Selling into the EU from Canada is four separate gates: CETA duty, VAT, the customs declaration, and product rules. Which gate your channel opens, who the importer is, and what changed on July 1, 2026.
Applies in: across Canada
Selling into the European Union from Canada is not one border crossing. It is four separate gates, and a different rulebook opens each one: CETA decides the customs duty, the VAT rules decide the tax, the customs declaration decides whether the parcel clears, and the product rules decide whether the goods may be placed on the EU market at all. The most expensive mistakes in Canada-EU selling come from answering one gate with another gate's answer — quoting a CETA duty cut as if it removed VAT, quoting a marketplace's VAT collection as if it proved origin, or quoting a Canadian approval as if it were an EU one. This guide works through the four gates in the order a seller meets them: channel, duty, tax, importer, and product rules. It is the process companion to the CETA demystifier, which states what governs each question; this guide carries the steps.
This guide was grounded on European Commission, Your Europe, Global Affairs Canada, Trade Commissioner, and Spanish tax-authority pages opened on October 29, 2026, listed under Sources. Recheck those pages after the Canada-EU summit on October 30, 2026: summit deliverables may change the practical position for Canada-EU trade, and nothing about them is stated here because none had been published when this guide was written. The recheck date for the charges and procedures themselves is the next change to any page in the Sources list — and for any charge quoted from a page dated before July 2026, re-check before quoting a delivered price, because the low-value customs position changed that day.
Three facts decide almost every EU sale from Canada. First, duty and tax are separate: CETA can take the duty to zero for originating goods, and VAT is still charged on top, at the destination country's rate, on every consignment regardless of value. Second, who charges the VAT depends on the channel: a marketplace registered for the Import One Stop Shop charges it at checkout, a seller on their own store either charges it at checkout through their own IOSS registration or leaves the buyer to pay import VAT at delivery. Third, the importer is an EU-side role: for a consumer parcel it is typically the buyer, and for a commercial import it must be a person established in the EU, with an EORI number — a Canadian seller with no EU establishment cannot simply declare themselves the importer. Everything below is the working detail behind those three facts, plus the product rules that decide whether the goods may be sold at all.
There are three channels, and they are not interchangeable.
Selling from your own store or site, shipping each order from Canada directly to the EU buyer, is the direct channel. You are the seller of record for every order. VAT is either charged at checkout through an IOSS registration — yours, or your intermediary's — or it is collected from the buyer at delivery by the postal operator or courier, together with a clearance fee. The buyer-facing consequence is the one that costs sellers repeat business: a buyer who was not told about delivery charges refuses the parcel, and the return freight and the non-refundable tariff land on you. State the charges in the listing, in the currency the buyer will actually pay, before the buyer pays.
Selling through a marketplace that facilitates the sale is the marketplace channel. The large platforms are signed up to IOSS, and the Commission's buyer-facing page says so directly — most of the biggest online platforms have signed up, which is why VAT is already included in the price the buyer pays at checkout on those platforms. Your obligations do not disappear; they change shape. You supply the data the platform's VAT calculation runs on — description, value, classification — and you keep the origin and product-compliance paperwork. Read the marketplace's seller terms for the exact split before you list: which sales the platform's IOSS registration covers, what data it requires from you, and what remains your responsibility. A platform that collects VAT is not thereby your importer, your customs broker, or your product-compliance file.
Holding stock inside the EU — your own stock in a fulfilment centre, or stock with an EU distributor — is the third channel, and it follows different rules again. Goods already in the EU at the time of sale carry no customs formalities on the sale itself, and VAT is already included in the checkout price; the customs and import-VAT questions were answered when the stock crossed the border, by whoever imported it. Distance sales of goods already inside the EU to consumers in other member states are reported through the Union One Stop Shop scheme rather than IOSS. This guide does not carry the OSS mechanics: if EU stock is your model, confirm the OSS registration route and the importer who brought the stock in before you price anything, because the person who imported the stock is the person whose EORI number, declaration, and product file stand behind it.
