How to Export from Canada: Documents, Customs and Container Shipping Step by Step

Exporting from Canada is mostly paperwork done in the right order. The freight itself — a pallet of machine parts, a container of building products, a crated press — moves the same way it always has: by truck to a rail terminal, by rail to a port, by ship to the buyer's country. What trips up first-time exporters is the sequence of registrations, declarations and documents that has to be complete before a container can be gated in at the terminal.

This guide walks through that sequence as it runs from the Greater Toronto Area, where most Ontario exports start. It is written for a business shipping commercial goods; if you are moving household belongings overseas, the process is different and covered in moving overseas from Canada.

Step 1: Register as an exporter

Every commercial exporter needs a Canada Revenue Agency business number (BN) with an import/export program account — the RM extension. If your business already has a BN for GST/HST or payroll, adding the RM account is a quick registration with CRA; new businesses register for both at once. The RM number goes on your export declaration and is how the Canada Border Services Agency (CBSA) identifies you.

If you will also import — returned goods, samples, materials — register with CBSA's CARM Client Portal as well. Since October 2024 importers must be enrolled in CARM to have goods released, and it is easier to set up before you need it.

Step 2: Check whether your goods are controlled

Most goods leave Canada without a permit. Some do not. Global Affairs Canada's Export Control List covers military and dual-use items, certain technologies, and some agricultural and forestry products; sanctions regulations restrict destinations and end-users; and other departments control specific goods — the CFIA for plants, animals and food, Health Canada for drugs and controlled substances, Environment and Climate Change Canada for hazardous waste and ozone-depleting substances. Check the Export Control List and the destination's import rules before you accept an order, because a shipment stopped at the terminal for a missing permit is expensive to unwind.

• Export Control List (Global Affairs Canada) — military, dual-use, strategic goods
• Sanctions — check the destination country and the buyer
• CFIA — plants, wood products, animals, food; phytosanitary certificates
• Health Canada — pharmaceuticals, medical devices, controlled substances
• Cultural property, firearms, endangered species (CITES)

Step 3: Agree the Incoterm with your buyer

The Incoterm in your sales contract decides who books and pays for each leg of the journey, and where risk transfers. Canadian exporters commonly sell EXW (the buyer collects at your door and handles everything — least work, least control), FCA (you deliver to the buyer's carrier or a named place, usually the freight forwarder's warehouse, and file the export declaration), FOB (for ocean, you deliver the goods loaded on the vessel), or CIF/CIP (you pay freight and insurance to the destination port, which lets you control the shipment and quote a landed price). DAP or DDP puts delivery to the buyer's door on you; DDP also makes you the importer of record abroad, which most exporters avoid.

Two practical notes. First, under FCA and beyond, you are responsible for the export declaration, so the term you choose changes your compliance obligations. Second, if you sell EXW, the buyer's forwarder will still ask you for documents and often for the export declaration — agree who files it in writing.

Step 4: Prepare the export documents

The core set is the same for almost every shipment. The commercial invoice describes the goods, quantity, value, currency, Incoterm and parties; it is the document customs at destination will assess duty on. The packing list details each package — contents, dimensions, gross and net weight, marks — and is what the container is checked against. A certificate of origin may be required by the buyer or to claim preferential duty under a trade agreement (CUSMA for the U.S. and Mexico, CETA for the EU, CPTPP for the Pacific). The bill of lading is issued by the ocean carrier or your forwarder after the container is loaded and is the contract of carriage and, for a negotiable B/L, the document of title. For dangerous goods, a DG declaration under the IMDG Code; for wood packaging, the ISPM-15 stamp on the pallets and crates (see step 6).

Your freight forwarder needs a shipper's letter of instruction (SLI) summarizing all of this — the parties, the routing, the Incoterm, who is paying what, and the B/L instructions. If you work with a forwarder that also loads the container, the SLI and packing list are checked against the physical freight on the dock.

