No Charge Transactions / Renting or Leasing Goods

No-Charge Transactions

The actual value of goods received at no charge must be reported to CBSA. Common no-charge transactions include:

• warranty repairs,
• accepting goods on loan,
• receiving gifts or donations,
• accepting bonus items provided at no charge by a foreign supplier,
• receiving collaborative research or free samples from foreign suppliers, and
• redeeming goods through a foreign supplier’s frequent buyers or rewards program.

The value declared upon import should be equivalent to the value of identical or similar goods sold for export to Canada to a purchaser in Canada, from that foreign supplier at substantially the same time and in the same quantities. This basically means that the normal purchase price should be declared as the value.

In the case of research samples, if there is no retail value, the customs value should be based on the foreign sender’s cost (in time and supplies) to extract and prepare the samples.

Under no circumstances would CBSA accept a declared value of $0 or “No Commercial Value”.

Renting or Leasing Goods

The value declared upon import should be equivalent to the value of identical or similar goods sold for export to Canada, to a purchaser in Canada, from that foreign supplier at substantially the same time and in the same quantities.

In other words, the normal purchase price of a rented or leased item should be declared as the value, rather than the lease or rental cost.