CETA has applied provisionally since September 21, 2017, with most chapters applying and full ratification still pending in nine member states. The duty cut is large: the European Commission states that CETA eliminates duties on 99 percent of all tariff lines, 98 percent of which were scrapped when the agreement provisionally entered into force, and Global Affairs Canada states that tariffs were eliminated on 98 percent of current Canadian exports to the EU. The lines that were not eliminated outright are the sensitive agricultural lines, managed by quotas and exclusions, with the remaining 1 percent phased out over three, five, or seven years. No percentage in this guide prices a specific product. The duty for your goods is the CETA rate for their classification in the EU tariff schedule, and the only figure that binds is the one in TARIC for that classification on the day of import.
Preference is conditional twice over: on origin, and on paperwork. Origin is where the goods were manufactured, produced, or grown, under the product-specific rule of origin for their Harmonized System classification in Annex 5 of the CETA Protocol on rules of origin — not the country the parcel was shipped from. The paperwork is the exporter's self-certification: the Canadian exporter puts the origin declaration on the invoice or another commercial document, in the wording set out in Annex 2 of the Protocol, with the period covered for multiple shipments of identical goods, a statement that the goods meet the rules, the date and location, the exporter's business number, and a signature. No government-issued certificate is required, and no certificate from a third party substitutes for the declaration. The EU buyer needs the declaration to claim the preference at import, and the records behind the claim — classification notes, supplier evidence, the declaration itself — must be kept for at least six years, because origin can be verified after the goods have arrived and sold.
Run the check in this order: classify the goods to six digits; confirm the Annex 5 rule for that classification is met, asking the manufacturer or a customs broker where the rule turns on materials or processing you cannot evidence yourself; put the declaration on the commercial document; and keep the file. If any step fails, price the sale at the ordinary TARIC duty rate. Trade-defence duties are a separate layer on top of the tariff schedule: the Commission's import guide warns that antidumping and other trade-defence measures may apply to a product from a specific country, and TARIC and My Trade Assistant are where you check whether they apply to yours. A CETA preference does not override them.
VAT is charged on every consignment, whatever its value. The Commission's buyer-facing page states it without qualification: VAT is payable irrespective of the value of the goods. The rate is the one that applies in the country where the goods are delivered, the taxable amount is the customs value plus taxes, duties, levies, and other charges such as shipping and insurance, and this guide carries no rate for any member state, because rates are set by the member state and a single figure would mislead for the other 26. For a business buyer, the position is different in mechanics: VAT-registered firms can reclaim import VAT as input tax, as they can with domestic VAT, and business-to-business sales follow the reverse-charge pattern rather than the consumer pattern in this guide. Confirm the buyer's status and the destination country's rules before treating a sale as business-to-business.
For consumer sales, the Import One Stop Shop is the scheme that moves VAT collection to checkout. IOSS covers distance sales of imported goods to EU consumers in consignments with an intrinsic value of €150 or less, excluding goods subject to excise duty. The seller charges VAT at the destination country's rate when the customer pays, and reports it through a single monthly return to the member state of identification — one registration covering sales to customers in all 27 member states. The goods then clear customs without import VAT being charged again at delivery, because it has already been charged. A seller based outside the EU who wants to use IOSS directly typically must appoint an EU-established intermediary, who registers the seller, files the monthly returns, and shares responsibility for the VAT; confirm the current registration route, including any exception for countries with a mutual-assistance agreement with the EU, with the member state of identification before appointing anyone, and budget for the intermediary's fee as a cost of the channel, not as a tax.
Without IOSS, the VAT is collected at the border. The postal operator or courier collects import VAT from the buyer on delivery, or the buyer clears the goods at customs directly, following the procedure of the country of import — and the courier charges its own customs clearance fee for making the declaration, a private charge that varies by company. The choice is therefore a commercial one, not a compliance shortcut: IOSS costs registration and intermediary effort and gives the buyer a single all-in price; no IOSS costs nothing upfront and hands the buyer a second bill at the door, with the refusal and return risk that follows. Either way, the listing must state which it is. The Commission's page puts the same duty on the seller's website in terms: information on the VAT, customs duties, and other charges due should be clearly explained, and if they cannot be calculated in advance, the buyer must be informed that additional charges may be payable.
