A question for our Canadian members.

[alialansari]

Greetings,
My sister who lives in Canada (Vancouver) is coming back home for a visit and offered to bring me back some tobacco. Instead of having her running around with a list, I was hoping to place an order on the smokingpipes.com website and have it shipped to her. My only concern is whether or not taxes are applicable upon receipt. Will she have to pay an import fee?
Kind regards.

 

[josephcross]

Your best bet is to read this page (travel.gc.ca). It will give you a general idea of how much you can bring over, and time frame. Keeping your receipts and documenting the duration of your stay will help when your sister gets to the border.

Good luck and happy smoking!

 

[alialansari]

Hey Joseph, I am not going to Canada. My sister is coming home to Bahrain and is bringing me some baccy. She lives in a neighborhood where the tobacconist isn't very well stocked and I was therefore thinking about placing an order on smokingpipes.com to send her some tobacco from the US to Vancouver to bring back with her. My question is whether she'll have to pay an import fee at the customs office for receiving tobacco from the USA.

 

[sakoguy]

Its luck of the draw, for pipe tobacco I would say I have only had to pay duty about 5% of the time. Cigars on the other hand its more like 75% of the time. The duty isnt terrible on pipe tobacco if you do get unlucky its still cheaper than buying it here.

 

[josephcross]

I live in Vancouver as well, and there is only one or two tobacconists that are decently stocked. The problem being is that the tobacco will still have to cross the border and then be subject to tax. I have ordered from smokingpipes quite often and found in my experience that you will get one out of six orders dinged with tax. Even on one tin. My best advice is that you have to be prepared to pay the tax, which will still end up to about 50$ cad per tin. Hope that helps.