How much is shipping to France from Canada?

As with many aspects of life of late, shipping costs to anywhere have soared, and France is no exception. And beyond the basic shipping fee, there may be other charges incurred; and this blog will show you how to curb your shipping costs to France, or any other destination your goods are heading. To that end, we introduce Secureship, Canada’s foremost shipping broker, whose bulk buying agreements with top-notch carriers (Purolator, UPS, and FedEx) can be reduced by half.

Table of Contents

• How Much Does it Cost to Ship to France?
• Other Potential Shipping Costs
• French Duties and Taxes
• Conclusion

How Much Does it Cost to Ship to France?

Consider an ordinary shipping box with five kilograms of goods shipped from Montreal’s Pierre-Elliot-Trudeau Airport to Paris’s Charles-de-Gaulle.

Using Secureship’s estimator produces the following seven results.

Several points are readily apparent. Shipping is expensive with an over-the-weekend service of $622 with FedEx; but if you can wait five business days, Canada Post’s Xpresspost service will deliver the parcel for only $100, which is Secureship’s price – about 45% off the retail price.

And depending on the carrier, even bigger savings may be had.

Other Potential Shipping Costs

Unfortunately for shippers, other potential shipping costs may arise depending on the services that are required for the package or the nature of the goods.

Insurance

For valuable or breakable goods, you may wish to consider insuring the contents. But there are a few caveats:

1. Uninsurable items include jewellery, personal belongings, antiques, and perishables.
2. Pack and seal the container as per the ISTA 3A packaging standard or insurance may be null and void.

Saturday and residential services

While Saturday pick-ups and deliveries plus residential service are convenient for the shipper and recipient, they demand a fee. To avoid a residential delivery charge, you could address the parcel to the recipient’s business address or the carrier’s local outlet.

Additional handling

It may come as a surprise that shipping in other than a cardboard box results in an additional handling fee. So, unless the goods absolutely require packaging within a plastic, wood, or steel container, you can usually skirt this charge by using an ordinary cardboard box.

French Duties and Taxes

When shipping to France from Canada, goods may be liable to duties and will most certainly incur tax in the form of VAT (akin to Canada’s GST).

Duties

Imports entering France valued at less than €150 (about $235 CAD) will be exempt from duties (except for perfumes, eau de toilette, and alcoholic drinks, all of which are dutiable regardless of their value).

However, because of the Canada-EU Comprehensive Economic and Trade Agreement (CETA), most goods shipped from Canada to France are duty-free except for books, jewellery, some clothing, and sports equipment.

Taxes

Like most countries, France imposes a VAT on imported goods regardless of their value. Most items will incur a 20% charge on their imported value while medicines sustain a 2.1% charge and agricultural and food products attract a 5% tax.

Conclusion

The cost of shipping to France from Canada has, like elsewhere, dramatically increased in the past several years. Fortunately, there are ways of reducing your costs, the most significant one is by using Secureship as your shipping broker; Secureship can halved the retail rate of a carrier like FedEx, Purolator, or UPS.

And shipping, like other industries, have hidden or extra costs beyond the basic transportation fee. Some of shipping’s extra fees come from insurance, Saturday and residential services, and additional handling. Thankfully, there are ways to lower or eliminate these costs.