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A CANADIAN'S
GUIDE TO BRINGING ALCOHOL
BACK ACROSS THE
U.S. BORDER
We've given you a detailed round-up of cross-border shopping regulations, but here's a more detailed discussion of limits on bringing alcohol across the Canadian-American border.
• What
You Can Bring
Back within 24 hours
• Over 48 hours
•
After 7 days
•
Alcohol Taxes and Duties
•
Shipping Alcohol to
Yourself
•
Hot Tips for
Crossing the Border with Booze
Heading down to
Seattle for a concert and unsure of what to do with your leftover six-pack? Catching a ballgame in
Detroit and hoping to bring some microbrews home to celebrate?
Want to return from your
Napa Valley vineyard tour with a few bottle? Here's our fool-proof guide to moving across the
Canada-U.S. border with alcohol.
UNDER 24 HOURS (
AKA SAME-DAY CROSS BORDER SHOPPING)
Sorry. No personal exemptions. You have to declare and pay duties and taxes for any alcohol that you bring back into
Canada if you're doing a trip of less than one day. If you could just pop across the border and buy a few bottles of wine, would the half of our population who live close enough to
America to drive there in a few hours ever shop at their local liquor store? You can roll the dice and “forget” about a bottle in your luggage, but if you're unlucky and you get searched you could be delayed, harassed, flagged, and/or charged the duties anyhow.
It's your call.
AFTER 48 HOURS
This is the ticket. After 48 hours, your personal exemption shoots up to goods valuing $800 and your “personal exemption” kicks in: you can bring back a two-four of beer (8.5 litres) or two bottles of wine (1.5 litres) or one bottle of liquor (1.14 litres) without paying taxes or duties. The personal exemption applies to everyone travelling in your vehicle who is above the legal drinking age in their province of residence, so if you can fit all of those bottles and all of your non-drinking friends in a minivan, load them up and camp out for a few days so that you can combine exemptions.
AFTER 7
DAYS
Your alcohol can travel separately from you. The personal exemption does not change.
HOW MUCH YOU HAVE TO
PAY IN DUTIES AND TAXES ON ALCOHOL
That of course doesn't mean that you can't bring alcohol back across the border on a same-day trip. In fact, you can bring up to 45 litres of alcohol at a time for personal use across the border at any time as long as you declare it and pay the duties and taxes. The duties are governed by the ever-changing, byzantine schedule of
Canadian tariffs that cover trade with other countries. The taxes you pay depend on your province of entry – provincial or harmonized sales taxes will apply, the amount varying from province-to-province.
Check out the chart below:
Canadian
Provincial and Territorial Tax
Rates
Province Total Sales Tax (%) Province Total Sales Tax (%)
Alberta 5
Nunavut 5
British Columbia 12
Ontario 13
Manitoba 13
Prince Edward Island 14
New Brunswick 13
Quebec 15
Newfoundland and Labrador 13
Saskatchewan 10
Northwest Territories 5
Yukon 5
Nova Scotia 15
Ontario's liquor monopoly, the
LCBO, has a series of helpful charts outlining the standard duty and taxes for importing alcohol to that province, and the rules more or less apply across the country. You must be legal drinking age, and you have to bring or ship the alcohol to your province of residence.
The 45 litres can be any combination of wine, liquor or beer, and you have to produce receipts for your purchases.
In general, expect the cost of your beer and liquor to double and the price of your wine to increase by 60% once you've paid duties and taxes at the border. Because of the lower price of alcohol in America, that means an average case of 24 beer will basically reach the Canadian price for the same when you bring it across the border.
Will you save money? No. But you can access a wide range of specialty items unavailable in Canada for modest extra costs. The tightly regulated alcohol markets in Quebec, Ontario, and Nova Scotia make this an especially attractive proposition — the more freewheeling alcohol policies of the western provinces mean much greater diversity in liquor store offerings, so it's best to check if your local stores offer the wine of your dreams before you plan that road trip.
- published: 24 Jun 2015
- views: 815