Canada announced counter-tariffs on US goods on 25 August, effective 8 September 2026. The rates are 15%, 25% and 50% depending on the product, they cover more than 700 items worth C$27.6 billion of annual imports from the US, and the list includes consumer categories, not only steel and industrial inputs. They are Canada’s answer to the US tariffs of up to 50% on about $20 billion of Canadian goods that took effect on 24 August.

If you sell on Amazon.ca, the thing that decides whether this reaches your listings is not where your inventory ships from. It is where your product is from. Most private-label sellers will find they are untouched — and a smaller number will find their Canadian margin gone on 8 September.

What changed

  • Canada’s Department of Finance announced counter-tariffs on 25 August 2026, effective 8 September. Confirmed in the department’s own news release and reported independently by Reuters, AFP and CTV News.
  • Three rate tiers: 15%, 25% and 50%, set to match the US rate on the same goods rather than applied uniformly.
  • More than 700 products, covering C$27.6 billion of annual imports from the US. Reuters puts the US-dollar equivalent at about $19.94 billion.
  • The 50% tier includes steel and aluminium, furniture and clothing (Reuters and CTV News). Appliances and dairy sit at 25%; electrical equipment and tools at 15% (Reuters and AFP).
  • Consumer goods are well represented. CTV News, reading the published list, names perfume and cosmetics, smartphones, tableware and kitchenware, and paper products among the goods covered.
  • The full product list is published by the Department of Finance, itemised by tariff code. That document, not a summary, is what your broker needs.
  • Canada also announced a C$7.5 billion support package for affected businesses and workers. It is domestic relief for Canadian firms; it is not a rebate for importers.

What it means for a private-label seller

A surtax list is a list of tariff codes, and it attaches to where a good originates — not to the warehouse it left. That single distinction sorts almost everyone reading this into one of three buckets.

If your product is manufactured in Asia and you ship it into Canada — directly, or out of US inventory through Remote Fulfilment — Canada’s counter-tariffs are aimed at goods of US origin. Your customs paperwork is what settles it. For most private-label brands, that means 8 September is a headline and not a cost.

If your product is genuinely made in the United States and you sell it on Amazon.ca, this is the expensive case. US-made furniture, apparel, cosmetics and kitchenware are exactly the categories named. A 50% surtax does not survive a repricing tweak — at that level the honest options are to stop shipping into Canada, move production, or accept that the SKU sells at a loss there.

If you sell in the US and buy anything Canadian, your increase already happened, on 24 August, in the other direction. Canadian lumber and paper feed corrugate and packaging. You will see that as a quote change from your packaging supplier, not as a line item on an Amazon report, which is precisely why it gets missed.

The second-order effect reaches everyone selling into Canada: two rounds of tariffs inside a fortnight, and Canadian consumer prices rise across a broad basket. Softer Canadian demand and worse conversion is a slower, less visible cost than a surtax, and it does not care where your product was made.

What to do about it

  1. Pull the country of origin for every SKU you send into Canada — from the commercial invoice and the customs entry, not from your supplier’s marketing. If nothing is US-origin, you are done, and you can ignore the next three weeks of panic content.
  2. If anything is US-origin, match its tariff code against the published Finance Canada list before 8 September. The list is itemised; “furniture” as a word tells you nothing until you have the code.
  3. Check who is the importer of record on your Canadian orders. That determines who pays the surtax — you or the customer — and it changes what happens to your conversion rate as much as to your margin. If you sell into Canada through Amazon’s remote fulfilment programme, confirm this in the programme terms, not in a forum thread.
  4. Do not raise Amazon.ca prices on 8 September by default. If your goods are not on the list, a pre-emptive increase hands share to a competitor who checked.
  5. Re-quote packaging now if your corrugate has Canadian pulp in it. The US side is already live.

What this doesn’t tell you

We are an Amazon agency, not customs advisers. This post tells you where the tariff lists are and which question decides your exposure; it cannot tell you how your specific goods will be classified. Origin determination and tariff classification are your broker’s call, and getting either wrong is a customs problem, not a marketplace one.

Two things are also still open. Trade measures announced in this climate have been amended, delayed and rescinded before, so the list as published on 25 August is not guaranteed to be the list in force on 8 September — re-check it in the first week of September. And Canada has said it will run a remission process for affected importers; the terms of that will matter to anyone with US-origin inventory already in transit.

Sources