for USMCA doesn't exempt you from the surtax on affected tariff items.
So a U.S.-origin good that qualifies for USMCA might have a 0% duty rate plus a 25% surtax. You're still paying 25%. The USMCA claim gets you the 0%, but it doesn't touch the surtax column.
Make sure your landed cost calculations reflect this. If you've been quoting customers based on USMCA-cleared duty rates and you haven't factored in the surtax, your margins are wrong.
Remission Orders: Check CN26-10 Before You Assume You're Stuck
Not every affected importer has to pay the full surtax. The government has issued remission orders that carve out specific goods or sectors, and you need to check whether you qualify before you just pay and move on.
Customs Notice 26-10 covers the United States Surtax Remission Order for Motor Vehicles (2026). If you're in the automotive sector, importing U.S.-origin vehicles or certain automotive goods, this notice is directly relevant to you. The remission carves out motor vehicles from the surtax, subject to conditions.
But motor vehicles aren't the only remission category. The government has issued other remission orders under the broader surtax framework, and the list has evolved since early 2025. Check the CBSA Customs Notices index and filter for notices related to the United States Surtax. Look for any remission order that might cover your sector or your specific tariff items.
One thing worth flagging as of September 2026: CBSA has also been extending certain border-related permits and programs on a rolling basis. If you're operating under any permit tied to a remission condition, confirm it's still current. Permits in at least one CBSA program were recently extended to November 30, 2026, and that kind of administrative update is easy to miss if you're not watching the newsroom.
Remission is not automatic. You have to claim it. That means declaring the remission on your accounting document correctly, citing the right order, and keeping documentation to support the claim. If you claim remission and can't back it up on audit, you'll owe the surtax plus interest.
If you think you might qualify for a remission and you're not sure how to claim it, talk to your broker before the goods arrive. Fixing it after the fact is possible but it's extra work and extra cost.
What Your Accounting Document Needs to Show
When you're filing your Form B3 (or your CAD through CARM), the surtax needs to be declared correctly. That means using the right tariff treatment code, the right rate, and the right value for duty.
CBSA has been clear that the surtax is declared as a separate line on the accounting document. It's not buried in the regular duty calculation. If your broker is filing and they haven't asked you about surtax applicability, ask them directly: "Are you accounting for the U.S. surtax on this entry?"
If you're self-accounting under CARM, make sure your team understands how to declare the surtax. The CARM readiness implications here are real: importers who took on their own accounting without fully understanding the duty calculation rules are the ones who end up with post-entry corrections and interest charges.
Keep your origin documentation on file for every surtaxed entry. CBSA can ask for it on a verification, and "we didn't think to keep it" is not an answer that ends well.
Auditing Your Open Purchase Orders Right Now
Here's the practical exercise. Do this today, not next week.
- Pull your open purchase orders for U.S.-origin goods. Every one.
- List the Canadian tariff classification for each product. If you don't know it, find out.
- Check each tariff item against the schedule in the United States Surtax Order (2026) as referenced in CN26-23.
- For anything on the list, confirm you have written origin documentation from your supplier.
- Check whether any remission order applies. Start with CN26-10 for motor vehicles, then check the broader notices index.
- Recalculate your landed costs with the surtax included. If the numbers change your sourcing decision, better to know now than after the goods are on a truck.
- Brief your broker. Make sure they know which shipments are surtax-affected and what documentation you have.
An electronics distributor we know skipped step six. They'd been importing U.S.-origin components for years, comfortable with their duty costs. The surtax added roughly $180,000 in annualized duty on their main product line. They found out on their third shipment of the year. The first two were already sold at the old margin.
Don't be that story.
What Happens If You Get It Wrong
If you underpay surtax, CBSA will assess the difference plus interest. The interest rate on customs amounts owing is not trivial, and it runs from the date the duty was payable, not the date CBSA found the error.
If the error looks like a pattern, you're looking at a potential penalty under the Administrative Monetary Penalty System. AMPS penalties for duty-related contraventions can run from a few hundred dollars to well over $25,000 per occurrence depending on the contravention and your compliance history. Repeat violations escalate.
If you've already filed entries where you think the surtax may have been missed or miscalculated, talk to your broker about a voluntary correction. Filing a K9 adjustment before CBSA finds the error on their own is almost always the better outcome. You'll still owe the duty and interest, but you avoid the penalty exposure.
And don't assume CBSA is too busy to notice. They launched new dumping and subsidizing investigations in September 2026 alone, truck and bus tires from China, paperboard cups and containers from China, and trade compliance verifications on surtax-affected goods are running in parallel. The enforcement capacity is there.
A Note on Sourcing Decisions Going Forward
Some importers are using the surtax as a trigger to review their sourcing. That's a reasonable response. If a U.S. supplier was competitive partly because of geography and low duty costs, and now there's a 25% surtax in play, the math changes.
But don't make sourcing decisions based on tariff rates alone without doing the full landed cost analysis. Switching to a non-U.S. supplier might avoid the surtax, but it might also change your USMCA eligibility on the finished goods you're selling into the U.S. market, affect your lead times, or introduce quality variables. The tariff piece is one input.
If you're considering an advance ruling to lock in a classification or origin determination before you switch suppliers, that's a smart move. Advance rulings give you certainty before you commit to a sourcing change, and they're binding on CBSA for the goods described in the ruling.
Frequently Asked Questions
Does the U.S. surtax apply to goods that just pass through the U.S. on their way to Canada?
No, not if the goods are not of U.S. origin. The surtax is based on origin, not routing. If your Chinese-manufactured goods are shipped through a U.S. distribution centre and then into Canada, and the goods are of Chinese origin, they're not subject to the U.S. surtax. But you need documentation proving that origin. Transit through the U.S. doesn't change origin, but it does raise questions that CBSA may ask about.
My supplier gives me a "Made in USA" label. Is that enough for origin documentation?
No. A product label is a marketing claim, not a customs origin declaration. You need a written statement from your supplier, ideally on company letterhead or as part of a commercial document, confirming that the goods are of U.S. origin for customs purposes. Some importers use a supplier declaration form. If your supplier won't provide one, that's a conversation worth having before the goods ship.
We qualify for USMCA on these goods. Does that mean we're exempt from the surtax?
No. USMCA preferential treatment reduces or eliminates the regular customs duty. The surtax is a separate charge applied under different authority. Qualifying for USMCA gets you the 0% duty rate, but the surtax is still applied on top of that. You can claim USMCA and still owe surtax on the same entry.
How do I know if a remission order applies to my goods?
Start with CN26-10 if you're in the automotive or motor vehicle sector. Then check the CBSA Customs Notices index and look for any other remission orders issued under the United States Surtax framework. Read the conditions carefully. Remission orders are specific about which tariff items qualify, what conditions must be met, and how the claim is made on the accounting document. If you're not sure, ask your broker to review it with you.
Can I get a refund if I overpaid surtax on past shipments?
Yes, if you overpaid because a remission order applied and you didn't claim it, or because the goods weren't actually of U.S. origin and you paid the surtax anyway. You'd file an adjustment using the standard post-entry correction process. There are time limits on these corrections, generally four years from the date of accounting, so don't sit on it. Talk to your broker about whether a correction is worth pursuing and what documentation you'd need.
We're a small importer. Does CBSA really audit companies like us?
Yes. CBSA's trade compliance verification program targets specific tariff items and sectors, not just large importers. If your tariff items are on the surtax schedule and CBSA is running a verification on that commodity, your size doesn't protect you. Small importers also tend to have weaker documentation practices, which makes verifications harder to defend. The cost of getting it right upfront is always less than the cost of fixing it after a verification.