Consignments over €150 cannot use IOSS. The normal import rules apply: customs duty at the TARIC rate for the classification — the CETA preferential rate if the origin declaration is in order, the ordinary rate if it is not — plus import VAT at the destination rate, collected at import. Price those sales as full landed cost, and do not split one order into smaller consignments to stay under €150: the €150 test applies to the intrinsic value of the consignment, and a split designed to duck the threshold is the undervaluation pattern the Commission warns can lead to seizure, additional costs, and a fine.
The position for low-value distance sales changed in 2026, and this step is the one most existing guides get wrong. Spain's tax agency records that from July 1, 2026, online consumer purchases of €150 or less from outside the EU pay a fixed tariff of €3 per item category in addition to VAT, and that from November 1, 2026, a €2 processing fee per item category and product identifiers apply to distance sales. The tariff is an EU-wide customs measure, separate from CETA preference: it applies whether or not the goods would qualify for a CETA duty rate as a commercial shipment, and it is non-refundable on return except where the goods are defective or do not comply with the contract. Price every consumer sale of €150 or less as product price plus freight plus VAT plus the €3 tariff, and from November 1, 2026, plus the €2 fee — and confirm the current position on the Commission's or a member-state tax agency's pages before quoting a delivered price, because this is a fast-moving reform area and the 2028 customs reform proposals would change the €150 framework again.
The stale wording to watch for is the pre-change relief: that customs duty is not due where the value does not exceed €150. That was the position before July 1, 2026, and it still appears in pages updated before the change, including the Commission's buyer-facing page as updated in March 2026. Treat any page or guide dated before July 2026 that states the relief as superseded for distance sales, and do not carry its wording into a listing. The same discipline applies to any other charge in this guide: the page date is part of the fact.
Every consignment entering the EU needs a customs declaration, and someone must make it. The Commission's buyer-facing page states who that someone is for a consumer parcel: the declaration must be submitted by a person established in the EU or their representative who is able to present the goods to customs, and that person is typically the buyer who ordered the goods. A courier company may offer to make the declaration on the buyer's behalf, normally for a charge. It is in the buyer's own interest, the page adds, to make sure the declaration has been submitted and is accurate — if no declaration is made, or the information in it is inaccurate, delivery may be delayed or may not take place, and customs officials are entitled to make further enquiries and impose penalties and sanctions.
For commercial imports the bar is higher. The Commission's import guide states that you normally need to be established in the EU as a company or permanent business establishment, including being registered for VAT purposes, and that a non-EU resident needs a person established in the EU willing to act on their behalf. As an EU importer you need an EORI number, an identification number valid throughout the EU, obtained from the national central customs authority — and the guide warns that EORI registration can take some time, so apply well ahead. The customs clearance itself can be lodged by the importer or by a customs representative appointed by the importer to complete the formalities under EU customs legislation.
The documents behind the declaration are the seller's contribution, and they are where small sellers most often fail. The import guide lists what customs may require alongside the declaration: the commercial invoice, transport documents, certificates of origin, import licences, test results and other certificates, and inspection certificates such as health, veterinary, or plant-health certificates. Before the goods arrive, an Entry Summary Declaration must be presented at the first customs office of entry, by the carrier or in some cases by the importer-consignee or a representative, within a deadline that depends on the mode of transport. On arrival the goods are placed in temporary storage under customs supervision for no longer than 90 days until cleared, and may be cleared on the documents, selected for a document check, or selected for a document or physical check. Once cleared, the goods have the same status as EU goods and can circulate freely and be sold anywhere in the EU market — the single import tariff is paid at the place of entry, irrespective of the member state of entry.
Who pays the duty is, in the first instance, a matter for the contract. The import guide states that who pays for the tariffs depends on the agreement with the seller, but that import duties are often paid by the importer. For a consumer sale that means: the listing and the delivery terms must state plainly whether the price is delivered-duties-paid or whether the buyer pays duty and tax at the door. If the terms specify no other arrangement, the Commission states the goods can be held pending payment of duty and tax. A seller who advertises an all-in price and ships on terms that leave the buyer to pay at the door has promised one thing and delivered another, and the parcel refusal that follows is the seller's cost.
