Summary

• The CARM Client Portal (CCP) has been shut down temporarily. The CCP will reopen, under Release 3, on October 21, 2024.
• As of October 21, without the registration of its business on the CCP, the customer’s imports will not be “released” by the CBSA.
• As of October 21, without a delegation of authority granted by the client through their CCP account, W2C will not be able to account for customs declarations that are in “released” status.
• As of October 21, to meet its direct payment obligations to the CBSA for customs duties, GST and other amounts that are assessed on imported goods, if not already done, the importer must register its business on the CCP to be able to consult its dashboard to view recent transactions as well as monthly Statements of Account (SOA) that the CBSA will post on the customer's CCP account.

The Canada Border Services Agency (CBSA) is moving forward with the implementation of its third release of the CBSA Assessment and Revenue Management (CARM R3). As of 4:00 pm on Friday, October 4, the CBSA implemented a cutover period that will last until Monday, October 21 (3:00 am). When implementing this cutover period:

1. Certain CBSA legacy systems, such as the Customs Commercial System (CCS) and the Customs Automated Data Exchange (CADEX), were decommissioned.
2. The CARM Client Portal (CCP) was also shutdown on October 4. As a result, the CCP will not be available during the cutover period until the CCP reopens on Monday, October 21, under Release 3, with several new features.

The effects of the two actions undertaken by the CBSA on October 4th are numerous

1. Given the closure of the CCS and CADEX systems, while customs brokers such as W2C can continue to transmit customs release requests for imports entering Canada from October 4th to the 21st, W2C will not be able to close and account those transactions once in “released” status. All transactions in “released” status must be kept on hold until October 21. On the 21st, W2C can begin accounting for imports that entered Canada between October 4th and 21st according to a pre-established schedule imposed by the CBSA.
2. Since the CCP is currently shut down, importers who are already registered on the portal will not be able to log in or consult their portal account until October 21 when the CCP reopens under R3.
3. Importers who did not register on the CCP before October 4 will have to wait until October 21 to register their company on the CCP. The importer must also approve the request for delegation of authority sent by W2C which remains pending.
4. Until October 21, W2C will not be able to consult the portal accounts of its customers registered on the CCP nor can W2C transmit requests for delegation of authority via the CCP for new customers. Like importers, customs brokers must wait for the portal to reopen when Release 3 goes live.
5. Imports for which customs releases are granted on or after October 4: under CARM and its regulations, the importer becomes legally responsible for paying all duties, taxes and other charges payable to the CBSA directly to the agency according to the amounts payable that will appear on their monthly Statement of Account (SOA) as posted by the CBSA on the CCP on the 25th day of each month. Importers registered on the CCP can access their monthly SOA history as well as new SOAs that will be posted by the CBSA starting October 25.

What happens on October 21st?

1. During the cutover period from October 4th to the 21st, W2C can prepare and transmit release requests for its customers, whether they have registered or not on the CCP. However, as of October 21, all importers must be registered on the CCP before a customs release request can be transmitted to the CBSA to obtain the “release” of a new importation that arrives to Canada as of October 21. Customers who are already registered on the CCP will continue to receive immediate processing of their customs release requests.
2. As previously mentioned, the CCP is unavailable from October 4 to 21. Therefore, as soon as the portal reopens on October 21, unregistered importers will need to register their business on the CCP as quickly as possible. This registration must be done before the arrival in Canada of their next importation. An importer who is not registered with the CCP will not be able to obtain an immediate “customs release” processing of its imports arriving to Canada on or after October 21, until their business is registered with the CCP.
3. As with imports that are “released” between October 4 and October 21, for the imports that are “released” on or after October 21, in order to close and account for customs declarations with the CBSA, W2C requires a delegation of authority from the importer, which customers can only approve through their CCP account.
4. On the 25th day of each month (e.g. Oct 25, Nov 25, Dec 25, Jan 25, etc.), the CBSA will post a Statement of Account (SOA) on the importer’s CCP account. This monthly SOA will cover all customs duties, GST and other amounts payable to the CBSA for all the client's customs declarations that were accounted and accepted by the CBSA between the 18th of the previous month and the 17th of the current month.
5. The importer will be required to submit its payment directly to the CBSA by the monthly due date established by the CBSA. The SOA that is issued to the client on the 25th of the month covers the amounts payable for all the client’s customs declarations recorded between the 18th of the previous month and the 17th of the current month. For this SOA, the importer will be required to submit its electronic payment directly to the CBSA within 10 business days from the 17th of the current month. Depending on the month, this due date falls on the last business day of the current month or one of the first business days of the following month.
6. For more information on electronic payment methods offered by the CBSA under CARM R3, please consult W2C’s blog entitled CARM R3 - How to pay customs duties, GST and other amounts to the CBSA.

If you have any questions or would like to hire W2C’s assistance service for CARM Portal Registration, which will resume on October 22nd, please contact your W2C representative.