The short answer
By mail there’s no choice: duty on a parcel to the US must be prepaid. By courier you can let your customer pay, but the duty is the same either way, and they get a fee on top at the door (UPS bills them US$12.00). Prepaying (DDP) costs you the duty plus your channel’s own fee, and your customer pays nothing more on delivery.
Get told when these prices change
Providers change fees with little notice. We email you what changed when a price here does, and nothing else.
Customs cost on top of postage, and who gets the bill. Example: a CA$100.00 order of one item made in Canada with 0% normal US duty and no CUSMA claim, so the duty is US$7.13 whoever pays it.
| Way of shipping | You prepay (DDP) | Your customer pays (DDU) |
|---|---|---|
| Chit Chats ↗ConsolidatorVisit Chit Chats |
US$8.63 billed to you | Not offered: prepaid only. |
| DHL Express ↗CourierVisit DHL Express |
US$18.53 billed to you |
At least US$7.13 billed to your customer |
| Stallion Express ↗ConsolidatorVisit Stallion Express |
At least US$7.13 billed to you | Not published whether your customer can pay instead. |
| Canada Post ↗MailVisit Canada Post |
At least US$7.84 billed to you | Not allowed: duty on US-bound mail must be prepaid. |
| FedEx ↗CourierVisit FedEx |
At least US$7.13 billed to you |
At least US$7.13 billed to your customer |
| Purolator ↗CourierVisit Purolator |
At least US$7.13 billed to you | Not published whether your customer can pay instead. |
| UPS ↗CourierVisit UPS |
At least US$7.13 billed to you |
At least US$19.13 billed to your customer |
Fees checked Oct 22 to 26, 2026 on each channel's own page (↗ opens it). Sorted by the prepaid example: fully priced rows first, cheapest first; rows with a fee the channel doesn't publish come last. "At least" is the duty plus the fees we can add up. US dollars at the Bank of Canada rate of 1.4036 for Oct 28, 2026.
US rules checked October 29, 2026 Estimates, not legal advice. Confirm with a licensed customs broker.
What DDP, DAP and DDU mean
DDP (Delivered Duty Paid) and DAP (Delivered at Place) are two of the 11 Incoterms 2020 rules, the standard terms for who pays what in an international sale. Under DDP the seller pays the import duty; under DAP the buyer does.
As of Oct 26, 2026 · Source: US International Trade Administration, Know your Incoterms
Exact words from the source
"DAP - Delivered at Place (insert named place of destination) DPU - Delivered at Place Unloaded (insert of place of destination) DDP - Delivered Duty Paid (Insert place of destination)."
Our reading, not a rulingDDU (Delivered Duty Unpaid) is not one of the 11 current Incoterms rules. Carriers and shipping apps still use it to mean your customer pays the duty, which in today's terms is DAP.
As of Oct 26, 2026 · Source: Our reading of the Incoterms 2020 list (ITA)
On a parcel from Canada, DDP means the duty is paid before delivery, by you or by the shipping company on your account. DDU or DAP means the carrier collects it from your customer.
What if your customer won’t pay?
The carrier doesn’t simply write it off. UPS bills the customer a fee for paying at the door ("Packages requiring the payment of duties, taxes, and other government-related charges will be assessed an additional fee of $12 USD if those duties are not paid prior to delivery. The ICOD Fee will be charged to the U.S. recipient."), and if the bill still isn’t paid, it comes back to you:
"If after the collection process the invoice is still not collected from the receiver (a max 42-day process from the invoice date), the invoice will be reversed back to the origin to attempt to collect unpaid fees from the shipper."UPS, import fees page
So with UPS, a parcel your customer doesn’t pay for can cost you the duty and fees anyway.
Is it allowed to pay your customer’s duty?
Yes. For mail it’s required, because US customs no longer collects duty at delivery:
US customs no longer collects duty from your customer when a mailed parcel is delivered, so duty on mail has to be paid up front.
As of Oct 29, 2026 · Source: CBP rule, Federal Register 2026-12669
Couriers offer it too. UPS: "For international shipments, you may choose to have any applicable duty, tax and brokerage fees billed back to the shipper or a third party. Except for shipments to the U.S. or Mexico, a Duty and Tax Forwarding Surcharge will apply if you bill these fees to the shipper or a third party outside the destination country of the shipment." DHL Express charges a fee for it, shown in the table above: CA$16.00 or 2.5% of duty, whichever is higher.
Brokerage fees: what clearing the parcel costs
Someone has to clear each parcel through US customs, and couriers charge for it. For parcels going from Canada into the US, none of them publishes the amount:
- UPS. Lists its US brokerage fees by name (disbursement, entry preparation, extra entry lines, a single entry bond, agency clearance) with no amounts. One applies to every ground parcel from Canada: "This fee is applied to Canada-to-U.S. shipments moving via ground transportation, regardless of duties owed." UPS's page, checked Oct 26, 2026
- FedEx. Describes a fee for advancing duty, without an amount for parcels going to the US: "Duties, taxes and other charges might be due when importing a shipment. FedEx may advance these fees as assessed by Customs on behalf of the payor. A fee will be based on the advanced amount." FedEx's page, checked Oct 22, 2026
- Purolator. Clears through its broker and offers to consolidate entries, without per-parcel amounts: "With the end of the Section 321 de minimis exemption, rely on Purolator's consolidated customs brokerage strategies to manage per-shipment fees, support high-volume shipments and keep you compliant with a rapidly changing geopolitical landscape." Purolator's page, checked Oct 22, 2026
- DHL Express. Publishes only the fee for billing duty to you (in the table above). Its Canadian site gives no amount for clearing a parcel into the US for your customer. DHL Express's page, checked Oct 26, 2026
Chit Chats, Stallion Express (in a 2025 blog post) and Canada Post’s duty partner publish theirs, which is why they have numbers in the table. To compare the full customs cost of every channel, see the cheapest way to ship to the US; for the mail fees in detail, Canada Post to the US. The duty and fee estimator lets you set who pays and see both sides for your own order.