Imported goods must meet the same requirements as goods produced in the EU for the EU market. That sentence, from the Commission's import guide, is the whole of this step; the rest is working out what it means for your product. The requirements are product-specific and member-state specific: technical and health requirements, testing and certification, packaging and labelling rules that member states often set in detail, mandatory marks and labels related to public safety, health, or environmental concerns, and language rules for instructions and safety information. The Commission's import guide lists the product groups where mandatory requirements are most often applied — chemicals, cosmetics, medicinal products, agricultural goods and foodstuffs, live animals, and animal products — and directs sellers to My Trade Assistant for the requirements applicable to their product. Check there, for your classification, before listing; a general statement that a product "meets EU standards" is not a check.
The roles matter because they decide whose name is on the file. A manufacturer is the person who makes a product, or has it designed or made, and places it on the market under their own name or trade mark — and a manufacturer's obligations are the same whether they are based inside or outside the EU. From the design stage, the manufacturer must identify the requirements that apply, check whether CE marking is required, carry out the conformity assessment, draw up the technical documentation and the EU declaration of conformity, draft instructions and safety information in a language easily understood by consumers, satisfy the traceability requirements, and affix the relevant labels and markings. The technical documentation and the declaration of conformity must be preserved for 10 years after the product is placed on the market, or for the period specified for that product under EU law.
An importer is a person established in the EU who places a product from a non-EU country on the EU market, and the importer's job is verification, not creation. Before placing a product on the market, the importer must ensure the manufacturer has carried out the appropriate conformity assessment, drawn up the technical documentation, affixed the relevant labels and marking including CE marking where required, and fulfilled the traceability obligations — and that the product is accompanied by the relevant instructions and safety information in a language easily understood by end-users under the rules of the country of import. The product, packaging, or accompanying documentation must be clearly marked with the importer's name, registered trade name or trade mark, and contact address, in addition to the manufacturer's details. If the product does not conform, the importer cannot import it; if it has already been imported, it must be withdrawn or recalled; and if it poses a risk to health, safety, or the environment, the importer must inform the national authority and publish the information on the Product Safety Business Alert Gateway.
For a Canadian seller, the practical consequence is that the EU-side importer — whether that is your EU distributor, your fulfilment partner, or, for some channels, the buyer — needs the conformity file from you before the goods move, not after a market-surveillance authority asks for it. Supply the declaration of conformity, the technical documentation or the route to it, the labelling files, and the instructions in the destination language, and confirm in writing who the EU-established importer is for each shipment. Two limits from the demystifier guide apply here as well. First, the CETA Protocol on mutual acceptance of conformity-assessment results can save a second round of testing for listed product categories, but it does not accept the other side's technical regulations: the product must still meet the EU rules that apply to it. Second, the carbon border charge is a separate gate: goods in the six CBAM sectors face the definitive CBAM regime from January 1, 2026, with a 50-tonne importer threshold and the first annual declaration due September 30, 2027 — the CBAM guide carries the detail, and this guide carries no CBAM price or certificate figure.
Build the delivered price from the components, in this order, for one consignment to one destination country:
Then state, in the listing, who pays each component: the seller at checkout, the marketplace at checkout, or the buyer at delivery. A listing that shows only the product price and freight, with duty and tax left to the door, is the single most common cause of refused EU parcels. Keep the calculation in the order file with the classification, the origin declaration, and the VAT treatment, so a later query from the buyer, the platform, or a customs authority can be answered from the file rather than reconstructed from memory.
Keep the file for at least six years: invoices, the origin declaration and the evidence behind it, classification notes, the customs declaration data, the VAT treatment for each sale, and the product-compliance file. Origin can be verified after the goods have arrived and sold, and a preference claimed without the evidence behind it is a reassessment waiting for a file that does not exist. The same file answers the buyer's question when a parcel is held: the declaration data, the value, and the charges can be produced without guessing.
Three practices get sellers in trouble, and all three are avoidable. The first is undervaluation: showing a lower value on the customs declaration than the price paid, to reduce duty or VAT. The Commission warns that this may result in seizure of the goods, additional costs, and possibly a fine at delivery. The second is the wrong-agreement number: quoting the United States' courier bands, a UK rule, or a pre-July-2026 EU relief as if it applied to an EU sale. CETA has not covered the United Kingdom since January 1, 2021 — Canada-UK trade runs under the Canada-UK Trade Continuity Agreement — and a CETA position does not establish the UK position, or the reverse. The third is treating a negotiation, a pledge, or a summit announcement as law. The Canada-EU summit on October 30, 2026, and the Digital Trade Agreement negotiations launched on March 5, 2026, may change the practical position; until implementing text or an updated official page carries a change, the position in this guide, grounded on the pages in Sources, is the position to price on. Recheck after October 30, 2026.
