How much is Canadian Duty to import Snus?

[jumpingjupiter]

I would have never heard of Snus if I hadn't started vaping and hanging around the E-Cigarette forums. I looked into Snus a few months back but I figured for the hassle and expense of importing it from Sweden... it wasn't going to be worth it. When I was smoking the Duty on US cigarettes when I brought them across the line was bordering on criminal... so I figured the same would hold true for Swedish Snus.

Are any fellow Canucks out there importing from Sweden? How much duty is paided? I figure even if combined Duty and Shipping comes to 10-11 bucks per tin, then it would be well worth the effort to stock up.

I ran across a gas station 2 weeks ago that was selling Snus (17.99 + tax) and decided to give it a shot. Snus scratched the itch WAY better than vaping did. While I have a portion under my lip, I don't even give smoking a second though.... With vape only I found it still required will power. Honestly I was never able to kick the cigs completely with a vape, I just reduced the amount of cigs per day.

Any help/info on the import cost to Canada would be greatly appreciated.

 

[jumpingjupiter]

Actually, Since I live right beside the US boarder... How much are you folks south of the line paying per tin when buying from a brick and morter shop?
I did a store locator on Generalsnus.com and it turns out there is a shop in Washington State that is close to the border so this might be an option.

 

[hittman]

I'm not close but I'm paying 3.99 a can locally . I would think it would be close to that in Washington.

 

[Stubby]

Every State has different tax rates on smokeless tobacco so you would have to check out what the tax rate for Washington to get some idea of the cost.

You could also check out the snus forum

SnusOn Snus Forum & Community

I know there are people on the forum from Canada that have the same issues with importing snus that you have.

 

[jumpingjupiter]

Awesome, Thanks so much for the redirect to the Snus forum. I was able to find the info right away. I'll provide the info I found in case an other noob like myself is searching for it.

Duty on "Other Tobacco Products" is $5.3125 per 50gram or fraction there of (So $5.32 per tin). Works out to 100%+ duty. http://www.cra-arc.gc.ca/E/pub/em/edn33/edn33-e.html

Nice, eh?

However, compared to the 17.99 I am paying at the only gas station I can find it.... It's a much better deal.

*USA/Canada* Tobacco Laws and Taxes By State

 

[ridethespiral]

I would have never heard of Snus if I hadn't started vaping and hanging around the E-Cigarette forums. I looked into Snus a few months back but I figured for the hassle and expense of importing it from Sweden... it wasn't going to be worth it. When I was smoking the Duty on US cigarettes when I brought them across the line was bordering on criminal... so I figured the same would hold true for Swedish Snus.

Are any fellow Canucks out there importing from Sweden? How much duty is paided? I figure even if combined Duty and Shipping comes to 10-11 bucks per tin, then it would be well worth the effort to stock up.

I ran across a gas station 2 weeks ago that was selling Snus (17.99 + tax) and decided to give it a shot. Snus scratched the itch WAY better than vaping did. While I have a portion under my lip, I don't even give smoking a second though.... With Vape only I found it still required will power. Honestly I was never able to kick the cigs completely with a vape, I just reduced the amount of cigs per day.

Any help/info on the import cost to Canada would be greatly appreciated.

I know this is kind of late, but I haven't really been around these forums lately. I've had charges anywhere from $30-75 on envelopes with 5 tins. Each envelope that is caught is charged a $9.95 processing fee just for them to touch the package, so I've had SC send all of my tins at once. My second last order of 18 tins sent all at once slipped through customs with no fees, but my last order of 20 cans was assessed a $260 duty fee. I said screw it and stopped (sn)using and assumed they would destroy the package. A couple weeks later I got an email from snuscentral saying my order was returned, asking if I'd like it reshipped. I told them to split it into two boxes. It seems that message didn't get across because I got home from work with a box of 20 tins sitting in my mailbox with no fees.

I can't believe I went like three weeks without nicotine other than the odd smoke (which I still had when snusing) :O

 

[hittman]

That's crazy! And we complain about $40 shipping charges. I guess we should feel fortunate.

 

[jumpingjupiter]

Just an update. 7 months cigarette free thanks to snus and vaping.... but mostly thanks to snus. My first post in this thread (Dec 1) was my first smoke free day.

Below has been my experience with Duty and customs. I'm providing the info for fellow Canadians searching for this info.

I order from snuscentral.com. By default they break up orders into 5 tin packages with the hopes that some will slip past customs. Some times they pass customs with out duty... some times not. It used to be a mixed bag on how much the amount of duty was assessed (just like ridethespiral's experiense) but it is now the same amount every time (for the past 5 shipments)

The cost for my favorite snus (General Onyx) is 26.04 CAD per 5 tins

So my custom form looks like this
Declared Value 26.04
Duty 34.15
GST 3.01
PST 25.81
Handling cost 9.95

Total Duty and tax = 72.93 CAD

So for 5 tins of General Onyx it costs 98.97 . Or 19.80 per tin.

*** Note
Not every package gets nabbed at customs. This tends to lower the over all cost but don't count on it. A tin lasts me 3 days so my snus habit is 6.60 per day. Far less than 10 bucks for a pack of smokes (I smoked 2 packs per day)

 

[hittman]

That sucks! However, congratulations are in order for kicking the habit. Too bad you can't go across the border into the US and buy some. However the stores I've seen aren't stocking onyx.