If your company already imports into Canada, you know how the machine works. Your broker files the entry, CARM tracks what you owe CBSA, and PARS keeps trucks moving at the border. So when US sales start growing and a customer asks you to deliver duty paid, it is tempting to assume the American side is the same process pointed the other way. U.S. customs brokerage does not work that way.
The structure is similar. Almost everything inside it changes. Different agency, different entry, different bond, different portal, and in many cases a different answer to the most basic question of all: who is legally responsible for this shipment? Canadian exporters who treat the US border as a mirror image of the Canadian one tend to find out the differences one surprise at a time, usually with a truck sitting at the bridge.
Here is what actually changes when your goods start moving south, and what to have in place before they do.
1. You may become the importer, even though you are the exporter
This is the change that matters most, and the one most often made by accident.
When a US customer asks for delivered duty paid (DDP) pricing, your company typically becomes the US importer of record as a non-resident importer. You do not need a US entity or a US address to do it. CBP will assign your Canadian company an importer number through a Form 5106 filing, and a US customs broker can clear shipments under it.
What you do take on is the liability. The importer of record is responsible for correct classification, valuation, origin claims, duty payment, and record-keeping under US law. Plenty of Canadian companies end up as non-resident importers because a customer asked, without anyone deciding it deliberately. It can be the right structure, and it often is for companies serious about the US market, but it should be a decision, with the compliance setup to match.
2. U.S. customs brokerage: new agency, new entry, new portal
On the Canadian side, your imports run through CBSA: the CAD (formerly B3) entry, CARM for accounting and payment, and CBSA messaging for holds and releases. None of it follows you across the border.
US entries are filed with CBP as an Entry Summary (Form 7501) through the ACE system. Statements, corrections, and duty payment all work differently, and your Canadian import history means nothing to CBP. You are starting a new compliance record from entry one.
This also changes what visibility means. If your tracking setup only shows Canadian clearance status, your US shipments have a blind spot exactly where the risk sits. We covered what that should look like in What Real-Time Shipment Visibility Should Look Like for Importers – for US entries, it means live 7501 data and actual CBP messaging, not just a truck location.
3. You will need a US customs bond
Every US importer of record needs a customs bond. For regular shippers that means a continuous bond, set at the greater of $50,000 or 10% of the duties, taxes, and fees you paid in the previous 12 months. Occasional shippers can use single-entry bonds, but the math flips quickly once you ship more than a handful of times a year.
Two things catch Canadian exporters here. First, the bond is a real underwriting decision, and a non-resident importer with no US footprint may face more questions than a domestic one. Second, with duty rates higher on more goods than they were a few years ago, that 10% calculation moves. Importers whose duty bills have grown are getting bond insufficiency notices from CBP, and an insufficient bond stops clearances until it is fixed. Bond sizing is worth reviewing annually, not just at setup.
4. CUSMA claims become USMCA claims, and the certification is on you
Same agreement, different administration. Duty-free treatment for qualifying goods does not happen automatically in either direction – someone has to certify origin, and on US entries that certification gets real scrutiny.
A USMCA certification of origin is not a government form. It is a set of nine required data elements – certifier, exporter, producer, importer details, HS classification, origin criterion, and a signed certification statement – that can sit on the commercial invoice or a separate document. For shipments under US$2,500, a simplified statement on the invoice can do the job.
The part that matters: whoever certifies has to be able to back it up. An unsupported origin claim is one of the fastest ways to draw a CBP verification, and if your goods do not actually qualify under the rules of origin, the duty bill lands on the importer of record. If that is you under a DDP arrangement, it is your bill.
5. Enforcement expectations are rising, especially for non-resident importers
The US is in a period of tightening customs enforcement. A 2026 Executive Order directed CBP to strengthen importer-of-record eligibility, bonding, and vetting requirements, and non-resident importers are squarely in scope. In practice, Canadian exporters acting as US importers should expect more documentation requests, more questions about valuation and origin, and more audit activity than they would have seen a few years ago.
None of this changes what good compliance looks like. Accurate classification, honest valuation, defensible origin claims, and five years of complete records were always the standard. What has changed is the likelihood that someone checks. The companies that feel this least are the ones whose entries were built properly from the start.
6. The border process itself runs on different rails
The day-to-day mechanics change too. Southbound truck shipments clear under PAPS rather than PARS, with the entry filed before the truck reaches the crossing. Ocean shipments into the US add an ISF filing with its own deadline. The pre-arrival timing, the manifest systems, and the consequences of a missed filing are all CBP rules, not CBSA rules.
Most of this is invisible when it works. When a PAPS number is missing or an entry is not on file, it becomes very visible: a driver waiting at the bridge, a delivery window slipping, and a US customer wondering where their order is.
How Welke approaches this
Welke is licensed to clear customs on both sides of the border, with Canadian offices and a US operation in Buffalo. For Canadian exporters heading south, that means one partner handles U.S. customs brokerage end to end: non-resident importer registration, US bond placement, USMCA certification review, PAPS and ISF filings, and the 7501 entries themselves – alongside the Canadian brokerage you may already run with us.
It also means no handoff gap. When separate providers handle each side of the border, problems tend to fall between them – something we talked about in 7 Signs It’s Time to Switch Your Customs Broker. Cross-border shipments are exactly where that gap costs the most, because a US-side hold is a Canadian exporter’s problem either way. And through MyWelke, your US entries get the same real-time visibility as your Canadian ones: CBP status from entry submission through acceptance or rejection to release, documents attached to every shipment, and duty spend you can actually report on.
Selling into the US, or about to be?
If US orders are growing and DDP requests are starting to come up, the right time to sort out the US side is before the first shipment, not after the first hold. Request a quote from Welke and we will walk through what your setup needs – importer registration, bond, origin documentation, and all.