Canada-US-Mexico Trade Agreement

Canada-US-Mexico Trade Agreement (CUSMA) has replaced NAFTA (North American Free Trade Agreement) on 1 July 2020.

The new Agreement has several names:

CUSMA has specific rules of origin that apply to each good, which are not always the same rules that applied under NAFTA. In addition, CUSMA replaced the NAFTA Certificate of Origin with a CUSMA certification of origin. Therefore, for shipments entered into commerce on or after 1 July 2020, an importer should ensure that it has confirmed that its goods meet the relevant CUSMA rules of origin and that it has a sufficient CUSMA certification of origin in its possession, as well as all required back-up documentation to support preferential treatment claims. The CUSMA certification of origin may be completed by the importer, exporter, or producer of the goods, and may be in any form/format as long as it contains 9 minimum data elements, as outlined below:

Prior to completing the certification, you must ensure that your goods qualify for preferential treatment under the applicable CUSMA rules of origin. Commodity-specific rules of origin may be found in the text of the agreement, here:

UPS has created a sample of what can be used as a CUSMA certification of origin (i.e., the CUSMA certification of origin form) that contains fields for the above-named data elements, and is available here.

This certification should be completed for each shipment and included with your other shipping documents. A printed copy of the new form may be attached to the shipment or attached electronically using the ‘Upload My Forms’ feature for ups.com shipping or through WorldShip.

Alternatively, you may complete a blanket certification, which will cover all shipments of goods that you confirm qualify for preferential treatment under the CUSMA rules of origin up to 1 year. If you opt to utilize a blanket certification, please follow these instructions to ensure that your brokerage representative receives it:

For goods under a certain low value threshold (subject to certain exemptions), a certification of origin with the nine data elements is not required; however, a written representation certifying that the good(s) qualifies as an CUSMA originating good(s) (such as ‘I hereby certify that the good covered by this shipment qualifies as an originating good for the purposes of preferential tariff treatment under the CUSMA’) must still be provided and it is still your responsibility to confirm that the relevant goods qualify for CUSMA preferential treatment under the CUSMA rules of origin (and maintain all necessary back-up origin verification documentation). Low value thresholds for each country are:

Please note that if the relevant government agency of the importing CUSMA party (e.g., Canada Border Services Agency for Canada) determines that an importation under one of these thresholds is part of a series of importations carried out or planned for purposes of evading compliance with preference requirements, the importer may be required to submit a certification of origin.

Note:

UPS provides customers with this general information in an effort to help them better understand CUSMA. This information, however, including the CUSMA certification of origin form and any other CUSMA information, is for informational purposes only. Neither the certification of origin nor the CUSMA information constitutes legal advice. In addition, you, the customer, agree that it is your responsibility to confirm – and that you have confirmed – that all merchandise for which you claim CUSMA preferential treatment and/or that you identify on the CUSMA certification of origin form meets all of the applicable CUSMA rules of origin for that merchandise (e.g., tariff shift, regional value content, steel and aluminium content, labour value content, etc.) and any other applicable CUSMA requirement.