The logistics line I ship my store’s orders on keeps a list of what it won’t carry, country by country. Next to Canada it says:
Canada: wooden products, food, health supplements and plant items are prohibited. Any customs charges incurred are billed to the sender at cost.
If you sell anything made of wood, that line reads like a closed door. It isn’t quite one. But it isn’t an open door either, and the gap between the two is where people lose parcels.
What the carrier told me when I asked
I asked their customer service directly. The answer: if the item is a handicraft, free of insects and eggs, and especially if it is already painted, it can go. Declare it as a handicraft, not as wood.
That is a practical answer from people who clear these parcels every day. It is not the rulebook. So I read the rulebook.
Why Canada is strict about this
The emerald ash borer, a beetle native to Asia, was first found around Detroit and Windsor in 2002 and is thought to have arrived in wood packaging from Asia. Where it establishes, it can kill up to 99% of ash trees within eight to ten years. Canadian wood import rules are written by people who have spent twenty years dealing with that.
What the rule actually says
The CFIA directive on wood products, D-02-12 (7th revision, in effect since 31 August 2017, last modified 8 May 2024), does not ban wood. It sorts it, and it applies the same way to every origin outside the continental US. China gets no special treatment in either direction.
Roughly three buckets:
Exempt, processed. Wood that has been through heat, glue and/or pressure to the point it can’t reasonably carry pests. Plywood, veneer, particle board, pressed wood-flour composites.
Exempt, handicrafts. Dried, bark-free handicrafts where every wooden component is 1.5 cm thick or less. Also completely finished handicrafts made entirely from processed wood.
Every exempt item still has to be free of living pests, signs of living pests, soil and debris.
Not exempt. Handicrafts and decorative products with solid, unprocessed wood thicker than 1.5 cm. On paper, these need a phytosanitary certificate from the exporting country stating the treatment, and the standard is heat: 56°C throughout the wood, core included, for at least 30 minutes. A fumigation certificate in place of treatment details on the phyto is not accepted.
Paint, varnish and lacquer are not mentioned. A painted carving is not a different category from an unpainted one. My guess is that carriers bring paint up because a sealed, finished surface is what makes an inspector read “handicraft” and not “raw wood”. That is an inference. The directive doesn’t say it.
Why the carrier says no in the first place
This part is my reading, not something the carrier told me.
Canada’s courier low-value shipment stream is the fast, simplified path that consolidated e-commerce parcels use. The CBSA memorandum governing it (D19-1-1) says plainly: “CFIA-regulated commodities are not eligible for import in the Courier Low Value Shipment (LVS) stream.” Food, supplements, plant and wood products are exactly the categories other departments regulate.
Now look at the carrier’s list again: wood, food, supplements, plants. It matches. My read is that the line isn’t singling out wood as dangerous. It’s saying these categories don’t fit the channel it clears through, and a blanket “no” is cheaper than checking every carving’s thickness. Customer service saying yes to clean, finished handicrafts is them knowing which exempt goods actually get through.
If this matters to your volume, ask your forwarder one question: which clearance stream does this Canada line use?
What to do with your own SKUs
- Sort every wooden SKU into the three buckets above. You need two facts per product: is it solid or processed, and how thick is its thickest wooden part. If your supplier listing doesn’t say, ask them, then measure a sample.
- Processed wood and thin, bark-free handicrafts: ship, declared as what they are. For my store that’s a pressed wood-flour dog chew, which is processed by definition.
- Solid carvings over 1.5 cm: decide with your eyes open. The carrier’s practical answer says yes. The directive says a phyto certificate. If you ship without one, you’re relying on the parcel being judged as a finished, clean handicraft, and the carrier’s terms put any customs cost on you.
- Describe it like a customs officer is reading it, because one is. “Hand-carved painted basswood figurine” says what the object is. “Wood” or “gift” invites a hold. Put the HS code on the line yourself (4420 covers wooden statuettes and ornaments); don’t leave it for someone downstream to guess.
- Clean means clean. No bark, no soil, no dust or packing straw that looks like plant matter. Under the same CBSA memo, soil-contaminated goods are ordered removed from Canada, and the importer or whoever holds the goods pays for removal, treatment, storage or disposal.
- Check what else is on the item. A wooden toy with feathers, natural bristles or dried grass has picked up a second rulebook. Treat it separately.
What I don’t know
I don’t know how often small parcels of solid carvings actually get stopped. Nobody publishes that, and anyone quoting you a rate is guessing. I also haven’t tested the carrier’s answer at volume yet. When I have real outcomes, I’ll add them here.
I’m Gobby Yan. I have been producing commercials in Shanghai since 2007. I now run a cross-border store from China, plus do this work for other independent DTC brands — sourcing, samples, product photography, packaging and customs. If a product of yours is stuck at a border, I’m happy to look at it.