It is my understanding that as a business in the US I can ship via UPS or DHL with duties, taxes and fees paid my the shipper. UPS suggest including these fees in the shipping and handling totals charged instead of the price of the product so you are not paying taxes on the taxes being paid. Can you set shipping fees to be a percent of the price plus a flat fee or carrier specific fee?
Hey @RollyTaskerNA
To answer your specific question: Shopify does not natively support setting shipping fees as a percentage of the order/product price. The handling fee option in Shopify only lets you add a percentage markup on the carrier’s shipping rate itself, not on the product price. So you can’t directly bake duties into shipping as “X% of order total + carrier fee.”
However, I think there’s a better path for what you’re trying to do. Shopify has a built-in duties and import taxes calculator that’s now available on all plans (it used to require Advanced).
You can activate it in Settings → Taxes and Duties. It calculates duties at checkout automatically, so your Canadian customers see the full landed cost before they pay.
Since you’re using UPS or DHL, both support DDP (Delivered Duty Paid) labels, which means duties get prepaid and your customers don’t get surprise charges at delivery.
The setup requires HS codes and country of origin on your products. There’s a 0.5% transaction fee on orders where duties are calculated.
I’d recommend looking into this route first since it handles the calculation automatically rather than trying to estimate duties manually through shipping markups. But I’d also suggest consulting with a customs or tax professional to make sure the approach works for your specific situation.
Hope that helps point you in the right direction!
Hi I looked into this but since I do not have a Canadian Business number since UPS or DHL collects all fees and submits them, Shopify does not allow this. I was thinking I just need to get a business number
Hey @RollyTaskerNA
Yep, you’re on the right track. To ship DDP to Canada as a US business, you need to register as a Non-Resident Importer (NRI). That requires:
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Apply for a Canadian Business Number (BN) with the Canada Revenue Agency (CRA)
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Get an NRI designation with the Canada Border Services Agency (CBSA)
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Register for GST/HST since NRIs selling in Canada are required to collect and remit GST
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Register for CARM (CBSA Assessment and Revenue Management)
Once you have that, UPS and DHL can clear customs on your behalf using your BN and handle all the duties/taxes collection. Your Canadian customers pay the price they see at checkout with no surprise fees at delivery.
The trade.gov site has a good overview of the program: https://trade.gov/market-intelligence/canada-non-resident-importer-program
I’d recommend working with a Canadian customs broker (Cole International and PF Collins are well known for NRI setup) to make sure everything is configured correctly. The registration isn’t complicated but the GST/HST compliance part needs to be done right.
Good luck!