Step 5: File the export declaration (CERS)

CBSA requires an export declaration for most commercial shipments valued at CAD 2,000 or more leaving Canada for any destination other than the United States (exports to the U.S. are reported through U.S. import data instead). The declaration is filed electronically through the Canadian Export Reporting System (CERS), which replaced the paper B13A form in 2020. It must be filed and accepted before the goods leave — for ocean shipments, 48 hours before the container is loaded on the vessel, and in practice before the container is gated in at the rail terminal.

The declaration reports the exporter's BN, the consignee, the goods by Harmonized System (HS) code, value, quantity, the port of exit and the carrier. Controlled goods reference the permit number. You can file yourself through the CERS portal, or authorize your forwarder or customs broker to file as your agent. The proof of report number CERS returns is what the carrier needs to accept the container.

Step 6: Pack for export — ISPM-15, crating and securement

Ocean freight is handled more roughly and for longer than anything domestic, and it lives through weeks of temperature cycling inside a steel box. Pallets, crates and dunnage made of solid wood must be heat-treated and stamped to the ISPM-15 standard or the shipment risks being held, fumigated or refused at the destination port. Machinery and instruments should be skidded or crated with vapour-barrier and desiccant protection; cartons should be stretch-wrapped, banded and corner-boarded to survive a container freight station if they travel LCL.

Inside the container the load must be blocked and braced so it cannot shift in heavy seas — lumber, airbags and strapping to the lashing points, heavy pieces low and centred. That is a skill, and it decides whether an insurance claim is paid. Our crating and export packing and container loading pages cover both.

Step 7: Book the ocean freight

With the documents in hand, your forwarder books space with a steamship line for the sailing that matches your buyer's required arrival. From Toronto, containers travel by rail to Montreal or Halifax for Atlantic and Mediterranean destinations and to Vancouver or Prince Rupert for the Pacific. The booking confirmation gives you the container number, the empty pickup location, the rail cut-off at CN Brampton or CPKC Vaughan, and the documentation cut-off by which the B/L instructions and VGM must be submitted.

Choosing between a full container (FCL) and consolidated LCL depends on volume — roughly 12 to 15 cubic metres is the crossover — and on whether the cargo can share a container. The comparison, with transit times by region, is on our ocean freight FCL & LCL page.

Step 8: Load the container, declare the VGM, gate in

The empty container is positioned at your dock or delivered to the forwarder's warehouse. It is inspected before loading (floor, walls, doors, seals, no odour or holes), loaded to the load plan, secured, photographed from the doors, and sealed with a numbered seal recorded on the packing list. Under the SOLAS convention the shipper must declare the container's verified gross mass (VGM) — cargo, dunnage and tare — before it can be loaded on a ship; the forwarder submits it with the B/L instructions.

The loaded container is then drayed to the rail terminal and gated in against the cut-off. From there it is the carrier's: rail to the port, load to the vessel, and the bill of lading is issued. Your buyer's broker uses the B/L, invoice and packing list to clear the goods at destination.

1. Empty positioned and inspected
2. Loaded to plan, blocked and braced, photographed
3. Sealed; seal number recorded
4. VGM declared; B/L instructions submitted before doc cut-off
5. Drayed to CN Brampton / CPKC Vaughan before rail cut-off
6. Bill of lading issued after vessel departure

Common mistakes on a first export

Missing the rail cut-off because the CERS declaration was filed late. Selling EXW and assuming the buyer's forwarder will handle Canadian export compliance. Using untreated pallets and losing a week to fumigation at destination. Declaring a value on the commercial invoice that does not match the packing list or the B/L. Loading a 20′ container over the road weight limit for the drayage leg. Not insuring the cargo because the Incoterm did not require it — the carrier's liability is limited to a fraction of most cargo's value. Every one of these is avoidable with a forwarder who sees the freight, not just the documents.

Exporting from the GTA with Metropolitan Logistics

We are a Toronto freight forwarder that also owns the warehouse, the loading crews and the drayage trucks. Cargo comes to our North York facility on our trucks, is packed and crated to export standard, loaded and secured in the container by our crews, declared through CERS, and drayed to the terminal on our chassis. Ocean freight is booked with the major steamship lines and tracked to the destination port, where our agents clear and deliver. If you are shipping your first container — or your hundredth and want fewer hand-offs — start on the freight forwarding Toronto page.