Why your CAD shows the wrong surtax: Canada's surtax orders, how they combine, and worked lines

Why does a Canadian surtax go wrong so often?

A Canadian surtax is not a rate in the Customs Tariff schedule. Each one is imposed by its own order in council under the Customs Tariff, with its own list of tariff items, its own test for which goods it reaches, its own start date and its own exceptions. The CBSA then tells importers how to declare it in a customs notice, with a surtax code for the CAD line. So a broker coding a line has to answer four questions the tariff item alone cannot answer:

1. Which orders list this tariff item on this release date? Schedules change. The US steel and aluminum order was cut back to aluminum only in Schedule 1 on September 1, 2025, and split into 25% and 50% schedules on September 8, 2026 (Customs Notice 25-11).
2. Does the good pass that order's origin test? The US orders use the CUSMA marking rules, the China order the non-CUSMA marking rules, the melt-and-pour order the country where the steel was melted, and the steel derivative order applies to every origin except Canada.
3. If two orders could apply, which one wins? Several orders say they do not apply to goods caught by another, and one says it displaces all the others.
4. Is there an exception or remission? In-transit goods, Chapter 98 goods, low-value shipments under one order, and remission claimed with a special authority code.

The CBSA's own verification results show how often the answers are wrong. On its trade compliance verification page, checked on November 11, 2026, the CBSA reports 177 of 237 closed cases in error for the United States Surtax Order (2025-1), 31 of 43 for the US steel and aluminum order, 113 of 192 for the China order's steel and aluminum surtax, and 8 of 20 for the melt-and-pour order. The CAD audit guide covers where the surtax sits in a full line-by-line audit. This page goes one level down: which order applies, how the orders combine, and what a wrong line looks like.

Which surtax orders were in force on November 11, 2026?

Nine orders imposed a surtax or safeguard surtax on November 11, 2026. Each row below comes from the order on the Justice Laws website and the CBSA customs notice that administers it.

Two earlier measures still matter on past lines. The United States Surtax Order (2025-1) applied a 25% surtax to a long list of US goods from March 4, 2025 and was repealed on September 1, 2025. The China order's surtax on Chinese electric vehicles ended on March 1, 2026, when SOR/2026-33 repealed section 3 and Schedule 1 of the order. An audit of 2025 entries has to test those lines against the order as it stood on their release date.

Where does the surtax show on the CAD?

Three fields carry it, and each can be wrong on its own.

• Surtax code, on the line. Every customs notice gives the code. Customs Notice 26-23 says importers "must declare imported goods as subject to a surtax" and enter the code for the schedule the good falls under.
• Amount, in field 85 "Surtax". The amount owing is entered there, and on the self-declare option in CARM the importer calculates it. The safeguard surtaxes are the exception: Customs Notices 26-14 and 26-17 say the safeguard amount goes in field 87 "Safeguard", not field 85. These are the numbers CBSA's notices use; Memorandum D17-1-10 numbers the same fields 68 and 90 in its electronic coding, and the CAD field by field explains both.
• Special Authority OIC field, for remission. Customs Notice 25-19 says relief at import is claimed by entering the special authorization code, and "surtax must be declared in addition to the applicable remission". A remitted line still shows the surtax.

The surtax also moves the GST. The value for tax adds the surtax to the value for duty and the customs duty, and Customs Notice 26-23 says the value for tax is "inclusive of surtax even when customs duties are remitted". A line where the surtax was added later but the GST was not is short on both.

How do the orders combine on one line?

The orders do not simply add up. Read together, they set an order of precedence for steel and a set of carve-outs for the rest.

1. The steel quota surtax displaces every other surtax. Section 3.1 of SOR/2025-148 says that if a good subject to it "is also subject to any other surtax under the Customs Tariff, only the surtax under this Order is applicable". That rule took effect on August 1, 2025. For goods imported from June 27 to July 31, 2025, Customs Notice 25-24 works an example in which a 50% quota surtax and a 25% China surtax both apply to the same good.
2. The melt-and-pour surtax yields to the China surtax and never reaches US goods. Customs Notice 25-28 says goods subject to the China Surtax Order (2024) and goods originating in the US are not subject to it, and neither are goods whose combined value under the order on one CAD does not exceed CAD 5,000.
3. The steel derivative surtax yields to five orders. Section 2(a) of SOR/2025-267 excludes goods subject to the China order, the US steel and aluminum order, the US 2026 order, the steel quota order or the melt-and-pour order. It does not exclude goods from the US or Mexico as such, only goods caught by one of those orders. The only origin it excludes is Canada (section 2(h), added by SOR/2026-155 from June 22, 2026). It does exclude goods by use: goods imported before July 1, 2027 for use in manufacturing motor vehicles, chassis or their parts and accessories (section 2(d)), goods imported before July 1, 2027 for use in aircraft, ground flying trainers or spacecraft or their parts (section 2(e)), and utility wind towers of 7308.20.00 for energy projects west of the Ontario–Manitoba border (section 2(f)).
4. The US 2026 order and the steel derivative order are not cumulative. Customs Notice 26-23 says that where both could apply, "only the surtax imposed under this Order applies".
5. Every surtax sits on top of customs duty and SIMA duty. The customs notices' worked examples add the surtax to the MFN duty and to anti-dumping duty, and charge GST on the total.
6. Chapter 98 and 99 lines follow each order's own rule. The US orders apply to a Chapter 98 or 99 item only if the item is on the order's Chapter 98/99 schedule and the good is otherwise classifiable under a listed item. The China order applies to Chapter 99 goods otherwise classifiable under Schedule 2, except goods in for repair. The steel derivative, quota and melt-and-pour orders exclude Chapter 98 goods.

