Customs Notice 20-28

Ottawa, August 14, 2020

1. The system enhancements to address eManifest house bills issues, and to implement new arrival rules for cargo, are scheduled for November 1, 2020.

2. As of this date the following requirements will come into effect:

• a. all cargo documents will have to be in arrived status before any release notifications are sent out and
• b. all Warehouse Arrival Certification Messages (WACM) must include warehouse sub-location codes

3. Starting on this date, regardless of warehouse type, electronic house bills may be used for all consolidated shipments, including:

• a. “back-to-back” shipments that are single house bill shipments and
• b. “buyer’s consolidations”, which are shipments where multiple house bills are consolidated together but destined to the same importer

4. The following exceptions to electronic house bills will remain in place:

• a. consolidated in-transit shipments moving from offshore through Canada and destined to the US may continue to be reported using electronic house bills or legacy ACI supplemental reports
• b. Consolidated in-transit shipments of US origin goods that are entering Canada for offshore export will continue to be exempt from electronic house bills

5. If a consolidated primary cargo indicates in-transit, then all the house bills within the consolidation must be in-transit.

6. For details on new electronic house bill systems rules, please refer to Chapter 5 of the Electronic Commerce Client Requirements Document (ECCRD). For details on new arrival system rules, please refer to the modal chapters of the ECCRD.

7. Starting January 4, 2021, the use of electronic house bills must be used for all consolidated shipments, if not exempted. A 6 month period of informed compliance and zero-rated penalties will begin as of this date.

8. For additional information regarding eManifest requirements clients may visit the CBSA website.

9. For email support on eManifest policy and processes, contact the eManifest Help Desk at emanifest-manifestelectronique@cbsa-asfc.gc.ca.

Date modified: 

2020-08-14