Canada's Tariffs, Explained

Canada charges four separate groups of extra tax

The records show four groups of surtax. Each group has its own reason, its own rules, and its own list of goods.

The four groups run independently. One group can end while the others carry on. That has happened twice so far.

Two large taxes have already ended

Two of the biggest surtaxes in this period are no longer charged.

• The 25% tax on US goods, introduced in March 2025, ended on 1 September 2025.
• The 100% tax on electric cars from China ended on 1 March 2026. This was the largest rate Canada charged in the whole period.

Surtaxes on US steel, US aluminum and US motor vehicles are still being charged. The sentence "the US tax ended" is true of one order and false of several others, so the order number matters.

How Canada decides where a product comes from

Each group of taxes measures origin in its own way, and none of them uses the ordinary customs rule.

For US goods, Canada uses the labelling rule. The question is whether the product may be labelled as a product of the United States. Under this rule, goods from Puerto Rico, Guam, the Northern Mariana Islands, American Samoa and the US Virgin Islands are not taxed.

For Chinese steel and aluminum, the test is where the metal was melted and poured, or smelted and cast. This is a question about the mill, not about the shipping route. Steel can arrive from any country and still be taxed if the metal was first melted in China. Mill paperwork is the only way to establish this.

For the steel quota, goods produced outside Canada, the United States and Mexico are taxed even when they are shipped to Canada from the US or Mexico.

For the emergency product rules, origin has no bearing at all. They apply to goods from every country.

When two taxes apply to the same goods

There is no single rule about whether surtaxes add together. Each order states its own answer.

The government's own worked example shows two surtaxes landing on the same $1,000 shipment of steel:

• 50% steel quota tax = $500
• 25% China tax = $250
• Plus GST
• Total owed: $837.50

A different order takes the opposite approach. The order covering steel parts states that goods already taxed by one of the other steel orders are not taxed a second time.

One order stacks and another refuses to. The order that applies to a particular product is the one that answers the question.

GST is charged on the extra tax

GST is not calculated on the price of the goods alone. It is calculated on the price plus the surtax plus the duty.

A 50% surtax therefore costs more than 50%. Once GST is added on top of it, the true cost is about 52.5%.

Getting the money back through remission

The government's word for forgiving or refunding a surtax is remission.

Remission has to be claimed. The importer applies for it and quotes the correct code, and each type of relief has a code of its own. One CBSA notice lists more than twenty codes, each tied to particular goods.

Relief is available more readily to some groups, including:

• hospitals, clinics, laboratories and long-term care homes
• ambulance, fire, police and prison services
• the military and national security bodies
• manufacturers using the goods to make other goods

One category works differently from the rest. For certain motor vehicle imports, relief is granted to named companies by business number rather than to a class of goods. In those cases the answer depends on who is importing.

Deadlines for claiming relief

Each list of goods carries its own deadline, and several have already passed.

A general limit also applies. An importer normally has two years from the day the goods arrived to claim a refund.

This is why paperwork for the March 2025 surtax continued into 2026. The surtax stopped in September 2025, and the right to claim it back ran on afterwards.

Specific goods that are and are not taxed

The orders name particular goods, and some of the distinctions are narrow.

Not taxed:

• Vegetables in glass jars. The surtax covers metal cans only.
• Medicine cabinets that hang on a wall, have a mirror, are sold ready to use, and are no more than 7 inches (17.78 cm) deep.
• New tires fitted to a vehicle at the factory. Replacement tires are taxed.
• Goods brought back by residents of Campobello Island, New Brunswick, after a trip of less than 24 hours.
• Goods already in transit to Canada on the day a surtax started.

Taxed:

• Small parcels. The usual low-value exemption does not apply.
• Goods sent by post or courier. The relief that normally covers them does not apply either.

The codes go down to the level of individual products. One code covers wind towers.

Two taxes have an end date

Two of the newest surtaxes are temporary by design. They protect Canadian producers while a tribunal examines the case.

Each may run for a maximum of 200 days. Each may also stop sooner. If the tribunal finds that Canadian producers are not being harmed, the surtax ends on the day of that decision.

These two rules are the least stable in this guide. Check their current status before relying on them.

Finding the rule that applied on a past date

Three points matter when looking up a past date.

Use the date the rule came into force, not the date it was printed. The two dates often differ. One order came into force nine days before it was printed. Another came into force seven months before it was printed.

Check whether the surtax had already ended. An order can read as current and have been repealed.

Treat today's web page as evidence about today only. The border agency revises its notices in place and keeps the same address for each one. One notice has been revised five times. The live page shows the current revision. Answering a question about last year requires a copy saved at that time.

Where this information comes from

This guide is drawn from 31 records in the KnowDrive Canada store. Each record holds the full official text rather than a summary of it.

The records cover two kinds of document:

• orders published in the Canada Gazette, which are the law itself
• notices from the Canada Border Services Agency, which set out how the law is applied at the border

Each record carries four dates: when the instrument was signed, when it came into force, when it was printed, and when we retrieved it. The retrieval date tells you how old the answer is.

This guide is a plain-language summary. For a decision involving money, customs paperwork or legal exposure, read the official text or consult a customs broker or a lawyer.

Reading the official text yourself

The full official wording sits behind this guide: every order and every notice, word for word. It is free to read.

Start an account at KnowDrive.ai. Every account includes the public data stores, and the Public KnowDrive Store is readable by every user.

An account gives you four things:

• the full official wording, rather than a summary of it
• search across the records, in everyday language
• a way to check any fact in this guide against the record it came from
• all of it at no cost

The records used to write this guide are the same records the account opens. Read them yourself.