The order of questions that follows from this, for a steel or aluminum line: is the good over quota or without a permit under the quota order? If so, that surtax alone. If not, is it Chinese-origin steel or aluminum on the China order's schedule? Then the China surtax. If not, does it contain Chinese-melted steel or Chinese-smelted aluminum on the melt-and-pour schedule, above the CAD 5,000 threshold? Then that one. If it is US-origin and on a US order's schedule, the US surtax. Only then does the steel derivative surtax come in, for any origin but Canada, unless the goods fall under one of its end-use exceptions.

A worked line: the same bolts from four countries

The figures are illustrative and round. A CAD line of hex bolts of steel, tariff item 7318.15.00, value for duty CAD 100,000, released on October 15, 2026, assuming the goods are inside the product scope of each order named and are not imported for use in motor vehicle or aerospace manufacturing, which the steel derivative order exempts until July 1, 2027. The Customs Tariff 2026 lists 7318.15.00 at a free MFN rate and free under every preferential tariff (Chapter 73), so the customs duty is zero in every row and only the surtax changes.

Tariff item 7318.15.00 is on Schedule 2.1 of the US steel and aluminum order and on the schedule of the steel derivative order, and on neither the China order's Schedule 2, the melt-and-pour schedule nor the quota order's schedules. That is why the US row carries the US order and every other row the derivative surtax.

Now the ways this line is entered wrong, in both directions:

• US bolts with both surtaxes, 50% plus 25%. Overpaid by CAD 25,000 plus the GST on it. Section 2(a) of the derivative order excludes goods subject to the US steel and aluminum order.
• US bolts left at 25% after September 8, 2026, with no in-transit proof on file. Underpaid by CAD 25,000. The 25% rate under code 25095A is only for goods in transit on or before September 8.
• Mexican bolts with no surtax, because "CUSMA goods are exempt". Underpaid by CAD 25,000. The quota order excludes Canada, the US and Mexico, but the only origin the derivative order excludes is Canada. The line is right only if the bolts were imported for an exempt use, such as motor vehicle or aerospace manufacturing before July 1, 2027, and the importer can show it.
• German bolts with no surtax, because the CETA rate is free. Underpaid by CAD 25,000, with the same end-use caveat. A trade-agreement rate sets the customs duty, not the surtax.
• Chinese bolts charged the China surtax. Wrong order and wrong code, even though the 25% rate matches. The China order's Schedule 2 covers primary steel and aluminum, not fasteners. Separately, certain carbon steel fasteners from China and Chinese Taipei are subject to SIMA duties under a measure in force, which sit on top of any surtax; see SIMA duties on past entries.

You can check which measures apply to a tariff item, origin and date in the duty calculator.

A worked line with remission

Remission does not remove the surtax from the CAD. It is claimed next to it. Take a US-origin good on Schedule 2 of the United States Surtax Order (2026), imported as a direct input to manufacturing in Canada, value for duty CAD 40,000.

Customs Notice 25-19 says section 3 relief covers goods imported for use in Canada in manufacturing or processing, agricultural production, or food and beverage packaging, that the end product may be exported, and that the importer must keep documents showing the goods were used that way. Two dates matter on this line. The Department of Finance announced on November 9, 2026 that horizontal relief is in place until June 30, 2028, and that relief is removed for certain trailers from December 1, 2026 and for certain aluminum wire, extrusions and paperboard from February 1, 2027. Those goods are on Schedule 7 of the Remission List and need codes 25-0466V01 or V02 for the period before their cut-off.

The errors on remission lines run both ways. A line with the remission code and no surtax declared is incomplete. A line that paid the surtax on goods that qualified for remission is an overpayment, recoverable by a remission claim. For that window, the Order as consolidated on Justice Laws (paragraph 5(c)) says within two years after importation, while Customs Notice 25-19, as modified November 9, 2026, says four years, reflecting an amending order made November 5, 2026 that is not yet published; until it is, treat two years as the safe deadline. And a line that claimed section 3 relief on steel goods of Schedule 2 or 2.1 of the US steel and aluminum order imported on or after February 1, 2026 is an underpayment: paragraph 5(a.02) of the remission order grants that relief only if the good "is imported into Canada before February 1, 2026". Steel used to manufacture motor vehicles, chassis, their parts or aerospace goods is different: section 3.1 relieves it for goods imported from February 1, 2026 to before July 1, 2028, with code 25-0466S01, so a steel line carrying that code after February 1, 2026 can be correct.

