Shipping Tobacco to Canada from the US Privately

You can ship back and forth. The problem on your end would be your customs, they can place some hefty fees. A friend of mine in Canada ordered half a pound from a BM for $25 or so. Customs caught it and placed a $125 worth of fees on it. They probably do not scrutinize person to person packages as closely, unless you go over a pound or so. Just my experience with your postal organization.

A friend in the states huh?????? :nana:

I've mailed tobacco to friends in Canada several times, though never more than a 50 gram tin.

All I had to do was declare the contents and value on the appropriate forms. Takes two minutes.

So we just fill out to proper forms eh?

There you go... Just get everyone you know to send you a tin in the mail and you'll have a cellar in no time.

Just checking in to remind everyone to keep this thread on the straight and narrow. It's been excellent up until now and I'd hate to delete a thread which is otherwise a great discussion. Thanks!
-Jason

You can legally have 35oz shipped to you, you will much more likely get hit with duties in such a big shipment, but the law allows 5 units of pipe tobacco I believe, and 200g is a unit, so thats a kilogram you can ship. Thats risky business probably, but someone on here, I think Peck, has mentioned they've ordered pipe tobacco in quantities close to a kg and have even made it across. I'm too scared to risk it.

I have, dozens of times. This hobby is not for the timid, lol.

When I owned my shop in Scottsdale, AZ, I had a Canadian customer with a winter home in AZ. When he returned home to Canada during the summer, I'd ship him his tobacco, usually 1/2 pound per package. I'd include a copy of P&T magazine with the order and ship everything in a flat box. I'd declare "documents" on the customs form. I wasn't lying, there were documents in the package, but I "forgot" to mention the tobacco. Oops, my bad.
The flat shape of the box worked to not raise suspicions of customs inspectors. The vast majority of the time it would go right through no problems. Rarely, customs would open it and charge an outrageous duty, usually 3 times the original cost of the tobacco, which my customer would have to pay upon delivery.
The worst thing that happened was duties were charged. No one was arrested, no one went to jail, no one got in any trouble.
I've learned through years of experience, that when dealing with the government, being absolutely honest 100% of the time WILL get you into trouble, especially in this day and age. Only divulge enough information to get things done. Tell them what the need to know and say no more.
To ask permission is to be denied. Just do it and apologize later. I've adopted this attitude over the years, based on personal experience, and it works for me. I'm not telling anyone what to do, just relaying my experience.
YMMV. Caveat Emptor.
CACooper

Just checking in to remind everyone to keep this thread on the straight and narrow. It's been excellent up until now and I'd hate to delete a thread which is otherwise a great discussion. Thanks!
-Jason

Click to expand...

Just a reminder: Discussion of methods for shipping tobacco across borders to avoid paying taxes on those shipments will be deleted.
Please don't do it.

::

Some countries, like Australia have taxed tobacco products as much as 200%, as a result retail sales have dropped and retail pricing has also added a price premium. I have import via post from a online US retailer for over 20 years without a problem in quantities up to 32 ozs. The only issue here is that the parcel is correctly labelled as tobacco.

I live in Western Canada and I am going to Boston in a little over a week and I will be testing out the sending tobacco to a friend in Canada situation. Wife & I will be binging back a bit under 200 grams each when we fly back. I will also have a friend mail a similar amount to me. Fully expect to pay any duty and taxes that may be applied as it will still be a cost effective solution.

Canada is such a beautiful country. What a shame its come to this, with us not far behind.

Interesting topic I'll PM you.