Free trade agreements

Canada has several free trade agreements with many countries around the world. Our customs consultants can help you take advantage of these agreements and save you money on customs tariffs.

How can your goods be eligible for a free trade agreement?

In short, for each agreement, there are conditions to be met: moving goods, their certification and their eligibility for the agreement.

First, with respect to moving goods, they must, in all cases, transit between the member countries of the agreement. It may be possible for goods to transit through a country that is not part of the agreement, but they must not enter the local market and must remain under customs control [supporting documents are needed to substantiate this].

Moreover, the rules of origin that determine whether goods originate from one of the countries included in the free trade agreement vary from agreement to agreement. Certain rules outright require sufficient processing of goods in order to have a tariff change; other rules will require tariff change or a sufficient regional value content.

In some cases, meeting several criteria will be required; sufficient processing and sufficient regional value content. Therefore, it is important to carry out a determination of origin before certifying goods.

Finally, in order to confirm the eligibility of goods, it is necessary to produce a declaration of origin or a certificate of origin depending on the agreement.

The process for being eligible for a free trade agreement can be quite complex and take several hours of work. Our customs consultants can help you in this process.

Consultation services offered by W2C

Here are some of the services that our customs consultants offer:

Identification of free trade agreements;
Determination of origin of your products;
Obtaining and checking certificates of origin.

Note that you can also register for one of our seminars on different free trade agreements involving Canada. Stay tuned for the dates on our site customs training site