Which remission orders can recover surtax on past lines?

Each surtax order has, or shares, a remission order with its own scope and claim window.

The windows come from Customs Notices 25-19, 25-05, 26-02 and 26-07. The two-year windows are the ones that expire first: a China surtax line from late 2024 that qualified for remission had to be claimed by late 2026. Since November 3, 2026 the product and importer schedules of the US remission order sit in the Department of Finance's Remission List, which is incorporated by reference into the order, rather than in the order itself, so check the list version in force on the release date.

Goods later exported can also recover surtax through the Duties Relief and Duty Drawback programs, which every surtax notice says are available subject to CUSMA. That route is covered in duties relief and drawback on past Canadian entries.

What are the usual ways a surtax line ends up wrong?

Overpayments tend to sit in:

• Two surtaxes on a line where one order excludes the other: derivative plus a US order, China plus melt-and-pour, anything plus the quota surtax after August 1, 2025.
• US surtax on goods marked as from Puerto Rico, Guam, the Northern Mariana Islands, American Samoa or the US Virgin Islands, which Customs Notice 26-23 excludes.
• The 50% rate on US steel or aluminum that was in transit on September 8, 2026.
• Surtax on Chapter 98 goods, or on US goods returned after repair, which the notices list as exceptions.
• Melt-and-pour surtax on a CAD where the subject goods total CAD 5,000 or less.
• Remission-eligible goods that paid in full and were never claimed.

Underpayments tend to sit in:

• Steel derivative goods from the US, Mexico, Europe or Asia entered without the derivative surtax because the importer assumed only Chinese goods were caught, and not imported for one of the order's exempt uses.
• A trade-agreement rate taken to mean "no surtax".
• The old 25% rate kept after a rate increase, or an old schedule kept after goods were added.
• Goods shipped from a third country that are US or Chinese goods under the marking rules. Customs Notice 26-23 says the surtax applies "even when exported from a country other than the U.S."
• Goods containing Chinese-melted steel from a non-Chinese origin, missed by the melt-and-pour order.
• Section 3 remission claimed on steel goods imported from February 1, 2026 (only the section 3.1 motor vehicle and aerospace relief continues for steel), or on Schedule 7 goods after their cut-off.
• GST calculated before the surtax was added.

How do you fix the surtax on past CADs?

Memorandum D16-1-1 says that if an importer identifies that surtax is payable, it "must submit a self-adjustment and declare the applicable surtax code", and that an overpayment of surtax can be recovered by an adjustment requesting a refund. The refund rests on paragraph 74(1)(g) of the Customs Act and must be filed within four years after accounting; subsection 74(7) excludes surtaxes from the refunds the CBSA may make without an application. Where the surtax error comes from a wrong origin, tariff classification or value for duty, the 90-day correction duty in section 32.2 applies to that declaration. The filing steps, reason codes and interest are in correcting a Canadian entry.

The surtax itself cannot be appealed. Customs Notice 26-23 says only CBSA determinations and re-determinations that decide whether or how much surtax applies can be disputed, through section 60 of the Customs Act.

How does this differ from a US duty stack?

An importer that files on both sides of the border will trip on three differences. In the US, the additional duties are Chapter 99 headings filed on the entry line, and their interaction is written into the tariff schedule's notes; in Canada, each surtax is a separate order with its own precedence clause. In the US, whether a USMCA claim takes a line out of an additional duty depends on that heading's own note; in Canada, the US orders test origin under the marking rules and a CUSMA claim removes none of the surtaxes. And in the US, the error is fixed by a post-summary correction or a protest; in Canada, by a CAD adjustment with no appeal against the surtax itself. The US side is covered in why your entry shows the wrong duty stack.

How do you check surtax across your own entries?

1. Get the accounting export for every CAD and B3 since October 2024, with tariff item, origin, release date, surtax code, field 85 and field 87 amounts, special authority code and GST.
2. For each line, list every order whose schedule held that tariff item on the release date, then test origin the way that order tests it.
3. Apply the precedence rules above to pick one surtax, or none.
4. Compare the expected code, rate and amount with the declared ones, and the GST base with value plus duty plus surtax.
5. Check every remission code against the order's scope and dates, and every paid line for an unclaimed remission. Two-year windows first.
6. Sort findings by direction. Underpayments go to a self-adjustment; overpayments to a refund adjustment or a remission claim.

TariffSense reads CAD/B3 lines and broker accounting exports, matches each line against every surtax and remission order in force on its release date, applies the orders' precedence rules, and flags the line with the expected order, code, rate and amount, whichever way the money moves. Filing stays with your broker or your own CARM account. The post-entry audit page shows what goes in and what comes back.

What should you do next on your own entries?

Pull every line with a steel or aluminum tariff item and check the surtax code against the origin and release date first: that is where the precedence rules bite, and where the derivative surtax is most often missing on non-Chinese goods. Then list paid surtax lines that may qualify for remission and claim the two-year ones before they lapse. Confirm the route for any correction or claim with a licensed customs broker or trade counsel before you file.