You can ship most commercially packaged, shelf-stable foods to Canada by mail or courier, but shipping food to Canada comes with one rule that trips up almost everyone: meat, poultry, animal fat, and suet cannot be mailed at all, and must be physically carried across the border by the person importing them. The Canadian Food Inspection Agency (CFIA) and the Canada Border Services Agency (CBSA) enforce these rules, and a package that breaks them gets seized with no refund to the sender.
Before you tape the box, sort your items into two piles: things a factory sealed and labeled, and everything else. The first pile has a chance. The second doesn’t.
What You Can Mail
Commercially packaged, shelf-stable, non-perishable foods are generally fine to send. They need to be factory-sealed, clearly labeled so a customs officer can identify the contents, and within the CFIA’s personal-use quantity limits. Items that typically clear without trouble:
- Packaged snacks and candy, including chips, cookies, and chocolate, as long as they contain no meat.
- Commercially sealed coffee and tea.
- Canned fruits, vegetables, soups, and sauces, provided they’re not meat-based.
- Bottled condiments, dried spices, and seasoning mixes.
- Non-alcoholic beverages in commercial bottles or cans.
- Dairy, with limits by origin: from the U.S., there is no type restriction; from other countries, only cheese, ice cream, yogurt, and kashk are permitted.
Everything on that list has to be commercially produced. Homemade food is effectively prohibited because it lacks the packaging and labeling that inspectors need to verify what’s inside. If it came out of a home kitchen, leave it out of the box.
What You Can’t Mail
Meat is the big one. All meat and poultry products, regardless of country of origin, must be accompanied by a traveler. No beef jerky, sausages, canned chicken, or similar items through the postal system or a courier. Animal fat, suet, and game carcasses fall under the same rule.
Some cooked, shelf-stable, commercially sealed meat products from the U.S. can enter Canada in retail packaging with country-of-origin labels, but only in a traveler’s luggage. From countries other than the U.S., only cooked shelf-stable meat in sealed glass jars or cans is allowed, and again, only when hand-carried.
A separate category of items is banned outright, whether mailed or carried:
- Fresh, raw, or uncooked meat from any source. Dried and cured meats like ham and sausages are also banned.
- Fresh fruits and vegetables are restricted by product type, country of origin, and sometimes the destination province, because of pest and disease concerns. Some are allowed, some aren’t. You need to check the specific item.
- Pufferfish and Chinese mitten crab.
- Shark fins not attached to a carcass, under Canada’s Fisheries Act.
Seafood has its own framework. Most commercially packaged seafood can be mailed, unlike meat. The personal-use ceiling is 40 kg, with sub-limits of 10 kg for dried fish and 1 kg for fish roe. Sturgeon caviar over 250 grams requires a CITES permit. Live finfish of certain species, more than 10 whole ungutted fish, more than four head-on crustaceans with shells, or more than 3 kg of molluscs will also trigger permit requirements.
Personal-Use Quantity Limits
The CFIA caps how much food one person can import for personal use. Go over the cap and your shipment can be reclassified as a commercial import, which brings licensing requirements and additional fees. The main limits, per person:
- Processed fruits and vegetables: 20 kg or 20 L
- Confectionery and snack foods: 20 kg or 20 L
- Spices, tea, and coffee: 20 kg
- Dairy products: 20 kg or 20 L
- Multi-ingredient foods: 20 kg or 20 L
- Non-alcoholic beverages: 50 L
- Fish and seafood: 40 kg, with the sub-limits noted above
For a normal care package these limits aren’t restrictive. They matter more when you’re sending specialty items or shipping in bulk.
Ingredients That Get U.S. Products Rejected
A product can be commercially packaged, within the limits, and otherwise eligible, and still get stopped because it contains an ingredient that’s legal in the United States but banned in Canada. This catches senders off guard.
Brominated vegetable oil (BVO), once used to keep citrus flavoring suspended in soft drinks, was removed from Canada’s list of permitted food additives in 2024, with a transition period that ended in August 2025. Beverages still containing BVO are no longer permitted in Canada. Health Canada has also moved to remove or restrict several aluminum-containing food additives, including calcium aluminum silicate and sodium aluminum phosphate, with most of those changes taking effect in October 2025.
If you’re sending American snacks or soft drinks, read the ingredient list against Health Canada’s permitted additives lists before you ship. Products that clear a U.S. shelf can still be stopped at the Canadian border.
Declaring the Shipment
Every food shipment entering Canada must be declared to the CBSA. When you send by mail or courier, the sender fills out a customs declaration form supplied by the carrier, listing a detailed description of the contents, the quantity, and the declared value. Vague descriptions slow things down. Write “2 kg commercially packaged roasted coffee beans” rather than “food” or “gift.”
Mail imports are processed at designated international mail processing centers, where a customs officer reviews the declaration and may open the package. Items that weren’t declared, or that violate import rules, are seized and not returned.
Private couriers like UPS and FedEx clear customs through their own brokerage services. That’s faster, but it adds a brokerage fee paid by the recipient, on top of any duties or taxes. Canada Post charges a smaller handling fee for items requiring customs processing. If cost matters, the postal system can save the recipient a meaningful amount.
Duties, Taxes, and the Gift Exemption
Most food shipments are subject to the 5% federal Goods and Services Tax (GST). Depending on the province, the recipient may also owe provincial sales tax or the Harmonized Sales Tax (HST), which runs from 13% in Ontario to 15% in New Brunswick, Newfoundland and Labrador, and Prince Edward Island. Some basic groceries are zero-rated for GST purposes, but processed snacks and prepared foods generally aren’t.
Duty rates depend on the product and where it was made. All of these charges fall on the recipient, not the sender.
Small-Value Thresholds
Small shipments can escape duties and taxes altogether. For items arriving by mail, packages worth CAN$20 or less are exempt from both duty and tax, regardless of country of origin. For courier shipments from the U.S. or Mexico, packages up to CAN$40 are duty- and tax-free, and shipments between CAN$40 and CAN$150 are duty-free but still subject to tax. Above those levels, full duties and taxes apply.
The CAN$60 Gift Exemption
If you’re sending a gift to someone in Canada from outside the country, each gift worth CAN$60 or less enters duty- and tax-free. The package must be clearly marked as a gift. Alcohol and tobacco don’t qualify. If the gift exceeds CAN$60, the recipient owes duty and tax on the full value, not just the excess. Food can use the gift exemption as long as it meets every other import rule.
Penalties for Getting It Wrong
Undeclared food gets seized and may be destroyed. Beyond confiscation, the CBSA imposes monetary penalties on a sliding scale:
- Minor violation: $500
- Serious violation: $800
- Very serious violation: $1,300
Multiple violations in the same shipment can stack. Paying within 15 calendar days cuts the penalty by 50%, but paying is an admission that waives your right to appeal. Deliberate misrepresentation or smuggling can lead to prosecution.
The most common error is not declaring food at all, on the theory that it’s obviously allowed. Declare everything and let the officer decide. An honest declaration of a prohibited item costs you the item. A dishonest declaration, or none, costs you the item and a fine.
Checking a Specific Product Before You Ship
If you’re not sure about a particular item, the CFIA maintains the Automated Import Reference System (AIRS), an online database that returns import requirements by commodity or tariff code. It tells you whether the product is permitted, what documents are needed, and any conditions attached. The CFIA notes that AIRS is a convenience tool and not a substitute for the underlying regulations, but it’s the fastest reliable check available before your package leaves the door.