Last reviewed: August 2026
- Permanent landed cost — supplier price + freight + duty + brokerage + currency spread. This is the number you price off.
- Import GST is usually recoverable if you’re GST/HST-registered — treat it as a cash-flow requirement, not a permanent cost.
- Total cash paid at import = permanent landed cost + import GST — that’s what actually leaves your bank when the goods clear customs.
The first time you place a real order with an overseas supplier, the invoice shows one tidy number that’s easy to mistake for the cost per set. It wasn’t close. By the time the bedding actually landed in a Canadian warehouse, that figure had grown by more than a third — ocean freight, duty, import GST, a brokerage fee, and a currency spread that’s easy to miss. A landed-cost calculator is the little tool that turns that ugly surprise into a number you know before you commit. Here is exactly how to use one.
Before paying a supplier deposit, run the quotation through the free Supplier Quote Checker to catch missing terms and payment risks.
What a Landed-Cost Calculator Actually Does
“Landed cost” is the all-in cost of getting one sellable unit from your supplier’s door to yours, ready to ship to a customer. It is the number you should be pricing off — not the invoice total. A calculator simply takes every cost in the chain, adds them up, and divides by your number of units so you get a true per-unit figure you can build a price on.
The free landed-cost and pricing calculators do this for you, and if you want the full method behind them, it’s walked through in the landed-cost guide. This post is about understanding what you are typing in, so the answer you get is actually right.
The Inputs, One Line at a Time
- Product cost. What your supplier charges for the goods themselves, before shipping. Use the price you actually pay per unit, in the currency on the invoice.
- Units. The number of finished, sellable pieces in the shipment — not cartons, not metres of fabric. Every other cost gets spread across this number, so get it right.
- Freight. The cost of moving the goods to Canada — ocean, air, or courier — plus any origin charges. For small importers this is usually LCL (less-than-container-load) ocean freight or an air courier.
- Duty %. The customs duty rate for your specific product, set by the CBSA Customs Tariff. More on finding this below.
- Import GST. The 5% federal GST charged at the border on most goods entering Canada. It is calculated on the duty-paid value (goods plus duty), per the CRA’s rules on GST on imported goods.
- Brokerage and customs fees. What your customs broker or courier charges to clear the shipment and file the paperwork. Couriers often bundle a “disbursement” fee here too.
- Currency. If your supplier invoices in USD or another currency, your real cost depends on the exchange rate you actually get. Banks quietly add a markup on top of the mid-market rate. It helps to pay suppliers through Wise (here’s the Wise review) so you can see the true rate and enter an honest number, instead of guessing.
How to Find Your Duty Rate
Duty is the input people fudge the most, and it can swing your landed cost by 15% or more. Your rate depends on your product’s HS (Harmonized System) code — a classification number that tells customs exactly what your goods are. Cotton bedding, for example, sits in a very different line than a ceramic mug.
Look your product up in the CBSA Customs Tariff and find the “Most-Favoured-Nation” rate for your HS code. That’s the rate that applies to most countries, including India. If you are not confident in the classification, a licensed customs broker will confirm it for a small fee — cheaper than getting it wrong on every future shipment.
A Worked Example
Say you order 100 duvet cover sets. Here is what goes into the calculator (illustrative numbers, in CAD):
- Product: 100 × $28 = $2,800
- Ocean freight (LCL): $600
- Duty at 17%: $476
- Import GST at 5% (on the $3,276 duty-paid value): $163.80
- Brokerage: $150
Add it up and the total landed cost is $4,189.80. Divide by 100 units and the true cost per set is about $41.90 — not the $28.00 on the invoice. Pricing off $28 would bake a 50% error into every product page. This is where a lot of importers trip up, so it helps to separate three different numbers. Your permanent landed cost is the money that stays in your cost forever — supplier price, ocean freight, duty, brokerage and the currency spread — and it’s the figure you should price off. The 5% import GST is different: if you’re registered for GST/HST it’s generally recoverable as an input tax credit, so it’s a cash-flow requirement (you pay it at the border and claim it back later), not a permanent cost. Add the two together and you get your total cash paid at import — the amount that actually leaves your bank account on the day the goods clear customs. Duty, by contrast, is not recoverable — it stays in your cost forever. (See the CBSA’s guide to importing commercial goods for how duties and taxes are assessed at the border.)
Common Mistakes to Avoid
- Pricing off the invoice. The single most expensive habit. Always price off landed cost.
- Forgetting the currency spread. A 2–3% bank markup on a USD invoice is real money across a full container. Enter the rate you actually paid.
- Treating recoverable GST as a permanent cost. If you’re registered, don’t let the 5% inflate your margin maths — track it separately.
- Guessing the duty rate. Look it up in the Customs Tariff or ask a broker. Do not eyeball it.
- Ignoring last-mile. Getting the pallet from the port to your warehouse costs money too — include it.
Run your own shipment through the calculator once and you’ll never look at an invoice the same way again.
This is general educational information — not financial, tax, or legal advice. Rules, rates, and fees change, so confirm current details with official sources like the CRA and CBSA before you decide.