Most professional piercing jewelry is designed in the United States or Europe and manufactured in a handful of countries. For a Canadian studio, that has traditionally meant ordering across the border and absorbing whatever the shipment picks up on the way. This guide lays out what those costs actually are, where they come from, and what changes when the wholesaler is Canadian.
This is general information about how imports work, not customs or tax advice. Rates and rules change, and a customs broker or the Canada Border Services Agency is the source of truth for a specific shipment.
What a cross-border jewelry order can pick up
Import duty
Duty is a percentage of the declared value, set by the tariff classification of the goods and the country the goods were made in. Body jewelry generally falls under the imitation jewelry classification, and the rate depends on origin. Jewelry made in the US or Mexico can qualify for duty-free treatment under the Canada-United States-Mexico Agreement, but only if the supplier provides the origin paperwork and the goods actually originate there. Jewelry made overseas and resold by a US supplier does not qualify just because it shipped from the US. Many studios discover this on the invoice from the courier.
GST and provincial tax
The 5% GST is charged on imports at the border, on the value of the goods plus any duty. Depending on the province, HST or PST may also apply. Registered businesses can generally recover the GST portion as an input tax credit, but it still has to be paid up front and tracked.
Brokerage and disbursement fees
This is the one that surprises people. When a courier clears a shipment through customs on your behalf, it charges a brokerage fee for the paperwork and often a disbursement fee for advancing the duty and tax. On a small jewelry order these fees can be a meaningful share of the order value. Postal shipments have a lower handling fee but are slower and less trackable.
Exchange rate and payment fees
US-dollar invoices are converted at your card's rate on the day, plus a foreign transaction fee on most Canadian business cards. The rate you budgeted with is rarely the rate you pay, and reconciling the accounting takes time every month.
Time
Customs holds are unpredictable. An order that normally takes four days can take two weeks when a shipment is selected for inspection or when paperwork is incomplete. For a studio that ran out of 16g labret posts on Thursday, that matters more than the fees.
What changes with a Canadian supplier
- No customs. A domestic shipment does not cross the border, so there is no duty, no brokerage fee, no disbursement fee and no inspection hold. The price on the invoice is the price you pay, plus the tax you would pay on any Canadian purchase.
- Canadian dollars. Pricing in CAD means no exchange-rate drift and no foreign transaction fee. Your cost per piece is stable from one order to the next.
- Domestic transit times. Orders processed in one to two business days and shipped within Canada typically arrive in a few days, with tracking end to end.
- Simpler returns. Sending a return across the border reverses all the friction above. A domestic return is a domestic parcel.
- Provincial tax handled at checkout. Tax is calculated and shown before you pay, and the invoice is ready for your bookkeeper as is.
What does not change
None of this makes the jewelry better. A Canadian address is a logistics advantage, not a quality claim. The questions you would ask any supplier still apply:
- Is the titanium made to a named implant standard, such as ASTM F136, and can the supplier show test documentation for it? See our guide to ASTM F136 versus Grade 23.
- Is the connection type right for the placement? See threadless versus threaded.
- Is the surface finish polished and free of tooling marks?
- Can the supplier sterilize and pouch, and is that process documented?
A Canadian wholesaler that cannot answer those is not an upgrade over an American one that can.
Working out your real landed cost
If you want to compare a cross-border supplier with a domestic one honestly, compare landed cost per piece, not list price. For a cross-border order, add up:
- The invoice total converted to CAD at your card's rate, plus the foreign transaction fee.
- Shipping.
- Duty, if the goods do not qualify for CUSMA.
- GST and any provincial tax charged at the border.
- Brokerage and disbursement fees from the courier.
Divide by the number of pieces. Then do the same for the domestic order: invoice, shipping, tax. Studios that run this exercise on a typical monthly restock usually find the gap between a US list price and a Canadian one is smaller than it looks, and sometimes reversed, before the time cost of customs is counted.
How we ship
West Coast Body Jewelry stocks ASTM F136 titanium jewelry in Squamish, BC, prices in Canadian dollars, and ships across Canada with no border to cross. Orders are processed in one to two business days. Free shipping applies to qualifying wholesale orders over $500 CAD. We also ship to studios in the United States; for those orders the customs notes above apply in reverse.
Optional pouching and autoclave sterilization is available on any item. Full shipping and return policies are published. Wholesale pricing is visible once your studio account is approved. Apply for a wholesale account.
Part of our wholesale titanium body jewelry guide for piercing studios.