One lane, five legs, one file.
China is Canada’s second-largest trading partner. The freight is routine — but the hand-offs are where imports go wrong.
Importing from China to Canada looks simple on a quote and complicated in practice. A single shipment touches five separate legs — origin pickup and consolidation, Chinese export clearance, the trans-Pacific ocean or air leg, Canadian customs and CARM, and final-mile delivery — and a different party usually owns each one. The freight itself is routine. The hand-offs between those legs are where shipments stall: a missing document holds a container at the border, an un-booked drayage appointment racks up demurrage, an unregistered importer can’t release goods under CARM.
Qeep runs the whole lane as one file with one point of contact. We pick up at your supplier’s door in Shanghai, Ningbo, Shenzhen or Qingdao, consolidate and clear for export, book the FCL, LCL or air leg to Vancouver, Prince Rupert or Montreal, file the CARM-ready Canadian entry, pull the container off the dock, and deliver to your door anywhere in Canada. You get a single landed-cost quote and one team accountable end-to-end — not a relay where each carrier blames the last.
FCL, LCL or air — choosing the mode
The mode follows the volume and the clock. FCLis the lowest per-unit cost once you can fill a 20' or 40' container (roughly 10+ pallets) and want the fastest, most secure ocean option. LCLshares a container for smaller volumes — economical for 1–9 pallets, at the cost of consolidation and deconsolidation time. Airis the premium tier for urgent, seasonal or high-value cargo, cutting door-to-door time to about 8–12 days. The estimator below shows transit and cost basis for your specific lane.
CARM, duties and landed cost
The single most common reason a China–Canada import gets stuck is customs paperwork. Under CARM, the importer of record must be registered in the CBSA portal and post financial security before goods can be released. On top of that, every shipment owes duty based on its HS tariff classification plus 5% GST on the duty-paid value. We handle CARM onboarding, classify your goods, estimate the landed cost before the cargo sails, and file the entry — so your container clears on arrival instead of accruing storage while documents catch up.
