How much does it cost to ship from Canada to Japan?

The cost of shipping from Canada to Japan may be a lot more than you would expect, but there are ways to mitigate those costs. One of the easiest to implement is to take advantage of Secureship’s preferred pricing arrangement with well known international carriers like FedEx, UPS, and Purolator.

Beyond that, there are smaller yet often lesser known strategies that will save you on your shipments. They include tips like extending the delivery time, reducing parcel size, reusing packaging materials, and particularly for valuable or breakable goods, packaging them securely. This blog details these tips and provides other information concerning duties and taxes applied to goods entering Japan from Canada.

Table of Contents

• Secureship
• How to Save on Shipping
• Duties and Taxes on Shipped Goods to Japan
• Conclusion

Secureship

Secureship offers its customers a simple, easy-to-use online tool that changes shipping from being an overwhelming, complicated chore to a straightforward process. It starts by accessing our estimator, which once you’ve made a shipping choice leads you through the paperwork, and then allows you to track your shipment.

Estimator

When you use our estimator for a shipment from Canada to Japan (see below), it will quickly generate a bunch of shipping options with Purolator, FedEx, or UPS.

And because of Secureship’s group buying power with them, you will save upwards of 50% from their retail prices.

Paperwork

Once you’ve made your choice, our system automatically helps you complete the necessary documents, and cues you to select a parcel pick-up time and place of your convenience.

Tracking

After the parcel has left your hands, Secureship’s built-in shipping guru points out potential issues, which will save you loads of headaches. And the system’s smart tracking automatically sorts out packages that require attention. The guru and tracking feature save you time, which lets you better focus on your business or yourself. And time is money in a different form.

How to Save on Shipping

While Secureship lets you save significantly on your shipping, there are other other ways that allow you save smaller amounts, but every little bit adds up.

Delivery time

Delivery time is a big factor in saving money on shipping to Japan; the longer a parcel travels, the less it will cost. So, a simple way to extend travel time is by using surface transport, i.e. sea freight. The downside is time: A parcel may take up to three months to arrive in Japan after its send-off from Canada.

Package size

There is no secret that a heavier package costs more to ship than a lighter one, and it is unlikely that can be changed. But a smaller parcel of equal weight could ship for less.

This is explained by billable weight, but in dramatic terms, think of a pillow compared to lead shot of the same weight. The bigger box demanded by shipping the pillow would increase its costs.

Reuse packaging materials

For a small business, margins are tight. Anything that can be reused instead bought anew will save your company money. But there is an important caveat: boxes. A used box may have lost half of its strength in one voyage. So, to guard against damaged goods, it may be worth using a new box for breakables.

Package for safe arrival of goods

Broken contents are a risk of shipping, and that will cost you money and annoy your customers. If you are shipping fragile items, mind the following tips:

• Use a new box
• Envelope each item in bubble wrap; keep items at least 5 cm from every side of the box
• Seal the box with proper packing tape (masking and duct tape are poor substitutes)

Duties and Taxes on Shipped Goods to Japan

Duties and value added taxes (VAT) are part of international shipping, and while they are typically paid by the recipient, they nevertheless reflect upon the shipper.

Duties

Duties have been much in the news of late; but as Canada and Japan are both members of the Comprehensive and Progressive Agreement for Trans-Pacific Partnership (CPTPP), duties on traded goods between us are low or zero.

And for packages of low value – less than ￥10,000 (about $95 CAD as of June 2025) – no duties are charged.

Taxes

Similar to our GST, Japan imposes a VAT of 10% on imported goods. And as the de minimis value for the VAT is 0, this means all goods regardless of value will incur this tax.

Conclusion

Shipping goods to Japan from Canada can be very expensive; however, Secureship reduces your costs up to half with its bulk buying agreements with UPS, Purolator, and FedEx. Shipping costs can be further lowered by extending delivery times, packaging goods in smaller boxes, repurposing packaging, and ensuring breakables are packed for a safe arrival. In addition, international shipping involves duties and taxes, which fortunately means very low or zero duties when shipping from Canada to Japan (due to the CPTPP trade agreement between us). But a VAT rate of 10% still applies to all goods entering Japan regardless of the shipment’s value.