Returns deserve a plain statement in the listing. The €3 tariff is non-refundable on return except where goods are defective or do not comply with the contract, per the tax agency page that records it. The VAT and duty treatment of a returned consignment depends on the route and the member state of import, and this guide states no general refund rule — confirm the returns treatment with the carrier or customs representative for the destination country before promising a buyer a full refund of border charges, and write the returns and border-charge policy into the listing rather than improvising it after the first return.
The recurring ones: pricing a sale on the duty answer alone and leaving VAT, the €3 tariff, and the clearance fee to the buyer's door; assuming a marketplace's VAT collection proves origin or product compliance; declaring yourself the importer with no EU establishment and no EORI number; shipping without the origin declaration and discovering at the border that the preference is unavailable; carrying a VAT rate, a duty rate, or a CBAM price from one member state, product, or year into another; listing a product that requires CE marking without the conformity file; showing a lower customs value than the price paid; applying a CETA position to the United Kingdom; and quoting a pre-July-2026 page for a post-July-2026 charge. Each is avoidable by naming the channel, separating duty from tax from product rules, matching the importer to the shipment, and checking the member state and the date.
This guide carries no VAT rate for any member state, because rates are set by the member state. It carries no duty rate for any product, because duty follows the TARIC classification and origin position for the exact goods. It carries no IOSS, intermediary, EORI, or clearance fee figure, because those are private or administrative charges set by the provider or authority, and none was verified as a current figure on an official page. It carries no statement about what the Canada-EU summit on October 30, 2026, will deliver, because none had been published when it was written. It carries no general rule for VAT or duty refunds on returns, because the treatment depends on the route and the member state. And it gives no advice on whether any particular product, price, or market is commercially worth pursuing: for a shipment large enough that a wrong classification, origin, or VAT treatment would be expensive, a customs broker's advice on the exact facts is cheaper than a reassessment, a refused parcel, or a withdrawn listing.
| Customs duty (CETA preferential rate) | Zero for originating goods with a valid origin declaration; otherwise the TARIC rate for the classification |
|---|---|
| VAT (import VAT or IOSS VAT) | Payable irrespective of value, at the destination member state's rate |
| Low-value customs tariff, distance sales of €150 or less | Fixed €3 per item category from July 1, 2026, in addition to VAT |
| Processing fee, distance sales | €2 per item category from November 1, 2026, plus product identifiers |
| Customs clearance fee (postal operator or courier) | Set by the company; varies — not a government charge |
| Excise duty (alcohol, tobacco, and other excise goods only) | Member-state rates; payable on entry |
No. CETA addresses customs duty, and only for goods that originate in Canada under its rules of origin, proved by the exporter's origin declaration. It does not remove VAT, which the European Commission states is payable irrespective of the value of the goods, at the rate of the country where the goods are delivered. It does not remove the customs charges introduced in 2026 for low-value distance sales either: a fixed €3 tariff per item category from July 1, 2026, and a €2 processing fee per item category from November 1, 2026, both recorded by Spain's tax agency for distance sales of €150 or less. And it does not waive the carrier's customs clearance fee, which is a private charge set by the postal operator or courier. A sale can be duty-free under CETA and still arrive with VAT, the 2026 charges, and a clearance fee to pay — which is why the delivered price must be built as product price plus freight plus duty plus VAT plus those charges, and why the listing must say plainly who pays each one.
Usually not for the sales the marketplace facilitates, but confirm it in the marketplace's seller terms before you rely on it. The large platforms are signed up to the Import One Stop Shop, and the Commission's own page for online buyers says most of the biggest platforms have done so — which is why a buyer on those platforms is charged VAT at checkout rather than at delivery. Under the marketplace rules, the platform collects the VAT on qualifying facilitated sales through its own IOSS registration, and the seller's job becomes supplying accurate data: the correct description, value, and classification for each item, so the VAT the platform charges is calculated on the right figures. That arrangement covers the VAT on those sales; it does not make the platform the importer for customs purposes, it does not prove your goods originate in Canada, and it does not make your product compliant with EU product rules. Sales outside the marketplace — your own store, your own site, a social channel that takes payment — are yours to handle, through your own IOSS registration or with the buyer paying import VAT at delivery.
