Tax & Trade Blog

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CBSA COMPLIANCE VERIFICATION PRIORITIES

FOCUS ON U.S. & CHINA SURTAX ORDERS

The Canadian Border Services Agency (the “CBSA”) has released the July 2025 update to its compliance and verification priorities.  This update is part of the CBSA’s semi-annual process of resetting its verification priorities, which occurs in January and July of each year.

In this July 2025 update, the CBSA has placed a significant focus on the U.S surtaxes, alongside other ongoing compliance areas from previous rounds.  We provide a detailed breakdown of these priorities below.

Recently we’ve noticed an uptick in the number of Canada Border Services Agency (“CBSA”) audits regarding the tariff classification of gloves (see our prior blog).  With its mid-year update, the CBSA has officially upgraded this focus to a Trade Compliance Verification Priority!

This marks the third time gloves have been a “verification priority” having previously been in the spotlight in 2017 and 2019.  The results from the first two rounds revealed that 82% of the 49 companies targeted were non-compliant, resulting in reclassification duties and penalties totalling over $2.6 million.