Warning to US comics selling CD's in Canada

by Brian McKim & Traci Skene on November 12th, 2009

We heard from a comedian who missed his gig because of a holdup at customs when they discovered that the was carrying a number of CD’s for sale after his shows.

If you’re an American comic who intends on selling CD’s in Canada, you must first obtain an importer number. For a fee, there are brokers at the border, but apparently, it takes a while. Allegedly, you can do all this ahead of time, so things will go smoothly at customs.

So… if you’re a comedian (a non-Canadian comedian) crossing the border into Canada, and you want to sell CD’s at your gig, you should investigate what paperwork you might need and what fee you might be obligated to pay. We’re told that “importers” are assessed a percentage of the value of the product.

We’re also told that importers can opt to “hide” the product, but that is the kind of thing that angers customs agents and leads to confiscation or fines or worse.

We suppose that an importer could also claim that the CD’s are “for promotion only” and therefore have no value. (Again, though, this is the kind of thing that leads to confiscation or fines if the importer is found to be less than truthful.)

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