Not as a Canadian business with no EU establishment, on the ordinary route. The Commission's import guide states that you normally need to be established in the EU as a company or permanent business establishment, including being registered for VAT purposes, and that a non-EU resident needs a person established in the EU who is willing to act on their behalf. As an EU importer you also need an EORI number, which is valid throughout the EU. For a direct sale to an EU consumer, the practical position is different and simpler: the customs declaration must be submitted by a person established in the EU or their representative, and that person is typically the buyer who ordered the goods — the Commission's buyer-facing page says exactly that, and adds that a courier company may make the declaration on the buyer's behalf for a fee. The distinction to hold onto is between the commercial import, where you need an EU-established importer, and the consumer parcel, where the buyer is the importer and you are the seller whose paperwork — invoice, classification, origin declaration — decides what the buyer is charged. Do not promise a buyer 'duties paid' unless you have a delivery arrangement that actually pays them; if the terms of sale specify no other arrangement, the Commission states the goods can be held by customs pending payment.
It depends on the product, and 'no CE mark' is only a problem if the product is one that must bear one. CE marking is mandatory for some product groups — the Commission's import guide names electronics, medical devices, toys, electrical appliances, and construction products — and it does not apply at all to others, including foodstuffs, motor vehicles, chemicals, cosmetics, pharmaceuticals, and biocides, which have their own specific rules. The question to answer first is therefore which EU rules apply to your exact product, in the destination member state: use the Access2Markets My Trade Assistant for the product's requirements, and check the member state's own pages for labelling and language rules. If your product does require CE marking, the manufacturer — whether inside or outside the EU — must carry out the conformity assessment, draw up the technical documentation and the EU declaration of conformity, and affix the marking; the EU-established importer must verify that was done before placing the product on the market, and must mark the product, packaging, or accompanying documentation with the importer's own name and contact address. A Canadian certificate is not an EU approval, and the CETA conformity-assessment protocol only saves a second round of testing for listed categories — it does not accept the other side's regulations. If you cannot show the conformity file for your product, do not list it for the EU.
Origin and shipping route are different questions, and CETA answers the origin one. Preferential duty follows where the goods originate under CETA's rules of origin for their classification, proved by the exporter's origin declaration — not the country the parcel was last shipped from. Goods manufactured in Canada that meet the product-specific rule keep their Canadian origin when they travel through a third country, provided the rule's conditions on transport and non-manipulation are met and the declaration is in order; goods manufactured elsewhere do not become Canadian by passing through Canada, and goods manufactured in Canada do not lose their origin merely because the warehouse sits across the border. The practical check is the same either way: confirm the Harmonized System classification, confirm the goods meet the Annex 5 product-specific rule for that classification, and put the origin declaration on the commercial document in the Annex 2 wording. If you cannot confirm the rule is met, price the sale at the ordinary TARIC duty rate and say so in the listing — a preference claimed without the declaration and the rule behind it is the error customs verification is built to catch, and the records for the claim must be kept for at least six years.
The duty relief for low-value consignments ended for distance sales. Spain's tax agency — the official page that records the change — states that from July 1, 2026, online consumer purchases of €150 or less from outside the EU pay a fixed €3 tariff per item category in addition to VAT, and that from November 1, 2026, a €2 processing fee per item category plus product identifiers apply to distance sales. The tariff is non-refundable on return except where goods are defective or do not comply with the contract. Older guides, and the Commission's own buyer-facing page as updated in March 2026, still state the pre-change position that customs duty is not due where the value does not exceed €150. That wording predates the change and no longer describes the position for distance sales; the post-change official page governs. The lesson generalises: for any EU charge quoted from a page or guide dated before July 2026, re-check the current Commission or member-state page before quoting a delivered price. This guide was written on October 29, 2026, before the Canada-EU summit on October 30, 2026, and nothing about summit deliverables is stated in it.